The Brady Bunch Movie (1995)

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General		Extras
Category	Comedy	None
Rating
Year Of Production	1995
Running Time	84:51
RSDL / Flipper	RSDL (52:38)	Cast & Crew
Start Up	Programme
Region Coding	4	Directed By	Betty Thomas
Studio Distributor	Twentieth Century Fox	Starring	Shelley Long Gary Cole Michael McKean
Case	?
RPI	$24.95	Music	Steve Tyrell Guy Moon

Video		Audio
Pan & Scan/Full Frame	None	English Dolby Digital 5.1 (448Kb/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 Arabic Bulgarian Serbo-Croatian Czech Danish Dutch Finnish French German Greek Hungarian Icelandic Italian Polish Portuguese Russian Slovenian Spanish Swedish Turkish English for the Hearing Impaired Hebrew Norwegian	Smoking	Yes
		Annoying Product Placement	No
		Action In or After Credits	No

    Hands up those of you who have actually watched episodes of the original The Brady Bunch episodes on TV! OK, the rest of you - you are either probably too young or too embarrassed to admit the truth.

    The premise of the original TV series was quite simple, and in fact encapsulated within the lyrics of the theme song: "Here's the story of a lovely lady ..." A widow with three daughters (blonde, with straight hair) meets a man with three sons (brunette, with curly hair), they get married and form a family that becomes known as "The Brady Bunch."

    In the movie version, obviously created to capitalize on a seventies revival mania during the nineties, the premise is retained, except for some strange reason the whole family, including the house they live in, have been transported in time to the "present day" (mid-90s). Their wholesome family values and naivety become even odder in comparison to the crueller, uglier world of today.

    Although the film was partly written by the show's creator Sherwood Schwartz, it doesn't feel like an extended TV episode, and although there are many "in-jokes" and references to many of the original episodes, the humour in the film is more reminiscent of a Simpsons episode, with lots of social commentary and observations.

    The Bradys' neighbour Larry Dittmeyer (Michael McKean) is trying to persuade Mike (Gary Cole) to sell the family home as the whole block is about to be redeveloped, with profits for everyone. However, the Bradys refuse to budge. Larry sees an opportunity when the Bradys discover, due to misplaced mail, they owe the council $20,000 in property taxes and the council will forcibly auction off the house unless they can pay within the next few days.

    Of course, the kids find out about the predicament and hatch schemes to raise the necessary money. There are also many sub-plots, obviously references to the original episodes. In addition, there are quite a few cameo roles, such as Davy Jones playing himself, and RuPaul playing Mrs. Cummings. In addition, there are additional cameo roles featuring members of the original cast, such as Christopher Knight ("Peter") playing Coach, Barry Williams ("Greg") playing a music producer, Florence Henderson ("Carol") playing "grandma", and Ann Davis ("Alice") playing a truck driver.

    The casting is pretty good: each member of the family is played by an actor that bears a striking resemblance to the original cast member. All in all, this is worth watching if you are a fan, but may seem over-the-top if you are not.

Video

    This is a widescreen 16x9 enhances transfer, presented in 1.78:1, which is close enough to the intended aspect ratio of 1.85:1 based on a 35mm film print.

    Given that we have a 90 minute film spread over a single sided dual layered (RSDL) disc, you would expect the transfer to be good. To be sure, there are no visible compression artefacts, but I thought overall the transfer looked a bit on the soft side and the colours a bit dull. I suspect the film print has faded a bit over the years, and no colour correction was done during the transfer.

    There is a wide selection of subtitle tracks, covering most languages on the greater European continent, as well as both English and English For The Hearing Impaired. I turned on both English tracks briefly. Dialogue accuracy seems about average (the transcription on both tracks seem word for word identical), although some subtle phrases were not captured. The Hearing Impaired track also includes description of Foley effects, but doesn't feature a lot of dialogue attribution.

    The layer change occurs at Chapter 13 around 52:38 and is reasonably well placed as it occurs during a natural pause in between scenes - so should not be noticeable unless you are really observant.

Video Ratings Summary

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

Audio

    There are several audio tracks available: English Dolby Digital 5.1 (448Kb/s), French Dolby Digital 2.0 (192Kb/s), German Dolby Digital 2.0 (192Kb/s), Italian Dolby Digital 2.0 (192Kb/s), and Spanish Dolby Digital 2.0 (192Kb/s).

    Despite the use of the higher bitrate for the English Dolby Digital 5.1 audio track, the quality of the transfer appears average and I did not notice anything out of the ordinary.

    Dialogue was relative clear and crisp, and there were no audio synchronization issues.

    Background music was nicely rendered, though not exceptional.

    Surround and subwoofer channel usage are extremely limited, i.e. some faint ambience here and there, which is to be expected since the original theatrical print was encoded in Dolby Stereo which has been remixed into Dolby Digital 5.1.

    All in all, a fairly average track.

Audio Ratings Summary

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

    The menu is 16x9 enhanced but static, and available in several languages. There are no extras.

    There is censorship information available for this title. Click here to read it (a new window will open). WARNING: Often these entries contain MAJOR plot spoilers.

    The Region 4 version of this disc misses out on:

• English Dolby Digital 2.0 surround-encoded audio track

    The Region 1 version of this disc misses out on:

• Additional foreign language menus, audio tracks and subtitle tracks

    I would rate both versions as the same apart from foreign language content.

    The Brady Bunch Movie is a film adaptation of the popular and long running TV sitcom, starring a bunch of look-alikes and featuring many of the original cast in cameo roles. The Bradys now live in "modern day Los Angeles" where their wholesome ways attract ridicule.

    The video transfer is okay.

    The audio transfer is acceptable.

    There are no extras.

Video
Audio
Extras
Plot
Overall