• Aspect Ratio: 1.78:1
  
• Video Codec: AVC/MPEG-4
  
• Resolution: 1080p/24 (23.976Hz)
  
• Audio Codec: English DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1 (48kHz/24-bit) (Extended Cut), (48kHz/16-bit) (Theatrical Cut); French, Portuguese, Spanish Dolby Digital 5.1 (Theatrical Cut)
  
• Subtitles: English SDH, French, Portuguese, Spanish (Latin American)
  
• Subtitles Color: White
  
• Region: ABC (Region-Free)
• Rating: R/NR
  
• Run Time: 88 Mins.
• Discs: 2 (1 x Blu-ray + 1 x DVD + UltraViolet Digital Copy)
  
• Studio: Warner Home Video
  
• Blu-ray Release Date: June 19, 2012
• List Price: $35.99

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Overall
[Rating:4/5]
The Film
[Rating:2/5]
Video Quality
[Rating:4/5]
Audio Quality
[Rating:4.5/5]
Supplemental Materials
[Rating:2/5]

Click thumbnails for high-resolution 1920X1080p screen captures

(All TheaterByte screen captures are lightly compressed with lossy JPEG at 100% quality setting and are meant as a general representation of the content. They do not fully reveal the capabilities of the Blu-ray format)

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The Film

[Rating:2/5]

Todd Phillips (The Hangover) produces this raucous feature debut from director Nima Nourizadeh, a found-footage teen film that plays not unlike a comedic flipside to the recent teen actioner Chronicle. Very much tapping into the Millennial’s penchant for gadgetry, social networking, and YouTube phenomena, Project X chronicles three seventeen-year-old high schoolers, on the fringes of their school’s social pecking order, who endeavor to make themselves legendary amongst their piers by throwing the greatest party ever, a birthday bash for one member of the trio, Thomas (Thomas Mann). Left up to ex-Queens, New York native Costa (Oliver Cooper) to do the planning for the impending night, he uses all the tools any kid of today would to get as many people as possible to attend, text messaging, Facebook, Craig’s List. Ostensibly documented by a fourth participant rarely seen on camera, the resulting escapades are less comical or slapstick, such as teen party films from the past such as Weird Science, American Pie, or even the mildly subversive Ferris Bueller’s Day Off, than it is straight rebellious and cynical for cynicism’s sake.This should come as no surprise in this post–Jackass world, however, where the younger generations continually seems to find humor in things far more “meta” as they say.

So, Project X devolves from what is the usual setup of teens misbehaving into some sort of pseudo-Girls Gone Wild ecstasy trip of drunken debauchery and other “epic” madness, from the teen perspective, and downright frightening for any parents that might happen across this film and mistake it for actual events. Which, at its best, is Project X‘s strength, ironically, because, though it at times crosses that proverbial line of glorifying self-destructive behavior in youth, there is no denying that Nourizadeh has managed to grasp a moment in time and history, making it palpable for a generation. Besides, by the time we get to the outrageous ending, we realize this is most certainly fiction in its wildest sense, just as The Hangover is for adults behaving badly.

Video Quality

[Rating:4/5]

Project X is a film shot on a mixture of consumer grade devices (iPhone, RIM Blackberry, Flip Mino HD) and digital still cameras (Canon EOS 5D Mark II, Canon EOS 7D) plus the Sony CineAlta F23 high definition cinematographic camera. The consequence is, naturally, that this AVC/MPEG-4 1080p encodement from Warner is hardly the sort of material that will be true reference material to show off your display, but the transfer is effective and, looks natural, true to the source.

Audio Quality

[Rating:4.5/5]

The DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1 soundtrack (48kHz/24-bit for the extended cut and 16-bit for the theatrical cut) superbly captures the raucous partying sounds of Project X with thumping bass of the blasting hip hop music, the endless chatter of the massive party crowd, and rather clean dialogue.

Supplemental Materials

[Rating:2/5]

Warner gives viewers the option of both the theatrical and extended cuts on the disc in addition to three short featurettes that offer up some behind the scenes looks at the production.

The supplements:

• Theatrical and Extended Cuts
• Project X: Declassified (1.78:1; 1080p/24; 00:05:27) – A brief Making of
• Project X: Pasadena 3 (1.78:1; 1080p/24; 00:05:39) – A look at casting the leads for Project X
• Project Xpensive: Tallying up the Damage (1.78:1; 1080p/24; 00:03:01)
• DVD
• UltraViolet Digital Copy

The Definitive Word

Overall:

[Rating:4/5]

Though Project X is hardly perfect and the older among us may struggle to find the comedy in it or even be horrified at what they see before their eyes, the film has its strengths. Those strengths are not originality, because this “found-footage” or “YouTube-style” thing has been done to death. Where the strengths are is the film’s ability to effectively convey a sense of scope and the concerns of its target audience. Adults need not apply.

Additional Screen Captures

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Purchase Project X on Blu-ray Combo Pack at CD Universe

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Purchase Project X on Blu-ray Combo Pack at CD Universe

Shop for more Blu-ray titles at Amazon.com

Overall
[Rating:4/5]
The Film
[Rating:2/5]
Video Quality
[Rating:4/5]
Audio Quality
[Rating:4.5/5]
Supplemental Materials
[Rating:2/5]

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