Blu-ray News and Reviews | High Def Digest
Film & TV All News Blu-Ray Reviews Release Dates News Pre-orders 4K Ultra HD Reviews Release Dates News Pre-orders Gear Reviews News Home Theater 101 Best Gear Film & TV
Blu-Ray : One to Avoid
Ranking:
Sale Price: $12.99 Last Price: $ Buy now! 3rd Party 8.99 In Stock
Release Date: July 3rd, 2012 Movie Release Year: 2012

Mac & Devin Go to High School

Overview -

Valedictorian hopeful Devin Overstreet (Wiz Khalifa) struggles to pen his graduation speech when it becomes clear that all his academic overachievements left him with little to no life experiences. He finds an unlikely inspiration in Mac Johnson (Snoop Dogg), the least achieving student on campus. Mac – a 15-year senior and consummate ladies man – is smitten by the school's new substitute chemistry teacher. He soon realizes that the only way he'll truly have a chance with her is if he finally graduates high school. In 3 weeks time, Mac must cram four years of high school academics, and Devin must cram four years of teenage experience.

OVERALL:
One to Avoid
Rating Breakdown
STORY
VIDEO
AUDIO
SPECIAL FEATURES
Tech Specs & Release Details
Technical Specs:
25GB Blu-ray Disc
Video Resolution/Codec:
1080p/MPEG-4 AVC
Length:
75
Aspect Ratio(s):
1.78:1
Audio Formats:
Dolby TrueHD 5.1
Subtitles/Captions:
None
Special Features:
Audio Commentary
Release Date:
July 3rd, 2012

Storyline: Our Reviewer's Take

Ranking:

Since this movie is set in high school, here's a quick math lesson. Snoop Dogg was born in 1971, which makes him 41 years old. 'Mac & Devin go to High School' purports that Mac (Dogg) is still in high school. He has a letterman jacket with the years from 2001 through 2010 listed down the sleeve with each year crossed off. Assuming Mac in all his underachieving glory has been in high school 10 years that still leaves Snoop Dogg at 31 (looking more like 61 with all the hard living he's been doing). We're supposed to believe that this guy is in high school? He doesn't just lurk around the high school, but he actively participates and goes to classes. In other words, this is the dumbest movie I have ever seen.

Mac is the resident drug dealer. He sells pot to every teenager in school (and no one really thinks it's strange that an AARP member is selling pot to high school students while being a student himself). So there is plenty of 41 year-old Snoop Dogg walking around high school hallways checking out 17 year-old girls. If I didn't know any better I would've thought I stumbled into 'To Catch a Predator: Celebrity Edition.'

Devin is the school's smartest student, but his friendship with Mac soon derails him. He starts smoking pot, gets a full body tattoo, and basically changes into whatever Snoop Dogg was like when he was really high school age. Essentially what the movie is saying is, it's better to be a loser pothead than a person with an actual, you know, future.

Any movie that starts off with a computer-generated joint that looks like it was animated by a first-year graphic design student in twenty minutes, is a movie that you should probably avoid. This movie reeks of smoke-filled writing sessions where baked writers tossed around ideas like they were, well, high. "Man, what if we had a scene where Dogg hits on an underage girl and makes her smoke a blunt that's like two feet long. But it's all happening in the assistant principal's office and the PA speaker is accidentally turned on. But the conversation they're having about the blunt makes them sound like they're about to have sex. Yeah, that'd be the funniest shit I've ever seen!"

I could go on and on about how idiotic this movie is. How it doesn't even set out to do what it wants to do. It can't even get stoner comedy right and, really, that should be one of the easiest comedic genres out there.

The fact that this somehow got made into a movie is infuriating. The idea that this movie is actually taking up physical space on hundreds of thousands of Blu-ray Discs is enraging.

I don't understand who would buy this movie. I don't understand who would waste their time with it. There's comedy to be had with stoners, watch 'Half Bake' for a good example. This movie is simply a waste of space, devoid of any funny moment. Instead you're treated to a nearly geriatric Snoop Dogg walking around high school halls gawking at underage woman, all of whom exist in the fanciful mini-skirt/push-up bra fantasy world that he apparently inhabits. There's no need to do drugs. Just watch this movie and your brain will be fried after its 75 minutes of pure moronic idiocy.

The Blu-ray: Vital Disc Stats

This is an Anchor Bay release and it comes to Blu-ray on a 25GB disc. It comes in a standard Blu-ray keepcase. It's a Region A release.

Video Review

Ranking:

Like so many ho-hum straight-to-video Blu-rays before it, 'Mac & Devin go to High School' pulls off the "it's brand-new, but appears old" look. Even in 1080p high definition, 'High School' packs little in the way of true, honest detail. Most of the time it looks like a hazy made-for-TV movie from the early 90s (and Snoop was too old for the part THEN too!).

Colors are consistently washed out and contrast is flat. Blacks and shadows lack dimension. The movie's CG graphics are an abomination, made all the more painful when you're watching them pixelate and break apart in HD. Grain comes and goes from scene to scene without ever resembling consistency. Most of the shots, even close-ups, feature soft, gauzy imagery. Facial details are soft and never approach "fine detail" status. Banding and aliasing are also visible during numerous scenes. In other words the look of the movie is almost as ugly as the movie itself. Almost.

Audio Review

Ranking:

The TrueHD 5.1 mix pretty much sucks as well. Dialogue is mixed far too low to do anyone any good. Especially because Snoop Dogg, thinking he's the coolest person to ever walk the earth, must whisper every line he speaks causing most of what he says to be unintelligible. It's not like what he says matters, but you can't hear him say it anyway. Contrast that to the shrieking voice of the CG joint mentioned earlier. Whenever it cuts to another one of his inane diatribes suddenly the dialogue has been cranked up passed acceptable levels and it's gone completely in the other direction. Either you're being yelled at incessantly by a burned out roach or you're being mumbled to by Snoop Dogg. Either way it sucks to listen to.

Special Features

Ranking:
  • Audio Commentary – Director Dylan Brown is joined by the movie's two stars Snoop Dogg and Wiz Khalifa. Full disclosure: I didn't listen to the commentary all the way through. The thought of revisiting this movie again made me throw up in my mouth.

It's not funny. It's not anything. It's a movie that, at the very outset, explains that you must get high before watching this movie. You know you're in trouble if the movie you're watching asks you to be inebriated enough that you forget you're actually watching a movie in the first place.