The Movie
I have to respect Sex Drive for its honesty: Sex is its first name, and the title clues us in on pretty much the entire plot. A total nice-guy steals his brother's car for a Chicago-to-Knoxville road trip so he can to meet up with a hot chick he met on the internet, bringing along his wacky bud and female best friend... who might be something more? Yeah, it's a little predictable, but like every good comedy, it's how we get from Point A to Point B that makes all the difference.
The entire cast hits all the right notes--a special shout-out to Seth Green as the world's most sarcastic Amish dude--in a world so gleefully, utterly unrepentant in its crassness, my face ached from the 109-minute smile. This disc also includes a separate 130-minute "Unrated and Cream-Filled" version for the fans, capped by an hysterical filmmaker intro that actually warns us away until after we've seen the R-rated theatrical cut. That's sound advice: The digitally-added nudies are intentionally gratuitous, but it's really a bit of everything thrown back in, most of it amusingly offensive.
The Picture
The image here is ever-so-slightly soft, more so in darker scenes, where a faint buzzy artifacting can take hold and backgrounds can wash out. A long aerial shot of a cornfield is also noticeably twitchy, but instances like this are rare. The level of film grain can vary but is almost ever-present. Blacks are respectably deep, although a shot of a man with dark hair against a night sky late in the movie reveals a mushy outline between the two. The R-rated version is presented at a 16:9 HDTV-perfect 1.78:1, while the longer, unrated cut is at 1.85:1. Quality-wise, the main difference is the blacks, which tend to appear less natural when unrated.
The Sound
In a disappointingly timid move by Summit Entertainment, the only English soundtrack option here is Dolby Digital 5.1 (but the menus are in Linear PCM 5.1...?) and it's fine I suppose. Bass is strong throughout, and the aggressive mix includes off-camera voices and other action, clever front-to-back whooshing during online chat, and clear directionality as cars drive by. There are also discrete rear-channel effects plus more general surrounds, like crowd noises or the gurgling of bubbles in a hotel room. The quality is comparable between the two versions of the movie, although only the R-rated cut offers alternate Spanish-language audio.
The Extras
Everything here is ported over from the DVD. The commentary by director/screenwriter Sean Anders, producer/screenwriter John Morris and producer Bob Levy bounces between goofy and informative, synched to the R-rated version only. The three featurettes are all tongue-in-cheek and rather funny, starting with the broader "Sex Drive: Making a Masterpiece" (twelve minutes), then railing on the poor pretty-boy costar James in "The Marsden Dilemma" (five minutes) and lastly the on the lesser-known young online sensation in "Clark: Duke of the Internet" (four minutes). All are presented in standard definition.
Final Thoughts
This movie is an (expletive deleted) riot, and the differences between the two versions make it worth a second look, if not more. And while the technical quality might not make the most of Blu-ray, the content itself doesn't disappoint.
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