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Blu-Ray : Highly Recommended
Ranking:
Release Date: February 18th, 2020 Movie Release Year: 2019

Jojo Rabbit

Overview -

A young boy living in the waning days of WWII learns the true power of love by befriending a young Jewish girl living in his attic - against the wishes of his imaginary best friend, Hitler. Taika Waititi's charming, daffy, and wonderfully heartwarming and even heartbreaking satire Jojo Rabbit is practically a crash course in how to deal with hate in a culture. 20th Century Fox delivers Jojo Rabbit to Blu-ray with a solid A/V presentation and skimpy but decent quality bonus features. Highly Recommended

Check out our 4K Ultra HD Blu-ray Review

It is the latter part of World War II, and all Jojo Betzler (Roman Griffin Davis) wants is to become a Nazi. He turns to his 10-year-old imagination and begins to befriend a wackier version of Nazi Germany’s ruler, Adolf Hitler. One day, he finds out that his mother, Rosie (Scarlett Johansson), is housing a Jewish girl named Elsa (Thomasin McKenzie). Despite going directly against his young beliefs, he has no choice but to keep quiet for his and his family’s safety. Soon, he and his imaginary friend begin to see the world differently. Written and directed by Taika Waititi.~Jinko Labitag

OVERALL:
Highly Recommended
Rating Breakdown
STORY
VIDEO
AUDIO
SPECIAL FEATURES
Tech Specs & Release Details
Technical Specs:
Blu-ray + Digital
Video Resolution/Codec:
1080p AVC/MPEG-4
Length:
108
Aspect Ratio(s):
1.85:1
Audio Formats:
English: Descriptive Audio 5.1
Subtitles/Captions:
English SDH, French, Spanish
Release Date:
February 18th, 2020

Storyline: Our Reviewer's Take

Ranking:

Check out our 4K Ultra HD Blu-ray Review

Vital Disc Stats: The Blu-ray

Jojo Rabbit runs onto Blu-ray from 20th Century Fox / Disney in a two-disc Blu-ray + DVD set with Digital HD. The discs are housed in an eco-friendly standard two-disc case with identical cardboard slipcover. The disc loads to trailers for other Fox releases before arriving at an animated main menu with traditional navigation options. 

Video Review

Ranking:

Jojo Rabbit makes its way to Blu-ray with a pleasing 1080p transfer that offers crisp details and bold colors. The film was shot with some intentional softness but some strong details do manage to make their way to the front of the pack. Clothing and faces in middle and close shots look pretty darn good here. The film maintains a predominantly yellow/brown hue throughout giving the image a warm and inviting feeling. Primaries still have plenty of pop and presence with greens becoming extra luminous. Black levels are all-around strong giving to some nice deep inky presence. There were a few sequences I saw here that felt more blue-gray than true black than what I saw on the 4K UHD disc. If you haven't made your way to 4K UHD, this is a perfectly great transfer. 

Audio Review

Ranking:

This is the same audio track found on the 4K Ultra HD Blu-ray 

Jojo Rabbit makes the most of its DTS-HD MA 5.1 mix. Here's a case where even Atmos may not have helped much. I noticed that during my couple theatrical viewings that there really wasn't much of a "surround" effect. Most of the film was very front/center with occasional drips of side/rear work and that experience is largely replicated here. While there may not be a lot of action-packed surround material, there is terrific object spacing. The sound effects, music, dialogue all work to give the soundscape some appreciable imaging. Moments in the camp, scenes where Jojo investigates sounds in the attic, the final war sequence does open up the surround range, but even then they're not intended to be overly dramatic. So strictly from a surround sound experience, maybe this one's lacking some punch, but it's still very good. Dialog is clean and clear throughout and levels are spot on. 

Special Features

Ranking:

Bonus features for Jojo Rabbit are a slight tad bit on the thin side. The Taika Waititi audio commentary is great - listening to it as I write this review in fact - and he's got great energy that he brings to the discussion about the making of the film. The deleted scenes are pretty good but you can see why they got cut. Outtakes are outtakes and are some decent cutups. The making of is better than your average talking head EPK is welcome. 

1080p Blu-ray

  • Audio Commentary - Featuring Taika Waititi 
  • Inside Jojo Rabbit (HD 29:46)
  • Deleted Scenes (HD 8:57)
  • Outtakes (HD 3:26)

Final Thoughts

Jojo Rabbit takes aim at hate spreading love. Through pitch-perfect satire, brilliant comedy, a tender coming of age story emerges. The world can be a horrible place, but it doesn't have to be. Taika Waititi delivers one hell of a great film that makes you feel everything from pure happiness and joy to tender sadness and sorrow while reminding you there's a lot to life and you never really stop growing up. 20th Century Fox / Disney delivers a first-rate Blu-ray presentation that provides a splendid image transfer, a solid audio mix, and a decent assortment of bonus features. Highly Recommended.