Great movies, but screwed-up transfers
I was so excited when I heard about the Billy Madison/Happy Gilmore box set several months ago. I was hoping Universal would FINALLY be giving us the definitive versions of both flicks. The results are a mixed bag.
The colors look great and the sound mixes are much improved, but both transfers are wrongly framed. They appear to have been zoomed in and cropped. If you've seen the original Billy Madison DVD and compare the two, you'll see lots of visual information cropped off the top and bottom of the picture. It looks awful and is really distracting. We're talking cutting off the heads of characters and scenery.
The discs have some really grainy deleted scenes, most of which are second takes and jokes that didn't work. Why did Universal screw with these flicks??
Where's My Snack Pack?
In my teens, when Billy Madison and Happy Gilmore came out, these two movies were very heavily quoted by my friends and I. This was where Adam Sandler broke out of his SNL persona and came into his own - and where his fans were born. Both movies are hilarious and you have to appreciate the bonus material included on the special edition DVDs in this collection. The characters of Billy Madison and Happy Gilmore are both essentially the character of the on-screen Adam Sandler, which is what fans want to see. His comedy is inventive and unique - and these movies were our first real glimpse at the depth of his comedic abilities outside of SNL sketches.
Regardless of the negative reviews this DVD collection has received due to supposed problems with the visual formatting and such, I love it. I knew these movies well and I see nothing different in these DVD versions. They look and sound great.
Highly Recommended.
Where It All Began
It is hard to believe that after Memorial Day that Sandler will have made 12 movies since these. Both of these movies are worth repeated watches; however, don't be fooled by the "new bonus features". The deleted scenes are far less produced that the final film, and the dialogue is almost impossible to hear in some scenes. The bloopers are not that funny either. That being said, these are still two fine movies. The main draw to me for the combo set was that I could get the widescreen version which I had previously been unable to find. If this is not important to you, you will probably be better off trying to find them separately. Finally, each movie on its own is worth 4 stars, but I knocked down my rating because of what I have mentioned above.
Click to Editorial Reviews
No comments:
Post a Comment