Holy Flying Circus appears in an aspect ratio of approximately 2.00:1 on this Blu-Ray Disc. This was a mediocre presentation.
Sharpness was a frequent issue. Close-ups tended to look fine, but anything wider tended to seem somewhat soft and ill-defined. Those instances weren’t extreme, but I saw nothing close to Blu-ray resolution here. Some light jagged edges and shimmering popped up, but I witnessed no edge haloes or print flaws.
Colors were drab. Some of that likely stemmed from production design, and the image occasionally boasted brighter tones, but most of the time, the hues tended to seem moderately flat. Blacks were also a bit thin, while shadows could appear a bit on the dense side. This remained a perfectly watchable image, but as a Blu-ray for a modern movie, it didn’t deserve a grade above “C-“.
I also found little to impress via the film’s PCM stereo soundtrack. The soundfield tended to be restrained. The movie offered decent stereo music and occasional effects from the sides, but this was usually a pretty monaural mix. Granted, Circus didn’t need a wild soundscape, but I still thought the presentation was lackluster.
Audio quality was decent. Speech occasionally sounded a little reedy and edgy, but the lines were consistently intelligible and showed acceptable clarity. Music had fair pep and bounce, while effects were reasonably accurate; the mix never pushed them but they seemed fine. This was a completely average track.
We find a handful of extras here. The Making of the Holy Flying Circus Phonotrope lasts four minutes, 32 seconds and lets us view the creation of the animation that appears in the opening credits. We get no comments, as the behind the scenes footage speaks for itself. This becomes a decent little program but not anything memorable.
Three Deleted Scenes come next. We get “Michael Palin’s Diary” (1:34), “The Two Yorkshiremen” (1:08) and “Dick and Balls Get Worked Up” (1:20). These all provide minor, forgettable additions and lack any great substance.
A collection of Outtakes runs a total of 19 minutes, 23 seconds. This gives us little more than a really long blooper reel. A few alternate takes appear, but most of the time we just find goofs and giggles.
We finish with a batch of Production Stills. This collection offers 30 shots and mixes publicity photos and images from the set. It’s a decent bunch of pictures.
The disc opens with ads for Going Postal and a variety of other Acorn products. No trailer for Circus appears.
A second disc offers a DVD Copy of Circus. This delivers a retail product with all the same extras as the Blu-ray.
While Holy Flying Circus examines an interesting subject, it tries so hard to be funny and clever that it loses its focus. The comedy doesn’t work and the narrative rambles too much for the film to keep us with it. The Blu-ray delivers mediocre picture and audio along with a few minor supplements. Only the biggest Monty Python fans will want to bother with this misfire.