Father Of The Bride

BUY IT

General		Extras
Category	Comedy	Theatrical Trailer(s)	None
Rating		Other Trailer(s)	None
Year Released	1991	Commentary Tracks	None
Running Time	100:55 minutes	Other Extras	None
RSDL/Flipper	No/No	Cast & Crew
Start Up	Movie
Region	2,4	Director	Charles Shyer
Studio Distributor	Warner Home Video	Starring	Steve Martin Diane Keaton Kimberley Williams Martin Short George Newburn
RRP	$34.95	Music	Alan Silvestri

Video		Audio
Pan & Scan/Full Frame	Pan & Scan	MPEG	None
Widescreen Aspect Ratio	None	Dolby Digital	2.0
16x9 Enhancement	No	Soundtrack Languages	English (Dolby Digital 2.0 , 192 Kb/s) French (Dolby Digital 2.0 , 192 Kb/s) Italian (Dolby Digital 2.0 , 192 Kb/s)
Theatrical Aspect Ratio	1.85:1	Miscellaneous
Macrovision	Yes	Smoking	No
Subtitles	English Portuguese English for the hearing impaired	Annoying Product Placement	No

    The broad plot revolves around George Banks (Steve Martin) whose twenty two year old daughter Annie (Kimberley Williams) returns from Rome with the news she is getting married, and his problems adjusting to the whole idea. Throw in the problems of an over the top wedding coordinator, the aforementioned Franck Eggelhoffer (Martin Short), and wife Nina (Diane Keaton) who sees nothing wrong with the concept of their daughter getting married, and what we have is supposed to be a fun ride towards the inevitable nuptials, with the joys of meeting the in-laws, arranging the wedding and the inevitable dust up between bride and groom.

    What we have is not exactly the greatest comedy ever made and, to be honest, this hardly raises a smile let alone a laugh. Far too cliched for its own good and lacking the spark necessary for any comedy to succeed, it is a pleasant enough film to while away a couple of hours. Steve Martin is adequate enough in the lead role, Kimberley Williams and Diane Keaton were acceptable whilst Martin Short is just plain annoying, as opposed to funny.

Video

    The video transfer is presented in Pan & Scan only, which is a tremendous let down as the Region 1 version is a widescreen presentation.

    The transfer throughout is quite sharp, and has a decent enough definition to it. The transfer is only let down by some marginally grainy sections predominantly later in the film. Shadow detail was in general pretty good, although not quite up to the very best standards of more recent films and hampered a little by the richness of the transfer.

    The transfer has a very rich colour to it, which gives it a little unnaturalness to some of the skin tones, but nothing seriously amiss. Because of the very rich colour tone, darker scenes come up just a little too dark at times. Despite the very rich tone, there is no hint of oversaturation at all.

    No MPEG artefacts were noted, although there were some minor video artefacts, most notably some aliasing; however, these would not be really noticeable unless you were really looking for them. There were film artefacts throughout the film, but none that were really noticeable and intrusive.
Audio

    This is an acceptable audio transfer, although Buena Vista has not gone to the trouble of a 5.1 remaster.

    There are supposedly three soundtracks on the DVD, all Dolby Digital 2.0 surround sound: the default being English, and the others being French and Italian. Unfortunately, there was no way I could get my player to access anything other than the English soundtrack, even after adjusting my player default language to French. I would therefore suspect that there is no soundtrack other than the default English, which is therefore the track that I listened to.

[Ed: All are accessible via the Set Up option on the main menu, but not via the remote control]

    Dialogue was clear and easy to understand, inasmuch as anything Franck Eggelhoffer said is understandable.

    There did not seem to be any audio sync problems at all with the transfer.

    The music score to the film is provided by Alan Silvestri, and a not especially memorable score it is either. Since it did not detract from the film, rather was barely noticeable, it must be deemed to be effective.

    Despite being only Dolby Digital 2.0 this is a quite nicely balanced soundtrack, not especially detailed, that provides a nicely spacious feel to the dialogue. The rear surround channels were not at all prevalent in the mix, but this was not missed at all.

    The subwoofer is not used at all in the film.

Menu

• Widescreen presentation (1.78:1)
• Theatrical trailer

    A decent enough video transfer, but why did we not get widescreen?

    A decent enough audio transfer.

    No extras whatsoever, as we are very used to from Buena Vista - except for the obligatory piece of paper advising us to ignore the Region 2 coding on the disc label.

Video
Audio
Extras
Plot
Overall

© Ian Morris
7th September 1999