Label: Umbrella Entertainment
Region Code: Region-FREE
Rating: PG
Duration: 86 Minutes
Audio: English DTS-HD MA 5.1 Surround
Video: 1080p HD Widescreen (1.77:1)
Director: Steve Barron
Cast: Dan Aykroyd, Jane Curtin, Michelle Burke, Michael McKean, David Spade, Chris Farley, Sinbad, Michael Richards, Eddie Griffin, Phil Hartman, Adam Sandler, Jason Alexander, Dave Thomas, Laraine Newman, Garrett Morris, Drew Carey, Kevin Nealon, Jan Hooks, Parker Posey, Joey Lauren Adams, Julia Sweeney, Ellen DeGeneres, Tim Meadows, Jon Lovitz, Tom Arnold
Sci-fi comedy Coneheads (1993) is based on a vintage Saturday Night Live comedy sketche that originally aired back '77, this film saw the return of SNL-alum Dan Aykroyd (The Great Outdoors)and Jane Curtain (TV's 3rd Rock from the Sun) reprising the quirky characters they created, the bullet-headed aliens Beldar and his wife Prymaat. The aliens arrive to conquer the Earth in preparation of an imminent invasion from their home planet of Remulak, at the behest of their supreme leader, Highmaster Mintot (Dave Thomas, Strange Brew). Soon after arriving the would-be conquers hit a bit of trouble when their spacecraft takes a direct hit from an National Guard jet fighter, resulting in them ditching their damaged ship in the East River in Manhattan. Finding themselves stranded with no way of communicating with their planet they set-up human identities, taking the on-the-nose surname of Conehead, and settling in Pyramus, N.J. where they integrate themselves into the local community, where no one seems to take notice of their pointy skulls or eccentric mannerisms.
Eventually they manage to build a device that enables them to phone home, discovering that they will be stranded on earth for several more years before a rescue ship can be dispatched to this corner of the galaxy to fetch them. In the ensuing years the couple give birth to a child named Connie (Michelle Burke, Dazed and Confused) who grows into a semi-normal if somewhat rebellious American teen. Things seem to be going well for the alien family all things considered until they end up being pursued by an overly-ambitious INS agent, Deputy Commissioner Gorman Seedling (Michael McKean, This Is Spinal Tap), and his sycophant assistant Agent Eli Turnbull (David Spade, Black Sheep), who are determined to deport the aliens back to where they came from.
Eventually the Remulaks arrive to rescue the Coneheads, just as they are about to be apprehended by INS, returning the Coneheads, along with INS agents Seedling and Turnbull, to their home-world. On Remulak Beldar is punished for his failure on Earth, having to battle a beastly creature in an arena, gladiator-style, which definitely brought to mind the Rancor scene from The Return of the Jedi (1983).
Most of the SNL-sketches that have been turned into feature-length films are mighty awful in my opinion, and if you had told me back in '93 when I caught this gem in the cinema that it would turn out to be one of the better of the bunch I surely would have scoffed incredulously at you. I liked the film back when I first saw it, and it's only gotten better, this thing is a blast, with credit going to both Jane Curtain and Dan Aykroyd for their portrayals of the mega-domed aliens, they're so delightfully quirky with their strange movements and their stilted overly-descriptive way they speaking, which I would credit to Aykroyd who co-wrote the script.
The film is stuffed with situational hijinks and sight gags that give the film a vignette-style with the INS agents coming off as buffoonish careerists, plus we get a blossoming romance between Connie and horny teenager Ronnie Bradford, played by the late comedy legend Chris Farley (Black Sheep), but we do get a good bit of world building by way of some impressive alien-world stuff that happens in the third act of the film that in hindsight is fairly impressive considering the overall silliness of it.
The film is peppered with a bunch of fun cameos, a veritable who's-who of SNL-alum including the late Phil Hartman (TV's News Radio), Adam Sandler (Punch Drunk Love), Laraine Newman (Witchboard 2: The Devil's Doorway), Garrett Morris (The Stuff), Kevin Nealon (Grandma's Boy), Jan Hooks (Batman Returns), Julia Sweeney (Stuart Little), Tim Meadows (The Ladies Man), and Jon Lovitz (Rat Race), plus early film roles for Parker Posey (Dazed & Confused), Joey Lauren Adams (Chasing Amy), Sinbad (Jingle All the Way) Ellen DeGeneres (TV's Ellen), Drew Carey, and Seinfeld's Michael Richardson and Jason Alexander. If you love spotting fun cameos this film is absolutely lousy with them!
Coneheads is a nineties comedy that I that has aged quite well all things considered, not having revisited it in a few years I was pleasantly surprised how much I loved it, it's not quite on par with SNL spin-off The Blues Brothers (1980) but on a personal level I would easily put it well above Wayne's World (1992).
Audio/Video: Coneheads (1993) arrives on region-free Blu-ray from Umbrella Entertainment in 1080p HD framed in 1.77:1 widescreen. The HD image looks solid, colors are nicely saturated, skin tones look natural, and black levels are pleasing. However, it looks like an older existing HD scan, the grain is a bit thick and clumpy looking in areas, it's not as finely resolved as a new scan would have afforded, but still a worthy upgrade over the nearly 20 year-old DVD from Paramount.
The English DTS-HD MA 5.1 on the disc offers crisp and clean dialogue reproduction with no issues with hiss or distortion, but it's not the most surround active mix. The David Newman (Heathers) score benefits the most, from the lossless surround mix but we do get some decent stereo panning effects throughout, there are no subtitles on this release.
Unfortunately we get no extras for Coneheads, this is a bare-bones affair, no even start-up menu. I am holding out hope that someone like Shout! Factory might pick this up for a U.S. release and offer a few extras for it, but for now this Umbrella release is the only hi-def game in town.
The single-disc Blu-ray comes housed in an over-sized keepcase with a sleeve of reversible artwork featuring the original movie poster artwork, the reverse side features the same artwork without the the unsightly rating label, with the disc featuring the same key art as the sleeve. Notably, this is labeled as a region B-locked, but it played just fine on my region A player, making this an attractive proposition for fans in North America where we still have no Blu-ray release.
Coneheads (1993) was not a film that was loved when it first arrived in cinema, but it definitely went on to develop a healthy cult-following in the years since, and for good reason, glad to see it finally get a region-free Blu-ray release, even if it is bare-bones.
MORE SCREENSHOTS FROM THE BLU-RAY
