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Release Date: April 8th, 2014 Movie Release Year: 2013

Best Night Ever

Overview -

Four friends set off to Las Vegas for a one-night bachelorette party that turns out to be a lot more. Getting kicked out of a strip club, being mugged, and more craziness, places them smack dab in Vegas' seedy underbelly. The girls band together and embark on the wildest, out-of-control, blow-out night in bachelorette party history; destined to go down as the Best Night Ever.

OVERALL:
Skip It
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:
82
Aspect Ratio(s):
1.78:1
Audio Formats:
English: DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1
Subtitles/Captions:
English, French, Spanish
Special Features:
Trailer
Release Date:
April 8th, 2014

Storyline: Our Reviewer's Take

Ranking:

You may or may not be familiar with the names Jason Friedberg and Aaron Seltzer. If you aren't familiar with those guys, I'll go ahead and fill you in as you roll your eyes in the back of your head and vomit inside your mouth a little bit. Friedberg and Seltzer are the writing and directing team behind some of the worst movies ever made. Oddly enough, their terrible films tend to make a heck of a lot of money at the box office. In fact, their film resume has garnered over $1 billion with a "b" over the years. If you haven't seen their films, I'm sure you've at least heard of them.

At first, this filmmaking duo wrote 'Spy Hard' and 'Scary Movie'. From then on, they failed upwards miserably in Hollywood as Kevin Smith likes to say, meaning they kept turning out awful excuses for movies, but continued to get constant work and kept on making money. Other films they made include everything with the word "movie" in the title such as 'Epic Movie', 'Date Movie', 'Disaster Movie'.You get the idea. Needless to say, these two guys have made a killing making parodies of other films. I'm not saying that's bad, I'm just saying their attempts at this have not been very good. They might be the worst filmmakers of all time. They make Uwe Boll look like Stanley Kubrick. And I don't say that lightly.

But Friedberg and Seltzer decided to take a short break from the parody formula and make an actual original film for once called 'Best Night Ever'. I'm sure if you watch this one night in the future, it will not be your best night ever. The duo decided to jump on the "found footage" wagon and made a clueless and vulgar rip off of 'The Hangover', but with women. I'm sure the two filmmakers thought they had another 'Bridesmaids' on their hands or at least some remnants of 'The Hangover' trilogy, and tried to capitalize anyway they could on this sub-genre. But man, what a failed attempt. I'll give them credit for going all the way with a hardcore 'R' rating since none of their previous films have gotten that strong of a rating before.

'Best Night Ever' comes with lots of drinking, full frontal male and female nudity, tons of foul language, and every secretion that the human body can produce in one night. The film is shot in a video diary format as Zoe is the best friend of the bride-to-be Claire. Zoe wants to film this epic night as a keepsake for he bachelorette party to look back on as they grow old. The bachelorette party consists of Claire, Zoe, Claire's older married sister Leslie, and a new friend to their inner circle, Janet. The party is being held in Vegas where they are booked at a nice penthouse suite on the strip and have front row seats to see Celine Dion perform. Sounds like a nice time, right? Wrong.

Due to some uncontrollable circumstances, the penthouse suite at the luxurious hotel is no longer available under their name and the entire hotel is full, leaving the girls with no place to stay. That's when Janet takes charge and leads the girls to a seedy hotel full of hookers, criminals, and cheap frat guys. After a phone call from Claire's fiance that insinuates that his bachelor party is much more wild than she anticipated, she decides to have an even wilder night out in Vegas, which leads to all sorts of gross out trouble including male strip clubs, being attacked by naked women, a robbery, karaoke, nude wrestling, and much more. You get the picture.

These four women have a crazy good time that almost gets them killed, drugged, drunk, and laid. And at the end, they can all laugh about it. Sure, there are some laugh out loud moments, but not many. And there are many times throughout the film where you'll shake your head in disgust at just how truly awful this movie really is as far as the dialogue, camera work, and acting go. The film was done on a very cheap budget, sometimes using real people in the casinos and their real reactions. And it was good to see the four main stars throw themselves into this raunchy terrible movie, even though none of them get fully naked unlike their co-stars. But I applaud them for stepping up to the plate, because nobody else would. But 'Best Night Ever' is a night that you shouldn't partake in.  

Video Review

Ranking:

'Best Night Ever' comes with a surprisingly good 1080p HD transfer presented in an aspect ratio of 1.78:1. Usually in these "found footage" movies, the image itself is very grainy, with tons of dirt, debris, and other specks to give it that "found" and raw look. However with this movie, the picture is made to look like it was all shot on someone's iPhone, which of course takes crystal clear HD video. So the editors and filmmakers had to go in and edit all of the footage with the high end home video cameras and make it look like it was shot from one device.

Luckily for us, the real Las Vegas settings are all well lit, which gave a great detailed picture that was vivid and sharp, with the exception of the lower lit scenes using night vision or if the actor's were running and falling with the cameras in their hand. The colors have all been brightened to give that shining and glamorous look of Las Vegas as well. The black levels are not as deep and inky as I'd like to see though, btu the skin tones are natural throughout. For this being a "found footage" film, this is the clearest, and nicest looking one of the bunch. 

Audio Review

Ranking:

This release comes with a lossless DTS-HD 5.1 audio mix, but never lives up to he promise of a raunchy action comedy in Las Vegas. Despite being in 5.1, the sound is very front heavy, with sound rarely coming out the rear speakers. The dialogue is always clear and easy to understand, even amongst all the yelling and club music.

When the soundtrack kicks in, the sound becomes more lively, but never crosses that threshold that full immerses you in a casino or club. Sure there is some bass, but it's nothing to write home about. And the sound effects come in nicely, but definitely sound artificial. This audio track isn't my favorite, but it's passable.

Special Features

Ranking:

Deleted Scenes (HD, 8 mins.) - A few scenes that were left on the cutting room floor, or alternate takes rather than deleted full scenes. Some of these alternate takes would have changed the film drastically. 


Interviews (HD, 9 mins.) - Three interviews with three of the main women in the film. They discuss briefly making the movie and some funny stories. 


AXS TV: A Look at 'Best Night Ever' (HD, 3 mins.) - Your standard promo puff piece with interviews from the extras above and clips from the movie. 


Theatrical Trailer (HD, 2 mins.) - The trailer for the film.  

There is nothing new to 'Best Night Ever' with the exception that it is made by two filmmakers whose film resume is laughable at best. You've seen every joke and cliche many other times in better films. That being said, there were some moments during the movie that made me laugh out loud, even if it was only a few times. I'm just glad that Friedberg and Seltzer did something original for a change and went all out for it. Sure, it wasn't a good movie, but at least they tried to put something out there. The video and audio are surprisingly strong for a "found footage" movie and the extras are all sub par. If you're that curious to see a bad movie by the guys who brought you 'Meet The Spartans', then rent it if you dare. For all others, feel free to skip this one all together.