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Released by: Mill Creek Entertainment
Released on: 3/22/2011
Director: John R. Cherry III
Cast: Jim Varney, John Vernon, Barbara Tyson
Year: 1987/1990
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The Movies:
The world may not have needed or even wanted an Ernest double feature on Blu-ray, but here it is anyway, and admit it, if you're reading this you're obviously a bit curious. For whatever reason, Jim Varney's dopey handyman character struck the funny bone of the North American populace in the eighties, starring in nine feature films, a Splash Mountain promotional show, a TV series and a few comedy specials. While the schtick started to get old after awhile, it's hard not to laugh at some of this stuff, as dopey as it all is.
Mill Creek Entertainment pairs up two of the Ernest features, the first and third, skipping the second entry (Earnest Saves Christmas), possibly (hopefully?) to team it up with Ernest Scared Stupid to make for the ultimate holiday double feature sometime down the road. Wishful thinking? We'll find out soon enough. Until then, here's what we've got:
Ernest Goes To Camp:
Directed by the noble sounding John R. Cherry III in 1987 (Cherry would helm all of the Earnest feature films, lucky guy!) this picture introduced us to Ernest P. Warrell (Jim Varney), a maintenance man who is in charge of a dilapidated summer camp called Kamp Kikakee. More than anything, Earnest wants to be a camp counselor and he may just get his wish when a group of 'second chance campers' are set to arrive for a stay. These kids, miscreants and bad guys all, are all about pranks and bad ideas and wind up breaking the leg of one of the counselors. This gives Ernest his shot and before you know it he's giving his all, trying to mold these troublemakers into responsible young men who can go on to become caring and respectable members of society.
While Ernest is doing his thing, a mining company is trying to get the rights to the land that the camp sits on. The owners, Chief St. Cloud (Iron Eyes Cody) and his granddaughter, Nurse St. Cloud (Victoria Racimo), refuse to sell but the owner of the mining company, Mr. Krater (John Vernon), isn't going to take no for an answer. Mr. Krater, however, did not count on having to deal with the cunning Ernest P. Warrell.
A pretty enjoyable family friendly comedy, Earnest Goes To Camp is a complete cornball of a movie but watch it with the kids it was intended for and try not to laugh. There's a lot of goofy physical comedy, the kind that Varney excelled at before he passed away, and a lot of bad puns and dopey dialogue but there's enough heart to overshadow the predictability of it all. Varney makes Ernest into such a nice guy and such a well meaning guy that you can't help but like him, even if he's not the sharpest tool in the shed. This might not be the most realistic film ever made but you don't watch an Ernest movie for that, you watch it for dumb laughs and fun escapism. It delivers that, and a musical number to boot.
Ernest Goes To Jail:
The third film in the series, 1990's Ernest Goes To Jail finds our titular handyman working as a custodian in a small town bank. Ernest being Ernest, tends to screw up on a fairly regular basis and eventually this starts to catch up with him. His life is changed when he receives a jury duty notice to attend the murder trial of already serving a prison term. Ernest, keen on being responsible and happy to do what is asked of him, happens to look exactly like the criminal on trial's boss, Nash, and so a switch is made. Ernest winds up in prison where everyone thinks he's a crime boss, while Nash winds up on the outside living Ernest's life. As you could guess, Nash as Ernest makes a few changes, not the least of which is getting rid of his dog, but soon enough Ernest's co-worker at the bank,Charlotte Sparrow (Barbara Tyson) realizes something is amiss - will Ernest be able to get out of jail and clear his name before Nash knocks over the bank and ruins everything?
While this one doesn't have quite the same amount of spirit as the earlier film, it's still a moderately entertaining diversion and it's safe to say that if you appreciated the humor in the earlier film then you'll get a few laughs out of this follow up. There's more emphasis on slapstick and goofing off than on character development and the entire scenario is a pretty preposterous one, but Varney is Varney and so he's able to ham it up and deliver pretty much exactly what you'd expect from an Ernest sequel.
Video/Audio/Extras:
Ernest Goes To Camp is presented in 2.35.1 1080i and Ernest Goes To Jail is presented in 1.78.1 1080p, both high definition transfers are AVC encoded. Generally things look pretty good here. There's a nice level of detail and texture throughout both films and the colors and black levels are solid. Some minor print damage shows up here and there as well as some minor compression artifacts and some periodic softness but generally fans of these films should be quite pleased with Mill Creek's efforts.
Audio chores are handled by DTS-HD 2.0, LPCM 2.0 and Dolby Digital 2.0 Stereo tracks for both films. The first picture doesn't have a whole ton of channel separation and tends to sound a bit flat, but doesn't suffer from any serious problems. The second and later film has a bit more activity going on and sounds a little more impressive but suffers from the same lackluster audio. There's nothing horribly wrong here, but the audio is fairly bland. That said, the levels are generally well balanced the dialogue is always easy enough to understand. The various sound effects used in both pictures are a bit on the muddled side, but that said this'll do.
Outside of a simple menu and chapter selection, there are no extras on this disc to speak of.
The Final Word:
Hokey, dopey and goofy, this is still a fun double feature and Mill Creek offers up Ernest Goes To Camp and Ernest Goes To Jail in surprisingly decent quality at a more than affordable price. Let a little high definition Jim Varney into your heart!
