I liked the first twenty or thirty minutes of Heartbreakers, but after that things get pretty silly pretty fast.
Video:
MGM´s picture quality never seems to be as sharp or well detailed as the best products from some other studios, nor does it ever fail to be anything but above average, either. In this case, the picture size, enhanced for widescreen TVs, is generous, measuring 2.09:1 across a normal TV, the colors natural, the image clean, and any digital artifacts you can name, zero. If you´re looking for ultimate delineation, however, things are a slight bit soft and diffuse around the edges.
Audio:
On the audio end, the Dolby Digital 5.1 sound is probably as good as it can be, but since there´s little for it do, it really doesn´t matter much. The musical score picks up a nice rear-channel ambiance, and directionality is precise in the front channels. The sound hasn´t and doesn´t need a lot of dynamic or frequency range, but it is fairly well defined.
Extras:
Since, as I said, "Heartbreakers" did good business, MGM have given it a Special-Edition treatment. This means not one, but two full-feature audio commentaries. The first is with director David Mirkin alone and the second is with Mirkin and stars Sigourney Weaver and Jennifer Love Hewitt. I listened to fifteen or twenty minutes of each of them, finding little of importance in either one. Not that the people involved weren´t charming; there just didn´t seem much of interest for them to talk about. Then, there are two separate, promotional-type documentaries. The first is "The Making of Heartbreakers," about twenty-two minutes long; the second is "Laffs & Gaffes," about fifteen minutes. Again, neither has a lot to offer, largely, I suspect, because the film is so light there´s not much to say about it. The most fascinating thing to me was a series of nineteen deleted scenes, with optional director´s commentary. I was fascinated in the filmmaking process, and I was interested to know why these scenes were cut, some of them looking better than the stuff that was left in. Finally, there are twenty-six scene selections, a widescreen theatrical trailer for this film, and a pan-and-scan trailer for the DVD edition of "The Princess Bride." English, French, and Spanish are provided both for the spoken languages and the subtitles.
Parting Shots:
One big asset in favor of "Heartbreakers" is that by and large it avoids the raunch of its contemporaries like "Road Trip" and "American Pie 2." Still, even with its PG-13 rating, there´s a surprisingly large amount of profanity and a good number of sexual situations and sexual innuendoes in it. At its worst, "Heartbreakers" is uninspired and redundant, and at its best it´s sprightly, frothy, and harmless. In a weak year for movie comedies, maybe that´s more than we should expect.
MGM´s picture quality never seems to be as sharp or well detailed as the best products from some other studios, nor does it ever fail to be anything but above average, either. In this case, the picture size, enhanced for widescreen TVs, is generous, measuring 2.09:1 across a normal TV, the colors natural, the image clean, and any digital artifacts you can name, zero. If you´re looking for ultimate delineation, however, things are a slight bit soft and diffuse around the edges.
Audio:
On the audio end, the Dolby Digital 5.1 sound is probably as good as it can be, but since there´s little for it do, it really doesn´t matter much. The musical score picks up a nice rear-channel ambiance, and directionality is precise in the front channels. The sound hasn´t and doesn´t need a lot of dynamic or frequency range, but it is fairly well defined.
Extras:
Since, as I said, "Heartbreakers" did good business, MGM have given it a Special-Edition treatment. This means not one, but two full-feature audio commentaries. The first is with director David Mirkin alone and the second is with Mirkin and stars Sigourney Weaver and Jennifer Love Hewitt. I listened to fifteen or twenty minutes of each of them, finding little of importance in either one. Not that the people involved weren´t charming; there just didn´t seem much of interest for them to talk about. Then, there are two separate, promotional-type documentaries. The first is "The Making of Heartbreakers," about twenty-two minutes long; the second is "Laffs & Gaffes," about fifteen minutes. Again, neither has a lot to offer, largely, I suspect, because the film is so light there´s not much to say about it. The most fascinating thing to me was a series of nineteen deleted scenes, with optional director´s commentary. I was fascinated in the filmmaking process, and I was interested to know why these scenes were cut, some of them looking better than the stuff that was left in. Finally, there are twenty-six scene selections, a widescreen theatrical trailer for this film, and a pan-and-scan trailer for the DVD edition of "The Princess Bride." English, French, and Spanish are provided both for the spoken languages and the subtitles.
Parting Shots:
One big asset in favor of "Heartbreakers" is that by and large it avoids the raunch of its contemporaries like "Road Trip" and "American Pie 2." Still, even with its PG-13 rating, there´s a surprisingly large amount of profanity and a good number of sexual situations and sexual innuendoes in it. At its worst, "Heartbreakers" is uninspired and redundant, and at its best it´s sprightly, frothy, and harmless. In a weak year for movie comedies, maybe that´s more than we should expect.
Average user rating (1-5):
[release]8485[/release]