The Real Cancun (2003)

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General		Extras
Category	Documentary	Main Menu Introduction Main Menu Audio Dolby Digital Trailer-Rain Featurette-Cast Insights Deleted Scenes Featurette-A Day At The Beach Featurette-Highlights Of The Theatrical Premiere Theatrical Trailer-Highlights Of The Theatrical Premiere TV Spots
Rating
Year Of Production	2003
Running Time	92:45
RSDL / Flipper	Dual Layered	Cast & Crew
Start Up	Menu
Region Coding	4	Directed By	Rick de Oliveira
Studio Distributor	Roadshow Home Entertainment	Starring	Brittany Brown-Hart Benjamin Fletcher Nicole Frilot Roxanne Frilot David Ingber Jeremy Jazwinski Amber Madison Paul Malbry Marquita 'Sky' Marshall Laura Ramsey Matthew Slenske Alan Taylor Heidi Vance
Case	Amaray-Transparent-Secure Clip
RPI	$39.95	Music	Julie Greaux Adam Sanborne Michael Suby

Video		Audio
Pan & Scan/Full Frame	None	English Dolby Digital 5.1 (448Kb/s) English Dolby Digital 2.0 (224Kb/s)
Widescreen Aspect Ratio	1.85:1
16x9 Enhancement
Video Format	576i (PAL)
Original Aspect Ratio	1.85:1	Miscellaneous
Jacket Pictures	No
Subtitles	English for the Hearing Impaired	Smoking	Yes
		Annoying Product Placement	No
		Action In or After Credits	Yes, During end credits

    Ok, so I made up the last bit of the tag line for this film (the term 'film' is applied VERY loosely I should add). Using the MTV series The Real World as its inspiration, The Real Cancun is basically a feature length reality show. It's also been labelled as the world's first reality movie. Ignoring the claims of documentaries to this title, of which this film is most certainly not, if this bold claim can be believed let's also hope it is the very last. Is it really that bad? Well read on...

    Sometimes we request titles for review because it seems like a good idea at the time. Then the disc arrives and we need to sit down, watch the content and the extras and sit and write something about it. Normally this is pretty straightforward. But when you are expected to write something about a film which is so pointless and brain-numbingly dumb, the idea of requesting it in the first place doesn't seem like such a good one any more. Such is the case with The Real Cancun. "Why did you pick that for review?", my wife asks. Heck, I don't know the answer to such an easy question and I'm still trying to figure it out. It sure wasn't because of the entertainment value offered by this box-office stinker about 16 American college students heading for their spring break holiday in Cancun, Mexico with cameras following their every move.

    What we have here is basically a week of hormonal late-teens and early twenty-somethings partaking in plenty of sex, drinking, more sex, wet T-shirt contests, more drinking, partying, and you guessed it, more sex, all carefully edited down to just over 90 minutes. Unfortunately, even those of you hoping for a little titillation from a bit of undercover action or the odd naked body or two will be sadly disappointed. Save for a little topless action in the wet T-shirt contest, the director and editors have somehow managed to make the sex, drinking and partying all appear about as tedious as a session of parliament question time. Now that's no mean feat.

    What we have here is the story of 16 college kids whom we are introduced to one-by-one by way of their audition interviews. It is quickly apparent that collectively this bunch do not rate very highly on the intelligence scale. There are one or two that have some redeeming features and offer a glimpse of something interesting to tell. The purely platonic friendship between David and Heidi is based on something other than the rampant need to get into each others' trousers, but that story is pretty much left alone. Poor old Alan is another character who is interesting, and thankfully he does figure prominently in the story. He cops plenty of flak early on. He's the straight-up good guy who's never had a drink in his life and gets nervous around girls. As a result, Cancun is probably the worst place he could go for a holiday, and this appears to be borne out in the early scenes when it is apparent he is not fitting in with the rest of the house. But the process of him slowly succumbing to alcohol, then the lure of the girls in bikinis, to finally becoming an absolute party animal by the end of the week is the highlight of this sorry tale. The rest of the group are an odd assortment of fake-breasted bimbos (Sarah), a couple of himbos (Matt and Casey), a self-proclaimed super-stud who's super-confident about his ability to bed any female he wants (Jeremy), three almost token African-Americans caught in a contrived love triangle (Jorrell, Sky, and Paul), and the most vile pair of wretched twin wenches you have ever seen (the truly awful Nicole and Roxanne) who run wild at the wet T-shirt contest despite the fact that they are completely lacking in the two most vital body parts required for such a contest.

    Not all of the 16 cast get a guernsey in the film. Four of them barely get any screen time at all. This is a little bizarre as one of the girls (Laura) actually has sex on the first night with the human fornicating machine in the group - Jeremy. Now that's a story!

    As is the case so often with films that are a complete waste of time, the actual video and audio transfers are first rate. This one is no exception with the absolute highlight being a thumping, all-enveloping soundtrack of superb quality.

