The Adventures of Mark Twain (BLU-RAY)

“The Adventures of Mark Twain” was first released in 1985. 27 years later they have decided to re-release the movie in Blu-ray for both old and new audiences to enjoy. In the movie, Mark Twain (James Whitmore) decides to chase after Halley’s Comet on his airship for reason unknown. However, Tom Sawyer (Chris Ritchie), Huck Finn (Gary Krug), and Becky Thatcher (Michele Mariana) somehow sneak onto the airship and come along for the ride. Do they catch up to Halley’s Comet and why does Mark Twain feel this chase is necessary? You have to watch the movie to find out.

The whole movie was done entirely in claymation and this allowed the filmmakers to take the audience on a fantasy ride that would normally hold them back due to the technical limitations of the 80’s. I was impressed with the visuals and picture quality of the movie. For a movie made in the mid 80’s I was surprised at the claymation and how realistic and detail oriented each scene was in this movie. Even though a couple scenes were a bit obscure and psychedelic, I can only imagine how many hours they spent to complete this movie. As for the picture quality, I was not sure if they digitally remastered the movie for the Blu-ray release, but it was surprisingly clear and it looked great in HD. Also, they included a good amount of extras such as director commentary, crew interviews, several musical tracks, a stills gallery, and several featurettes. If you’ve seen the movie before, you would really enjoy this edition of “The Adventures of Mark Twain.”

However, there were some elements of the movie I did not enjoy. For instance, I felt some parts of this movie were not appropriate for younger audiences, even though this was supposed to be a family movie. Also, there were some religious topics and overtones that might offend some people. Good examples were the scenes involving with Satan, Heaven with aliens, and Adam & Eve. I did not take it seriously, but it does show how dated this movie actually is and how it might scare or irritate some people. Also, the plot itself felt like one bad acid trip and would not make any sense to a person that has never read any of Mark Twain’s books. There were a lot of Mark Twain characters and book references that would confuse younger audiences and the general public.

This movie was visually stunning with claymation that was ahead of its time, but a confusing storyline. If you are a fan of the movie and watched it when you were younger or are a fan of Mark Twain, the extras and the re-release on Blu-ray would appeal to you. However, if you do not fall into either of these two categories, this movie should be a skip for you. I love great animation and claymation, but the actual movie left me even more confused about Mark Twain and raised some questions about Mark Twain. For those reasons, I am giving this movie a “C-.”

DVD Images

Cover: 

81fGiyrSB8L._AA1500_.jpg [14]