Based off of a short story by Stephen King, the movie follows four friends who are on a quest to find a dead body before anyone else. The group is comprised of a chunky doofus named Vern (Jerry O’Connell — who is the opposite of fat now), a physically abused/scarred boy named Teddy (Corey Feldman), a tough badass named Chris (River Phoenix) and a down-to-earth kid named Gordie (Wil Wheaton — he is the main character and narrator). Along their journey to find the dead body, they run into many different adventures and learn a bit about each other along the way.
There are three things that make Stand By Me one of my top 20 movies of all time. The first is the writing of Stephen King and the translation to screenplay by Rob Reiner. Capturing the right dialogue and the write ‘boyhood’ situations was vital for this ‘coming-of-age’ film. When you’re talking to a mass audience of teenagers and of adults, you have to bring back situations that they can relate to. The first thing the writing did right was to give these kids an adventure to go on. Every kid needs an adventure and this is one of the more ‘ultimate’ adventures any kid could go on, though a little warped. The next thing the writing did well was break down each character along the adventure. By the end of the film you fully understood Gordie, Chris, Vern and Teddy. You knew what type of character they were, their backgrounds and what adversity they might face in life. You could fully relate to each one of them. Lastly, the writing kept the story interesting from plot point to plot point. There wasn’t any downtime, nothing boring, no dip to the story. It simply was just a straight shot adventure that ends way too soon, at least in my view.
The writing made the movie work on a technical level.
Choosing the right kids for the roles was another successful element. While many popular teenage roles these days usually start in a Disney musical, Stand By Me is one of those rare moments where the kids involved are asked to do far more than they probably learned at that point in their acting career. For example, the guy with the least experience in the group during filming was Jerry O’Connell. Had he been cast in any other part it would have been a disaster. He fit the mold perfectly and carried this goofy, innocence about him that defined who he was in the film. The same for Corey Feldman as Teddy, who played the perfect abused kid with figurative and literal scars. Without these kids in these specific roles the movie simply won’t work as well. Credit perfect casting for this element of the film (and you could probably credit the kids as well).
Finally, the last kudos has to go out to director Rob Reiner. His ability to get the most out of the kids, while still maintaining all the wonderful elements of the story he wrote is nothing short of brilliant. His light-hearted, sometimes heart-wrenching, directing style is perfect for Stand By Me. He knew how to keep the story going and to maintain the interest of the audience and he pulled it off with what seems like ease.
Anyway, I’ll stop there. Most of everyone who is going to read this review already knows how spectacular the film is already. This is an example of what perfection looks and feels like.
So how does this classic film do on Blu-ray? It looks great, but not perfect. For a 25th Anniversary Edition Blu-ray you get some really high-quality material in 1080p. If this movie doesn’t remind you of a beautiful Saturday morning as a kid when you see that first glimmer of a blue sky and trees in HD, I’m not sure anything will. Where this movie was shot and the lighting that was done it certainly does lend well when it comes to the HD transfer. Regretfully, there are a few moments in some of the darker scenes where some artifacts and grain rear their head, but it’s not as often as it is beautiful. It looks and sounds gorgeous, but it’s not perfect.
As for the features, here’s what you’re looking at:
– Picture-in-picture video commentary with director Rob Reiner and actors Wil Wheaton & Corey Feldman
– Walking the Tracks: The Summer of Stand By Me
– Audio Commentary by Rob Reiner
– Stand By Me Music Video
While I’m certainly disappointed with the amount of features that came with this 25th Anniversary Edition Blu-ray, I think that the features are very good quality. The newest feature in the bunch is the video commentary. It’s regretful that everyone in the film (sans River Phoenix) couldn’t make the commentary, but having Reiner, Wheaton and Feldman is good enough to make it quite entertaining. As for the other things, the commentary from Reiner is something you’ve heard before and the large featurette about the film (Walking the Tracks) is interesting, but regretfully in SD. It’s a good featurette, though. Overall, there’s a lot here in each feature, but not a lot of features.