Blu-ray Movie Reviews

To call insurance agent Tim Lippe, "naive" is a gross understatement. He's never left his small hometown. He's never stayed at a hotel. And he's never experienced anything like Cedar Rapids, Iowa. Sent to represent his company at the annual insurance convention, Tim is soon distracted by three convention veterans who will show him the ropes and push his boundaries. For a guy who plays everything by the book, this convention will be anything but conventional.

Cedar Rapids looks great on Blu-ray with a bright image that has great contrast, color punch and detail. Fine object detail is especially good with close ups revealing lots of texture. Depth and dimension are what you’d expect from a newly minted film and even darker scenes provide a satisfying amount of shadow detail and dimensionality. The soundtrack is pretty typical of this genre. Dialogue is front and center for the entire feature and timbre is dead on. The surrounds liven things up on occasion but mostly add to the natural ambiance with subtle cues. The film’s song selections do open up the main soundstage a bit on occasion, but this isn’t a very aggressive track.

Extras are mostly promo in nature but do have some humor. There are interviews with the cast and crew and behind the scenes snippets from key sequences throughout the film. You also get a gag reel, feature commentary and a digital copy of the film for your portable devices.

Cedar Rapids provides plenty of great laughs but the characters can be a bit overly cliqued. I guess that is the way comedy has been moving though lately. Ed Helms sells it though and the supporting cast is great. Fans of the genre should definitely give this one a look.