Summer Rental (1985)

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General		Extras
Category	Comedy	Theatrical Trailer
Rating
Year Of Production	1985
Running Time	83:19 (Case: 85)
RSDL / Flipper	No/No	Cast & Crew
Start Up	Subtitle Select Then Menu
Region Coding	4	Directed By	Carl Reiner
Studio Distributor	Paramount Home Entertainment	Starring	John Candy Rip Torn Richard Crenna
Case	Amaray-Transparent
RPI	$24.95	Music	Alan Silvestri

Video		Audio
Pan & Scan/Full Frame	None	English Dolby Digital 2.0 (192Kb/s) French Dolby Digital 2.0 (192Kb/s) German Dolby Digital 2.0 (192Kb/s) Italian Dolby Digital 2.0 (192Kb/s) Spanish Dolby Digital 2.0 (192Kb/s)
Widescreen Aspect Ratio	1.78:1
16x9 Enhancement
Video Format	576i (PAL)
Original Aspect Ratio	1.85:1	Miscellaneous
Jacket Pictures	No
Subtitles	English English for the Hearing Impaired Slovenian French German Swedish Danish Norwegian Finnish Dutch Bulgarian Icelandic Portuguese Hebrew Greek Croatian Arabic Turkish Polish Italian Spanish Romanian Czech Hungarian Serbian	Smoking	Yes
		Annoying Product Placement	No
		Action In or After Credits	Yes

    Summer Rental is an amiable comedy from the mid-eighties starring the ever-loveable John Candy. Candy plays Jack Chester, a bumbler who takes his family on vacation to the beach only to fall foul of local business tycoon Al Pellet, played with glee by Richard Crenna. Pellet humiliates Jack in front of his family, so it is up to Jack to prove his worth in the eyes of his loved ones.

    There is something wholesome about John Candy and there is no denying that he was a great comic talent. Summer Rental shows Candy at his best, with him being both funny and endearing. His untimely death was a great loss and his comedy stylings are sorely missed.

    The film itself is pretty good, and although not gut-bustingly funny did manage to constantly bring a smile to this reviewer's face. The rest of the cast support the big guy nicely and the direction by legendary comic Carl Reiner is more than adequate.

    Summer Rental is good-natured comedy for the whole family.

Video

    Summer Rental is presented in the film's original aspect ratio of 1:85:1 and is 16x9 enhanced.

    Picture sharpness is reasonable - only occasionally did I notice the odd soft image. There are no aliasing or edge enhancement issues. Shadow detail is a problem, however. There is a real lack of depth to the picture which becomes a problem during distance shots, resulting in a lack of detail for individuals and objects.

    Grain is apparent on occasion, but is mostly absent. The only notable exception occurs at the 69 minute mark and lasts only a few seconds. There are no low level noise problems.

    Colours are natural and make use of the film's location work to good effect.

    There are occasional film artefacts, but they are not distracting.

Video Ratings Summary

Sharpness
Shadow Detail
Colour
Grain/Pixelization
Film-To-Video Artefacts
Film Artefacts
Overall

Audio

    We are presented with five audio tracks in Dolby Digital 2.0 surround format. The tracks are English, French, German, Spanish and Italian. The English track is reviewed here.

    Dialogue is always clear and there are no obvious audio sync hiccoughs.

    The film's music by Alan Silvestri is fairly non-descript and does not intrude.

    Surround channel usage is minimal, and other than the film's score I could detect no activity in the directional fields. Mind you, this film does not cry out for a dynamic mix.

    The subwoofer adds the requisite bass where required.

Audio Ratings Summary

Dialogue
Audio Sync
Clicks/Pops/Dropouts
Surround Channel Use
Subwoofer
Overall

Theatrical Trailer

    Standard non-anamorphic trailer.

    All versions of this DVD currently available are essentially the same.

    Summer Rental is a feel-good family comedy that showcases the talents of the late John Candy to good effect. The disc is bare bones, but does have a reasonable audio and visual presentation.

Video
Audio
Extras
Plot
Overall