Lately, if you've seen one Ice Cube 'comedy,' you've seen them all.
It's almost as if no one can figure out what to do with Ice Cube. "Are We There Yet?" was so over-the-top that it was silly, and even Cube's deadpan couldn't save it. Here, he plays the same character in a more low-key comedy, but the results are the same. It took a special director to get the most out of Robin Williams, and it's going to take someone who's willing to push Cube to get that kind of performance out of him. Right now, he seems to be just going through the motions. If it wasn't for Williams hopping around like a jive peacock and Morgan acting like a dodo, "First Sunday" would have been an even bigger turkey. The plot is weak and single-pronged, the direction is lethargic, and the script puts a pulled wishbone strain on everything.
There's not much more to say except that Cube can add another line to his resume of disappointing films.
Video:
The 1080p picture (AVC/MPEG-4) looks very good though, presented in 1.85:1 aspect ratio and with solid black levels and pretty decent color saturation. There's the slightest bit of grain in some of the scenes and what looks to be compression artifacts in one segment. Other than that, it's a fine picture--which I never thought I'd say of "First Sunday."
Audio:
The featured audio is an English, French, or Portuguese Dolby TrueHD 5.1, which lately Sony has been gravitating towards. And they're starting to get TrueHD right. In the past, there was a big drop-off between PCM and TrueHD, but the dynamics are very good on this disc, with a rich timbre and good balance. Additional options are Spanish and Thai Dolby Digital 5.1, with subtitles in English, English SDH, French, Spanish, Portuguese, Chinese, Korean, Thai, Arabic, and Dutch.
Extras:
Though Talbert thinks more highly of this film and his efforts than I do, his commentary is still worth listening to--more enjoyable for me than the movie. There's also a Blu-ray exclusive "Almighty Version" fact track that's again more fun than the film itself. As for the rest of the features, they're pretty standard: a handful of deleted scenes playable with or without commentary, a gag reel, a few outtakes, a promo-style featurette on the cast and crew, and Talbert's camera wrap speech (which are becoming more common on DVD bonus features these days).
Bottom Line:
Lately, if you've seen one Ice Cube "comedy," you've seen them all. "First Sunday" is just another of his films that promised to be so much better than it turned out to be. Aside from funny routines from Morgan and Williams, it's a dull and uninspired bit of moviemaking.
There's not much more to say except that Cube can add another line to his resume of disappointing films.
Video:
The 1080p picture (AVC/MPEG-4) looks very good though, presented in 1.85:1 aspect ratio and with solid black levels and pretty decent color saturation. There's the slightest bit of grain in some of the scenes and what looks to be compression artifacts in one segment. Other than that, it's a fine picture--which I never thought I'd say of "First Sunday."
Audio:
The featured audio is an English, French, or Portuguese Dolby TrueHD 5.1, which lately Sony has been gravitating towards. And they're starting to get TrueHD right. In the past, there was a big drop-off between PCM and TrueHD, but the dynamics are very good on this disc, with a rich timbre and good balance. Additional options are Spanish and Thai Dolby Digital 5.1, with subtitles in English, English SDH, French, Spanish, Portuguese, Chinese, Korean, Thai, Arabic, and Dutch.
Extras:
Though Talbert thinks more highly of this film and his efforts than I do, his commentary is still worth listening to--more enjoyable for me than the movie. There's also a Blu-ray exclusive "Almighty Version" fact track that's again more fun than the film itself. As for the rest of the features, they're pretty standard: a handful of deleted scenes playable with or without commentary, a gag reel, a few outtakes, a promo-style featurette on the cast and crew, and Talbert's camera wrap speech (which are becoming more common on DVD bonus features these days).
Bottom Line:
Lately, if you've seen one Ice Cube "comedy," you've seen them all. "First Sunday" is just another of his films that promised to be so much better than it turned out to be. Aside from funny routines from Morgan and Williams, it's a dull and uninspired bit of moviemaking.
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[release]23321[/release]