Ghost Blu-ray Review

Ghost

Blu-ray Review
Paramount Home Entertainment
Released: December 30, 2008

Ghost, the highly-popular romantic film starring Patrick Swayze, Demi Moore, and Whoopi Goldberg, is finally ready to launch on the Blu-ray format thanks to Paramount Home Entertainment.

Ghost has been praised time and time again as an absolutely tremendous romantic film, and it is about to receive more praise from me as well.

To sum up the plot for those who have not seen it, the film opens up with Patrick Swayze in the role of Sam, who has a great life with a nice job, and a loving girlfriend named Molly (Demi Moore).

Things take a turn for the worse though when Sam is killed after looking into a possible business hoax.  Sam is not about to just go away though, as he does not want to go away, and seeks the help of Oda (Whoopi Goldberg) to try and talk to Molly once again, and figure out who killed him, and why.

The stars here are phenomenal as the chemistry between Demi Moore and Patrick Swayze heats up the screen even today, as the two do a great job of making you believe in their characters, and really fall for them.

The video quality for this Blu-ray release is very well-done as it is presented in 1.85:1 aspect ratio and is definitely a step up from what we saw on the re-mastered DVD release not too long ago.

Considering the age of the film, it has clearly been cleaned up quite a bit as the colors are still a bit soft, but much better than in past releases, as are the black levels.  For its age, this is a good-looking transfer.

The audio has been presented in Dolby TrueHD 5.1 and consistent with other releases of older films on Blu-ray, is a bit too front-heavy for my liking.  The dialogue is very clear throughout though, I just wanted more of an atmosphere from it.

As for the extras, we are presented with some decent stuff here, but nothing original to the Blu-ray format.

We start off with an audio commentary from director Jerry Zucker and screenwriter Bruce Joel Rubin, and then move on from there to the featurettes.  The audio commentary is still a lot of fun to listen to even if you have heard it before.

The featurettes include a variety of the film’s various points including a 12-minute making-of documentary, along with another 5-minute feature focusing on the now-famous love scene from the film.

The next features include a 10-minute piece named Inside the Paranormal, as well as a 100 Years … 100 Passions.  Both of these are pretty forgettable.

The extras are rounded out with the trailer, presented in HD, along with a still photo gallery.

Ghost is a classic, and anyone who wants to own one of the most memorable romantic films in decades should surely go add this to their Blu-ray collection.  As for me, I just wish we had a little more in terms of exclusive extras for the high-def release.

Film: 8.9 Ghost is a classic, and will give you goosebumps watching it again on Blu-ray.

Video: 8.5 Considering the age of the film, the transfer is well-done.

Audio: 8.0 A bit too front-heavy.

Extras: 7.5 Nothing exclusive to Blu-ray, but a decent set of extras.

Final Score: 8.6

Do you have a product that you would like featured on dBTechno? If so, drop us a line at vicb@dbtechno.com

• Pin It
• Share
• Tweet