Rumble Blu-ray review

Oct 05, 2022- Permalink

Paramount and WWE teamed up to produce Rumble, which takes place in a world where monsters and humans live side by side. Monster wrestling is, well, HUGE and each city and town is represented by a monster wrestler. When Stoker’s champion, Tentacular (Terry Crews), wins the world championship, he announces that he no longer wants to represent Stoker. The town’s stadium and revenues are in jeopardy, so a young girl named Winnie (Geraldine Viswanathan), whose late father was a star coach, searches for a monster that can save the town. She finds Steve (Will Arnett), an amateur monster wrestler with a penchant for dancing. Can she train him in time? Can he win the fight? Can they save the town? All the tropes of an underdog working to save the town are here. Other voice talent includes Stephen A. Smith, Jimmy Tatro, Tony Danza, Susan Kelechi Watson, Tony Shalhoub, Bridget Everett, Greta Lee, Ben Schwartz, Roman Reigns and Becky Lynch. Paramount Home Entertainment are releasing Rumble on Blu-ray and I had a chance to look at it.

The 1080p AVC encoded digital transfer is presented in a 2.39:1 aspect ratio. It’s an excellent picture with great detail in the CG animated environments, clothing, and animated hair and fur. The colour palette is wide-ranging from darker tones to punching primaries. Black levels are very good and while there aren’t any compression artifacts, there is some occasional banding in the image.

On the audio side of things, you have the choice of an English DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1 soundtrack as well as a French Dolby Digital 5.1 track. Subtitles are available for English, English SDH and French. The surrounds put you in the stadiums with both action and ambient effects. The low end really kicks in with giant monsters crashing around everywhere. The music is bright and lively, and the dialogue is clear, centred and well prioritized in the mix.

The Blu-ray disc also comes with a digital code and a small collection of extras that look at the characters and might even teach you how to salsa.

Rumble is a family-friendly animated sports movie that goes over very familiar territory. Children will enjoy the colourful monster wrestlers and if you accept it for what it is, you can have some fun too. While the story might be lightweight, the audio and video presentations win the fight.