The House Bunny, Blu Ray Review

Posted on: February 9th, 2009 By: Kirk

An orphan girl finds happiness and a home as a Playboy bunny living in the Playboy mansion. When a scheming rival gets her kicked out from the only decent home she’s ever known what’s a girl to do? The answer here is to take over as house mother of the worst sorority house on the nearby college campus and turn the socially awkward girls into hot, man attracting sirens. Unless the girls can increase their popularity and get 30 other girls to pledge to their sorority (Zeta Alpha Zeta) they’re going to loose their house to their rivals (Phi Iota Mus).

OK, so this is another take on the ‘transform a dowdy girl into an attractive woman’ theme that we’ve seen many times before in American girl comedies, except here it’s not just one, it’s a whole house full! Shelley Darlington (Anna Faris) finds that even an ex-Playboy bunny has her work cut out here. Will she be able to turn these ugly ducklings into swans? Will she find the home she’s looking for? I think we all know the answer already, but it’s a harmless fell good bit of fun finding out.

Written by Karen McCullah Lutz and Kirsten Smith, the team responsible for She’s the Man, Ella Enchanted, Legally Blonde and 10 Things I Hate About You, there’s certainly some pedigree within the girl-flick genre here. Starring Anna Farris we also have one of the best female comedy actors around at the moment. If she can’t pull off a ditzy ex-Playboy bunny then no one can! With a supporting cast consisting of some experienced comedy actors, Emma Stone (Superbad) and Kat Dennings (The 40 Year Old Virgin) as well as enthusiastic first timers such as Katherine McPhee, there’s a youthful energetic feel to the cast that makes it a lot of fun.

The concept of what happens to a bunny girl when they leave the mansion is an interesting one, but overall the plot is pretty much tried and tested, so you won’t see anything too original here. What saves this film from being just another transformation chick-flick is the comedy timing of Anna Faris. All of the laugh out loud moments were hers, in particular look out for the reenactment of a famous Marilyn Monroe scene that goes a bit wrong, hilarious. Faris can pull of the physical slapstick comedy as well as deliver a killer line and while the other girls are all very nice, it’s Faris that stands out and supplies all the comedy.

The Blu Ray is presented in 2.35:1 1080p AVC encode that brings the subject matter to life very nicely indeed. Colors jump off the screen, which is just what’s required for this pink, fluffy chick-flick. There’s also a Dolby TrueHD track that delivers the dialogue and bouncy music very nicely. It’s not a film that’s going to push a surround sound setup to the limits, but it does what it has to well. In terms of extras there are too many to go through in detail here, but be sure that there’s plenty of behind the scenes footage of the shooting of the film. The features manage to convey the fun that was had making it, it genuinely seems that the girls in the film bonded during the process and had a whale of a time. The other stand out feature details the appearance of the legend, Hugh Hefner, the Playboy mansion and some of the real bunnies. As well as all the behind the scenes featurettes we also get ten deleted scenes that are probably a bit better that the usual crop of deleted scenes you get on films. Here you can actually see a reason as to why they would be shot and possibly included (possibility of an extended cut?).

If you like films like She’s the Man, The Princess Diaries, Enchanted etc. then there’s a very good chance you’ll love this. For the genre it’s in I’d say it’s above average purely down to the work of Anna Faris, who actually gives us some laugh out loud moments. It’s predictable and unoriginal but at the same time is feel-good popcorn munching fun.