The Banana Splits Movie appears in an aspect ratio of 1.78:1 on this Blu-ray Disc. This became a good but unmemorable presentation.
Overall sharpness felt fine, though some mildly soft spots materialized. These didn’t dominate, but the image could seem a bit on the soft side at times.
No signs of jagged edges or moiré effects appeared, and I saw no edge haloes. Print flaws also remained absent.
In terms of palette, the film opted for an orange/amber feel much of the time, with some teal as well. The colors looked decent but they lacked much vivacity.
Blacks seemed a bit inky, while shadows could come across as a little dense. Nothing bad occurred here, but the image left me underwhelmed.
The movie’s DTS-HD MA 5.1 soundtrack didn’t do much to impress either. The soundfield managed to open up during action scenes, albeit in a less than fluid manner.
This meant that while the elements spread around the room with good localization, they didn’t blend together in a seamless manner. The soundscape added life to the proceedings but didn’t feel as natural as I would like.
Audio quality worked fairly well. In terms of dialogue, the lines remained acceptably natural and concise.
Music showed pretty good clarity and effects delivered decent punch. Those elements offered reasonable range and boasted fair bass response at appropriate times. Ultimately, this was a competent but unremarkable mix.
Three featurettes appear here, and Behind the Horror runs eight minutes, 21 seconds. It brings comments from director Danishka Esterhazy, Warner Bros. EVP Peter Girardi, director of photography Trevor Calverley, stunt supervisor Antony Stone, and actors Steve Lund, Dani Kind, Sara Canning, Finlay Wojtak-Hissong, Romeo Carrere, Kiroshan Naidoo, Terry Sauls, Buntu Plam, Brandon Vraagom, Kori Clarke and Richard White.
“Behind” examines the reboot and its story/tone, violence and various effects and the Splits performers. Despite its brief running time, “Behind” manages a good collection of details.
Terror on Set lasts six minutes, 25 seconds and includes notes from Esterhazy, Girardi, Kind, Canning, Carere, production designer Bobby Cardoso, and actors Lia Sachs and Celina Martin.
“Terror” looks at set design and the color palette. Though a little superficial, the show comes with some decent insights.
Finally, Breaking News fills one minutes, 59 seconds and presents a phony TV news report about the movie’s events. It’s a cute form of promotion but nothing more.
The disc opens with ads for Joker and It Chapter Two. Trailers adds promos for Batman: Hush, Critters Attack and Curse of La Llorona.
A second disc provides a DVD copy of Splits. It includes “Behind the Horror” and the trailers/previews but lacks the other two featurettes.
As a bloody update on an old children’s TV shows, The Banana Splits Movie comes with potential. Unfortunately, it can’t back up its clever premise with quality filmmaking, so it becomes a slow, tedious stab at horror. The Blu-ray brings decent picture and audio along with minor supplements. Very little about this movie succeeds.