Dudley Do-Right

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Details At A Glance

General		Extras
Category	Comedy	Theatrical Trailer(s)	Yes, 1 - 1.78:1 (16x9 enhanced), Dolby Digital 2.0
Rating		Other Trailer(s)	None
Year Released	1999	Commentary Tracks	None
Running Time	79:17 Minutes	Other Extras	Cast & Crew Biographies Production Notes DVD-ROM Website Mirror
RSDL/Flipper	RSDL (48:11)	Cast & Crew
Start Up	Movie	Cast & Crew
Region	2,4	Director	Hugh Wilson
Studio Distributor	Columbia Tristar	Starring	Brendan Fraser Sarah Jessica Parker Alfred Molina Eric Idle Robert Prosky Alex Rucco
Case	Transparent Amaray	Starring
RRP	$39.95	Music	Steve Dorff

Video		Audio
Pan & Scan/Full Frame	None	MPEG	None
Widescreen Aspect Ratio	2.35:1	Dolby Digital	5.1
16x9 Enhancement		Soundtrack Languages	English (Dolby Digital 5.1, 384 Kb/s) German (Dolby Digital 5.1, 384 Kb/s)
Theatrical Aspect Ratio	2.35:1	Miscellaneous
Macrovision	Yes	Smoking	No
Subtitles	English Danish Finnish Dutch German Swedish Norwegian Polish Czech Hebrew Greek	Annoying Product Placement	No
Subtitles		Action In or After Credits	No

Plot Synopsis

For those who have no idea what the film's intended audience is, consider that the film begins with a presentation of a Fractured Fairy Tale, one of those quick cartoons that made up a portion of the Rocky & Bullwinkle Show a long time ago. This particular fairy tale, The Phox, The Box, And The Lox, sets a sort of comical tone that, sadly, is not kept up that well by the live-action film that is to follow. Why this presentation was not encoded as a separate featurette is beyond me, but at least it is more entertaining than the film itself. Dudley Do-Right, such as it is, is the story of three central characters, all of them being rather simplistic in nature, so don't expect anything that will stimulate your intellectual side. Dudley (Brendan Fraser) aspires to be a mountie during the opening sequences, and becomes one for the rest of the show, much in the same manner that Snidley (Alfred Molina) aspires to become a well-known criminal and fulfils that dream after the characters are introduced. Caught between these two is Nell Fenwick (Sarah Jessica Parker), the token good girl character common to all of these kinds of stories.

Essentially, this is the sort of thing you throw on for your kids when you want to keep them amused for seventy-odd minutes without stimulating their intellect to any degree. I think that, and the fact that it is ranked a mere 3.9 out of 10 on the Internet Movie Database after 225 votes, sums it all up for me. Another point you might care to consider is the fact that the short blurb on the back of the cover pretty much sums up the entire film, which is rarely a good sign in the world of film plots. When DVD technology filters down into daycare centres, you can expect to see this film being shown to a lot of bored children who, if they're anything like me, will be trying their hardest to just sleep through the whole thing and pretend it is a brain-sapping nightmare.

Transfer Quality

Video

This transfer is presented in an aspect ratio of 2.35:1 and it is 16x9 enhanced, which begs a single, rather simple question. Is this some kind of weird policy for Universal, in that great, powerful films such as The Thing miss out on this essential feature, while pieces of utter dribble like this get it? In any case, the transfer is razor-sharp from start to finish, with every subtle nuance of the picture being perfectly clear. All the better to torture you with. Shadow detail is perfect, with every important detail easy to make out in the darkness - more's the pity when Sarah Jessica Parker appears in darker shots. Low-level noise was not a problem at any time in the main feature. The colour saturation is spot-on for the aims of the film, which appears to have been to make a living cartoon, with all of the tones having a pastel-like, but also real, feel.

