...more like a series of afterthoughts than a fully realized motion picture.
"Get Smart's Bruce and Lloyd Out of Control" is not an awful film. It's pleasantly unassuming and inoffensive. It's just that taking a pair of mildly amusing guys from one picture and trying to stretch out their antics to a full-length picture of their own turns into an awfully lackluster affair. It was apparently too much of a stretch.
Video:
Warner Bros. offer the film in two formats, full-screen and widescreen, on the same side of the disc. As the film is very short, they can get away with this without losing too much image quality. The 1.33:1 full-screen version is a pan-and-scan affair that cuts out about thirty percent of the picture left and right. The widescreen, which I ended up watching, measures a 1.85:1 anamorphic ratio.
The video is fairly soft all the way through the movie, with a fine print grain evident in indoor scenes and a slightly heavier grain in outdoor footage. I assume the filmmakers shot the movie using conventional motion-picture cameras, yet the result has a sort of digital-video camera look to it--not just soft but somewhat flat. Colors are bright enough, though, and given the kind of film it is, the picture characteristics are probably about what one might expect.
Audio:
Even though there is a wide front-channel stereo spread in the Dolby Digital 5.1 soundtrack, there isn't a lot of rear-channel activity. Interestingly, and not surprisingly, this is almost exactly what I found with the "Get Smart" movie in a theater. There is not much range to the audio in terms of frequencies or dynamics, either, with a deep bass showing up only during the closing credits. The soundtrack does nothing wrong; it's just a bit like the movie, dull and uninspiring.
Extras:
The primary bonus items consist of three featurettes. The first is "Confessions of a Lab Tech," fourteen minutes with the movie's characters talking to us in character and acting silly. The second is "Cue the Anti-Follicular Device," five minutes of behind-the-scenes shooting with Bruce and Lloyd's zap-gun routine. The third featurette is "Bruce and Lloyd Tech," thirteen minutes on the real science behind some of the movie's gadgets. This was the most enjoyable item for me, the others being more obviously promotional material.
The extras conclude with seventeen scene selections but no chapter insert, English as the only spoken language, French and Spanish subtitles, and English captions for the hearing impaired. A slipcover encloses the keep case, the cover of which uses one of those holographic devices that allows you to see two different pictures depending on how you hold it.
Parting Shots:
Movie studios are in business to make a profit. If spinning off a video movie to promote another, bigger production makes money, more power to them. Maybe we'll even see more such spin-offs. The two kids in "Drillbit Taylor" can get their own direct-to-disc movie; Jim Broadbent from the latest "Indiana Jones" installment may have his own sequel; or Peter Dinklage from "Prince Caspian" can have his own miniseries. I dunno.
Whatever, "Get Smart's Bruce and Lloyd Out of Control" is not a very substantial film. It's more like a series of afterthoughts than a fully realized motion picture. Although the movie never tempted me to throw my shoe-phone through the television screen, I didn't smile much, either. It's not a disagreeable film, just a dull, uninspired one.
Video:
Warner Bros. offer the film in two formats, full-screen and widescreen, on the same side of the disc. As the film is very short, they can get away with this without losing too much image quality. The 1.33:1 full-screen version is a pan-and-scan affair that cuts out about thirty percent of the picture left and right. The widescreen, which I ended up watching, measures a 1.85:1 anamorphic ratio.
The video is fairly soft all the way through the movie, with a fine print grain evident in indoor scenes and a slightly heavier grain in outdoor footage. I assume the filmmakers shot the movie using conventional motion-picture cameras, yet the result has a sort of digital-video camera look to it--not just soft but somewhat flat. Colors are bright enough, though, and given the kind of film it is, the picture characteristics are probably about what one might expect.
Audio:
Even though there is a wide front-channel stereo spread in the Dolby Digital 5.1 soundtrack, there isn't a lot of rear-channel activity. Interestingly, and not surprisingly, this is almost exactly what I found with the "Get Smart" movie in a theater. There is not much range to the audio in terms of frequencies or dynamics, either, with a deep bass showing up only during the closing credits. The soundtrack does nothing wrong; it's just a bit like the movie, dull and uninspiring.
Extras:
The primary bonus items consist of three featurettes. The first is "Confessions of a Lab Tech," fourteen minutes with the movie's characters talking to us in character and acting silly. The second is "Cue the Anti-Follicular Device," five minutes of behind-the-scenes shooting with Bruce and Lloyd's zap-gun routine. The third featurette is "Bruce and Lloyd Tech," thirteen minutes on the real science behind some of the movie's gadgets. This was the most enjoyable item for me, the others being more obviously promotional material.
The extras conclude with seventeen scene selections but no chapter insert, English as the only spoken language, French and Spanish subtitles, and English captions for the hearing impaired. A slipcover encloses the keep case, the cover of which uses one of those holographic devices that allows you to see two different pictures depending on how you hold it.
Parting Shots:
Movie studios are in business to make a profit. If spinning off a video movie to promote another, bigger production makes money, more power to them. Maybe we'll even see more such spin-offs. The two kids in "Drillbit Taylor" can get their own direct-to-disc movie; Jim Broadbent from the latest "Indiana Jones" installment may have his own sequel; or Peter Dinklage from "Prince Caspian" can have his own miniseries. I dunno.
Whatever, "Get Smart's Bruce and Lloyd Out of Control" is not a very substantial film. It's more like a series of afterthoughts than a fully realized motion picture. Although the movie never tempted me to throw my shoe-phone through the television screen, I didn't smile much, either. It's not a disagreeable film, just a dull, uninspired one.
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[release]24093[/release]