Marley & Me Blu-ray

Release Date: March 31, 2009
Length: 115 minutes
Rating: PG
T2 Score: 2 1/2 out of 4 stars

Based on the best selling book by the same name, Marley & Me is a movie about a young, newly married couple, John and Jenny Grogan (starring Owen Wilson as John and Jennifer Aniston as Jenny), who are both news reporters living in Florida. John decides that he wants to stall his wife’s “clock” and surprises her with a puppy. She is allowed to choose from an entire litter of yellow labs, but decides upon the “clearance sale” puppy.

This puppy, fondly named Marley after Bob Marley, quickly makes it known as to why he was the “clearance sale” puppy with his rascally behavior. From the very first night in his new home he is constantly getting himself and his owners into one predicament or another. Without giving away the story, let’s just say that Marley is truly a Dennis the Menace in the greatest sense of the word. The story follows John, Jenny, and Marley through their life together, including promotions, babies, lots of furniture, relocating, and finally to the end of a long and fulfilling life for one incorrigibly loveable dog, Marley.

As most often the case, the movie isn’t the same as the book. The book focuses more on Marley’s crazy dog antics. The movie focuses more on the character of John Grogan. It’s still a good movie to watch, but not the hilarious insight into Marley’s true psyche that was expected.

This Blu-ray release offers 3 discs in total. The blu-ray disc, a bonus disc with the movie on DVD, and a digital copy of Marley & Me for portable media players. The bonus features includes: Deleted Scenes with Optional Director’s Commentary, Finding Marley Featurette, On Set With Marley: Dog Of All Trades Featurette, Animal Adoption Featurette, When Not To Pee Featurette, Gag Reel, and Dog Training Trivia Track. Please note that when watching the special features, the menu navigation is not very user friendly. Once a featurette starts, it is not easy to back out again to the main menu.

While there are a lot of cute dog scenes, this movie isn’t really one for a family of all ages. It skews toward a family with teens. There is some mild language and more suggestive themes are apparent.

-Sarah