Video

    Originally shot on videotape and transferred to film for the theatrical release, this DVD transfer is actually quite decent with a myriad of colours and generally bright and sharp images all round.

    Presented in the original theatrical aspect ratio of 1.85:1, it comes complete with 16x9 enhancement.

    Overall, this is a finely detailed and sharp transfer with few problems. Grain is not an issue and there is no low level noise.

    The colours capture the warm vibrancy of Mexico perfectly, with lots of burnt oranges and reds. This extends to the skin tones, which some may consider slightly unnatural, but I felt captured the spirit of the place (sand and sun) perfectly.

    There are no compression artefacts. Video and film artefacts are also absent.

    There are only English (for the Hearing Impaired) subtitles available. I suggest turning them on for the duration of the film if you want to catch everything that is being said. It's remarkable that someone has actually managed to interpret many of the grunts and mumbles on offer here and turn them into something intelligible.

    This is a dual layered disc but I couldn't spot the layer change.

Video Ratings Summary

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

Audio

    This is a great soundtrack. It is almost worth sitting through the rubbish of the film just to enjoy a completely enveloping, thumping, dynamic soundtrack.

    There are a total of two audio soundtracks on the disc. A fully engaging Dolby Digital 5.1 surround track is joined by a Dolby Digital 2.0 soundtrack which I completely ignored because of the quality of the surround track. Pretty much all six speakers get used during the whole film for a really enveloping experience that may seem a little pretentious and cheesy, but then so is the content of the film so it matches up well.

    Through no fault of the disc authors, but rather the people actually doing the talking, the dialogue is extremely difficult to understand on occasion. Some of the cast mumble either through intoxication or just through complete lack of decent articulation. I was forced to watch the whole thing with the subtitles running just to fully comprehend much of what was going on.

    The music is certainly the highlight of this soundtrack. It truly rocks. There are many songs played throughout, ranging from the likes of 2 Live Crew with the delightfully named Pop That Pussy, Unwritten Law's The Rest Of My Life, Paradise City from Guns N Roses, and a couple of live performances from Snoop Dogg including Beautiful.

    There is heaps of surround use, most obviously whenever one of the thumping songs starts to play. Likewise, the subwoofer joins the party extensively whenever the music cranks up.

Audio Ratings Summary

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

    Unfortunately, someone has deemed it necessary to include a few extras on this disc. I am extremely thankful that there was no reunion of all the dumb shmucks that took part in this film for an audio commentary. Thank heavens for small mercies there.

Main Menu Introduction

Main Menu Audio

Dolby Digital Trailer

Featurette - Cast Insights

    How anybody expected these bunch of no-hopers to actually have any insightful comments is beyond me, but here they are. 26:52 minutes of interviews with 12 of the kids as they share their experience of the week away.

Deleted Scenes

    There are six deleted scenes that, considering just how similar they are to the main film, could have easily been left in and we would all be none the wiser. The final scene is more (4:47 minutes) footage of the wet T-shirt competition, but boys don't get too excited as it really doesn't offer anything new that you didn't see in the film itself.

Featurette - A Day At The Beach

    This is just some more footage that didn't make the final cut. There's an extended wet T-Shirt contest (again) clocking in at 7:47, a silly pie eating contest (1:17) and a spanking contest (1:06).

Featurette  - Highlights Of The Theatrical Premiere

    Yes, they actually gave this piece of rubbish a Hollywood-style premiere where the 'stars' got to walk down the red carpet before the film and talk to the waiting media hordes. They also speak to them again after the premiere to gauge reactions to their first viewing. Universally, they all loved it of course.

Theatrical Trailer

    A slightly bizarre 46 second trailer that contains about three seconds of actual film footage. The rest is made up of a voice-over and rapidly moving titles. As a result there is nothing given away or spoilt - but then what is there to spoil?

TV Spots

    Seven TV spots running for a total of 3:34. More like what the trailer should have probably been like.

    From what I can gather, the Region 1 disc is identical to this one.

    The Real Cancun encapsulates pretty much everything I hate in a film and especially the overrated mass-produced lowest common denominator reality crap. It is full of boring dumb-arse 'look at me' people doing completely boring dumb-arse 'look at me things' and thinking they are the hottest things around while they grapple like crazy to get their fifteen minutes of fame. It is a truly sad sight to see. There isn't even enough exposed flesh to keep any sort of interest going. Pass me a bucket please - I really have had enough of this sort of thing.

    The video is actually quite good considering the nature of the filming and the equipment used. In fact, it looks pretty awesome on occasion.

    The audio rocks and is absolutely the highlight of this complete piece of drivel.

    In one of those rare twists of fate, the extras are actually more interesting than the actual film (and they are over far quicker).

Video
Audio
Extras
Plot
Overall