MPEG artefacts were absent from the transfer, which is to be expected when an eighty-minute film is compressed onto an RSDL disc, but the transfer rate seems to be all over the place in many shots. Film-to-video artefacts consisted of some very occasional aliasing on patterned clothing, but the most notable example of this was barely registered, being confined to Sarah Jessica Parker's chequered cloak, which shows very slight aliasing throughout parts of Chapters 6 and 7, about fifteen minutes into the film. Some shimmering also appears around the edge of the brim of Brendan Fraser's Mountie hat, but this is also an occasional and very minor problem. Film artefacts were not noticed at any time in the main feature, reflecting the youth of the film and the excellent condition that the source material has been kept in.

This disc is presented in the RSDL format, with the layer change coming in at 48:11. This is right in the middle of a conversation (albeit a very stupid one), and the Toshiba SD-2109 takes a good portion of a second to negotiate it, making the placement patently unacceptable.

Audio

Matching the plot-quality inversion in the video transfer is an audio presentation that is seriously inversional to the quality of the film itself. The audio is presented in a choice of two languages, both of them in Dolby Digital 5.1: the original English dialogue, and a 5.1-channel dub in German. The dialogue was equally stupid in both languages, so I decided to stick with the less interesting choice of the original English, which happened to be the default. The dialogue is clear and easy to understand at all times, even when it was spoken by Brendan Fraser, although Alfred Molina does get a little bit annoying after a while. Audio sync was never a problem at any point in the main feature, although I would have preferred something to make the sound effects a little more interesting, such as a major delay in the sounds of the explosions.

The music provided by Steve Dorff was your average comical score with a certain similarity to the Looney Tunes theme at times, reflecting the cartoon origins of the story. Much of the music has a certain heard-it-before feel, but it is well-suited to the onscreen action with the inherent idiocy of the characters reflected in the simple-mindedness of the cues. Thankfully, there is no contemporary music to intrude upon the feel of the film until the ending credits, which is a wise choice when you think about the silliness in the film's premise.

The surround channels received a moderate amount of use to support the music, but this was mostly a front mix with some surround elements. A few directional sound effects, most notably the sound of the Mounties charging and the tanks exploding, were noticed from time to time, but they were few and far between. The subwoofer had very little to do in this mix, spending a good proportion of the film with nothing to do at all.

Extras

An eighty-minute film on an RSDL disc generally translates into a lot of extras. Sadly, Universal have once again decided to isolate a very large proportion of the DVD buying community by making most of them DVD-ROM only.

Cast & Crew Biographies

Biographies are provided for Brendan Fraser, Sarah Jessica Parker, Alfred Molina, Eric Idle, Alex Rocco, Robert Prosky, and director Hugh Wilson. They are reasonably extensive, but the print is rather small.

Production Notes

These notes provide a description of what motivated the film's production and the technical challenges it presented.

DVD-ROM Content

This appears to merely be a mirror of the film's website, which makes me wonder why the hell it is included on the DVD in the first place. This could have been put to far better use by including an alternate version of the film where Sarah Jessica Parker is replaced by something pleasant to look at.

R4 vs R1

The Region 4 version of this disc misses out on;

DTS Soundtrack (encoded at 768 Kb/s instead of the traditional 1536 Kb/s)

There is nothing that would lead me to recommend either version over the other, as the DTS soundtrack reportedly sounds little different from the Dolby Digital soundtrack, and on-the-fly switching for comparison is not possible.

Summary

Picture Dudley Do-Right riding a horse against an army of tanks and infantry with machine guns. Like a lot of traditional comic book heroes from the past being brought into the present, it just doesn't work. The DVD is just fine.

The video quality is almost reference material.

The audio quality is somewhat limited in presence, but the fidelity is fine.

The extras are pretty ordinary.

Ratings (out of 5)

Video
Audio
Extras
Plot
Overall

Review Equipment

DVD	Toshiba SD-2109, using S-video output
Display	Samsung CS-823AMF (80 cm), 16:9 mode/4:3 mode, using composite and S-video inputs
Audio Decoder	Built In (Amplifier)
Amplification	Sony STR-DE835
Speakers	Panasonic S-J1500D Front Speakers, Philips PH931SSS Rear Speakers, Philips FB206WC Centre Speaker, JBL Digital 10 Subwoofer