THE MOVIE

Away We Go is out now on Blu-Ray.

Away We Go is based around characters Verona De Tessant (Maya Rudolph) and Burt Farlander (John Krasinski).Both are in their early 30s and expecting their first child. While visiting Burt's parents Gloria and Jerry (Catherine O'Hara and Jeff Daniels) Gloria breaks the news that they are moving to Belgium for 2 years and will miss the birth of their first grandchild. Outraged by their selfishness, Verona and Burt decide to find a new city to raise their child.

They set out to travel across the U.S, reconnecting with old friends and family, hoping to find the perfect home for their child. Throughout their journey they visit several towns throughout the US, which they have fond and not so fond memories of. Away We Go is best described as a drama, with some occasional dark humour thrown in for good measure.

Away We Go isn't the type of film that will grab you in from the beginning. It starts off rather slow and the pace of the movie stays the same throughout. The story is likeable, but not memorable. This means that the film can be quite difficult to continue to be engaged in, as throughout the whole film, not a whole lot is achieved and the film ends rather abruptly.

John Krasinski and Maya Rudolph in Away We Go.

Away We Go is the type of film that's worth viewing, but most certainly not a movie that will keep you coming back repeatedly.

VIDEO
The video transfer for Away We Go is also impressive. The 1920x1080p transfer looks great, there is very little grain and some of the stunning backdrops look wonderful. Verona and Burt's travels take them to some strange places and the fantastic transfer, and the increased resolution over DVD, makes these backdrops all the more impressive.

AUDIO
The film comes with an English DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1 lossless audio track and while the movie doesn't exactly feature hard rock tunes or anything to overly test your surround sound system there are some excellent acoustic songs and the song quality is excellent. My PlayStation 3 hovered around the 3.7Mbps, give or take.

Showing the big pregnant belly in Away We Go.

EXTRAS
Away We Go on Blu-Ray supports BD-Live, so you can login and view a Coraline trailer, as well as the trailer for Away We Go. The disc also includes a few other special features. Both of these are in HD which is great, however it's disappointing that there wasn't more included, or that the green filmmaking featurette wasn't expanded upon. As the film supports BD-Live you can bookmark specific scenes to come back to. Anyway this is what you can expect on this disc...

The Making of Away We Go (16:13/HD): This making of focuses on the beginning of the film right through to post production and features interviews with Sam Mendes, John Krasinski and Maya Rudolph.

Green Filmmaking (6:38/HD): This featurette looks at how the film actually recycles some of the things from the movie, the executive producer and director of photography speak about how they ensured that Away We Go was a 'green friendly' film. While the featurette is decent, it's disappointing that it's only a very small snapshot of what the producers did to ensure they were carbon neutral.

Out in the middle of nowhere...

Audio Commentary with director Sam Mendes and Writers Dave Eggers and Vendela Vida: This is a fairly decent audio commentary with the directors and writers of Away We Go especially as you get an opportunity to hear about some of the choices make by the director, Sam Mendes.

OVERALL
Overall Away We Go is a film that tells the coming of age of a couple going through a difficult time, the movie is okay, but not in the same calibre of Sam Mendes' previous films, such as American Beauty.

Review By: Dave Warner

THE MOVIE	6/10
THE VIDEO	8/10
THE AUDIO	8/10
THE EXTRAS	5/10
OVERALL	7/10