Game Night is a 2018 American black comedy film that was directed by John Francis Daley and Jonathan Goldstein. It stars Jason Bateman and Rachel McAdams, and follows a group of friends whose game night turns into a real-life mystery. The film’s supporting cast includes Billy Magnussen, Sharon Horgan, Lamorne Morris, Kylie Bunbury, Jesse Plemons, Michael C. Hall and Kyle Chandler.

The film centers around competitive gamers Max and Annie as they meet during trivia night at a bar, quickly to fall in love, and get married. During Max and Annie’s routine weekend game night with their friends Ryan, and married couple Kevin and Michelle, his brother Brooks arrives and immediately shows up Max by arriving in a Corvette Stingray and sharing an embarrassing childhood story during charades.  Kicking off a new, more exciting version of game night where the ultimate prize is up for grabs, the red Corvette Stingray that is seen when he initially arrives to the groups game night.  An actor, playing the role of an FBI agent informs them of the narrative of the mystery, only for two masked men to make their way into the house and force things to go haywire from there.

Warner Bros. Pictures released the film on February 23, 2018. It has grossed $116 million worldwide and received generally positive reviews from film critics, praising the dark humor and the cast’s performances.

The Film Itself (5/5):

I was pleasantly surprised with Game Night.  As my wife and I sat down to watch this movie, we had some pretty high expectations with the comedic performances considering that’s what the primary focus was in the promotional material.  Instead, we were given a film that not only offers more than its fair share of laughs; but, gives audiences an experience that’s loaded to the brim with unexpected twists that neither of us saw coming, and overall really enjoyed it.  From the humor to the overall level of seriousness of the events that were happening, we thoroughly enjoyed this movie and the experience that it provided.

Picture Quality (5/5):

The Blu-ray release of Game Night offers a clean, realistic look into the lives of the titular characters, Max and Annie.  Not only as they continue to enjoy their competitive game nights as they take them way too seriously, but it offers a genuine view into their lives as a married couple.  As things continue to progressively get worse and worse for the group of friends, I felt that the execution of those events and the use of added effects helped to make them feel much more realistic and allowed them to blend in very well with the scenes.  Unfortunately, there really weren’t any moments that stood out with this release as everything looked as I had expected, the scenes that had your lower than normal lighting levels had enough ambient lighting to ensure that whatever was happening could be visually seen and understood without the need for added focus.

Audio Quality (4/5):

Game Night comes bundled with an English DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1 track, that does everything that it can to offer a powerful, yet immersive experience for its viewers.  While everything from the dialogue to the environmental elements to the audio track came through very powerful and clean, I personally think that this film would have done much better had it been packaged with a 7.1 audio track and made use of the surround channels.  With that added level of immersion for the audience, it would have really felt as if we were sitting right there as the group went through everything.  But, with the track that was provided, like I had mentioned, it was clean and clear and everything was able to be heard and understood without having the manually adjust the volume levels as the movie played onward.  The transition in between the channels were extremely noteworthy with this release, as the camera would pan to various members of the cast, it did do a really great job of acknowledging the location of the noise in relation to the camera position and acted accordingly, and I can certainly appreciate that.

The Packaging (3/5):

The Blu-ray release of Game Night comes packaged in your standard two-disc Blu-ray amaray case.  Within that case is the standard Blu-ray copy of the film as well as the standard DVD copy of the film; both discs featuring a different piece of artwork between the two and is completely different from that of the case art.  A digital copy redemption pamphlet has also been included for the various streaming options that are out there as well as a slipcover that’s been made available during the original pressing that features the same piece of artwork that’s provided on the case art.

  

Special Features (3/5):

There are only a couple of special features that have been included on the Blu-ray release of Game Night.  The content that has been provided, while it shows some of the behind the scenes work that went into making this film as well as some of the fun that was shared among the cast and crew, there isn’t anything that offers any kind of expanded look into the storyline at hand.  There isn’t any kind of feature audio commentary included; but the content that was provided was nice enough to offer an appreciation for what went into this movie.  Included with this release is:

• An Unforgettable Evening: Making Game Night
• Gag Reel

Technical Specs:

Video

Codec: MPEG-4 AVC

Resolution: 1080p

Aspect Ratio: 2.40:1

Original Aspect Ratio: 2.39:1

Audio

English: DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1 (48 kHz, 24-bit)

French (Canada): Dolby Digital 5.1

Spanish: Dolby Digital 5.1 (640 kbps)

English: Dolby Digital 5.1 (640 kbps)

Subtitles

English SDH, French, Spanish

Runtime

Original Film: 100 minutes

Final Thoughts:

I was really happy that we were given the opportunity to sit down and experience Game Night.  Not only does it offer a completely fun filled adventure for its viewers, but an experience that leaves you questioning things up until the very end.  Almost like a very elaborate game of Clue, this movie offers a really great time that should be had by anyone who’s interested.  The visual and audio experience that the Blu-ray provided was right on par with what you would expect from a standard release.  Special Features include an experience that allows you to really see and join in on the fun that the cast and crew shared in making this movie.  If you’re on the fence about grabbing this movie for your collection, I would hands down recommend grabbing it.  Game Night is available on Blu-ray and DVD today!

Note: This Blu-ray was sent to us for review. This has not affected our judgement or editorial process in any way. Please contact us if you have any questions regarding this process.