...silly, sentimental, sometimes cruel, often clumsy, mostly unfunny, and frustratingly inane.
To keep an eye on his charges, Drillbit infiltrates the school by posing as a substitute teacher, and nobody questions him. He even teaches classes. How can anybody watching this movie accept anything in it for a minute?
And so on; you get the idea. As a comedy, we expect "Drillbit Taylor" to be silly, but we also expect it to play by some kind of rules. Otherwise, it's just a cartoon where anything can happen. In "Drillbit" anything does happen, and most of it just elicits a groan of despair.
Video:
The video probably represents something close to what was on the original print and what the director intended. I don't know for sure because I never saw the movie in a theater. Nevertheless, what I saw on the disc did not impress me, intentional or not. The wide, 2.35:1 anamorphic presentation does its best with what it's got, which means its colors are quite intense, strongly saturated, excessively deep, and often too dark, too extreme, too glossy, and too bright for anything approaching real life. All you have to do look out the window to see that this isn't reality, and I'm sure reality is the last thing the director wanted. You'll find grain at a minimum, definition OK, and detailing somewhat soft, especially noticeable in somewhat bland facial features. While there is nothing really wrong with the video quality, it all appears too glassy brilliant and smoothed over for my taste.
Audio:
The sound is also unexceptional. The Dolby Digital 5.1 audio produces some clear, clean mids, a decent stereo spread, and a few well-placed surround effects, environmental noises mainly, like crowds, birds, and cars. Other than that, there really isn't a lot of frequency range or dynamic impact to speak of, nor much of anything out of the ordinary about it.
Extras:
For so inconsequential a movie, the DVD has a fair number of bonus items. The first, of course, is the very fact that this particular version is called the "Extended Survival Edition" and includes several additional minutes of footage not seen in theaters. I couldn't tell you what they are, however, not having seen the original version. Next, there's an audio commentary by the director, Steven Brill, one of the co-writers, Kristofor Brown, and actors Troy Gentile, Nate Hartley, and David Dorfman. After that is a fourteen-minute featurette, "The Writers Get a Chance to Talk," wherein we hear more from Kristofor Brown along with co-writer Seth Rogen. The most interesting item for me, though, was the series of thirteen deleted and extended scenes, some seventeen minutes in anamorphic widescreen. Because the color seemed much more natural to me than the color of the feature film itself, I can only assume the director meant for the film to look as oversaturated as it is.
After those segments, we find an item called "Line-O-Rama," about four minutes of additional dialogue; followed by a four-minute gag reel; and then five brief featurettes of three-to-five minutes each: "Rap Off," "Sprinkler Day," "Bully," "Directing Kids," and "The Real Dan: Danny McBride."
The bonuses conclude with fifteen scene selections but no chapter insert; several trailers at start-up and a few more in the menu; and English, French, and Spanish spoken languages and subtitles.
Parting Shots:
It's hard not to like Owen Wilson in any movie, even when he's playing a bum, as he does here. The guy is so charming, we know he's not going to let us down. Much. Yet in "Drillbit Taylor" his character is so very unscrupulous that even Wilson can't save him, and with him goes the movie. The film is silly, sentimental, sometimes cruel, often clumsy, mostly unfunny, and frustratingly inane. Wilson does his best, but for how long can he keep playing practically the same charming slacker in film after film?
And so on; you get the idea. As a comedy, we expect "Drillbit Taylor" to be silly, but we also expect it to play by some kind of rules. Otherwise, it's just a cartoon where anything can happen. In "Drillbit" anything does happen, and most of it just elicits a groan of despair.
Video:
The video probably represents something close to what was on the original print and what the director intended. I don't know for sure because I never saw the movie in a theater. Nevertheless, what I saw on the disc did not impress me, intentional or not. The wide, 2.35:1 anamorphic presentation does its best with what it's got, which means its colors are quite intense, strongly saturated, excessively deep, and often too dark, too extreme, too glossy, and too bright for anything approaching real life. All you have to do look out the window to see that this isn't reality, and I'm sure reality is the last thing the director wanted. You'll find grain at a minimum, definition OK, and detailing somewhat soft, especially noticeable in somewhat bland facial features. While there is nothing really wrong with the video quality, it all appears too glassy brilliant and smoothed over for my taste.
Audio:
The sound is also unexceptional. The Dolby Digital 5.1 audio produces some clear, clean mids, a decent stereo spread, and a few well-placed surround effects, environmental noises mainly, like crowds, birds, and cars. Other than that, there really isn't a lot of frequency range or dynamic impact to speak of, nor much of anything out of the ordinary about it.
Extras:
For so inconsequential a movie, the DVD has a fair number of bonus items. The first, of course, is the very fact that this particular version is called the "Extended Survival Edition" and includes several additional minutes of footage not seen in theaters. I couldn't tell you what they are, however, not having seen the original version. Next, there's an audio commentary by the director, Steven Brill, one of the co-writers, Kristofor Brown, and actors Troy Gentile, Nate Hartley, and David Dorfman. After that is a fourteen-minute featurette, "The Writers Get a Chance to Talk," wherein we hear more from Kristofor Brown along with co-writer Seth Rogen. The most interesting item for me, though, was the series of thirteen deleted and extended scenes, some seventeen minutes in anamorphic widescreen. Because the color seemed much more natural to me than the color of the feature film itself, I can only assume the director meant for the film to look as oversaturated as it is.
After those segments, we find an item called "Line-O-Rama," about four minutes of additional dialogue; followed by a four-minute gag reel; and then five brief featurettes of three-to-five minutes each: "Rap Off," "Sprinkler Day," "Bully," "Directing Kids," and "The Real Dan: Danny McBride."
The bonuses conclude with fifteen scene selections but no chapter insert; several trailers at start-up and a few more in the menu; and English, French, and Spanish spoken languages and subtitles.
Parting Shots:
It's hard not to like Owen Wilson in any movie, even when he's playing a bum, as he does here. The guy is so charming, we know he's not going to let us down. Much. Yet in "Drillbit Taylor" his character is so very unscrupulous that even Wilson can't save him, and with him goes the movie. The film is silly, sentimental, sometimes cruel, often clumsy, mostly unfunny, and frustratingly inane. Wilson does his best, but for how long can he keep playing practically the same charming slacker in film after film?
Average user rating (1-5):
Not yet rated.
Not yet rated.
[release]23842[/release]