Life with Mikey (1993)

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General		Extras
Category	Comedy	Menu Audio
Rating
Year Of Production	1993
Running Time	87:48
RSDL / Flipper	No/No	Cast & Crew
Start Up	Language Select Then Menu
Region Coding	2,4	Directed By	James Lapine
Studio Distributor	Walt Disney Studios Home Ent.	Starring	Michael J. Fox Nathan Lane Cyndi Lauper
Case	Amaray-Transparent-Secure Clip
RPI	$24.95	Music	Alan Menken

Video		Audio
Pan & Scan/Full Frame	None	English Dolby Digital 5.1 (448Kb/s) French Dolby Digital 5.1 (384Kb/s) German Dolby Digital 5.1 (384Kb/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 French German Dutch Swedish Norwegian Danish Finnish French Titling German Titling	Smoking	Yes
		Annoying Product Placement	No
		Action In or After Credits	No

    Life With Mikey is certainly one for the kids. The G rating and warm and fuzzy image on the front cover of this disc gives a pretty fair indication about what sort of film this is going to be - and it didn't disappoint.

    Michael J. Fox is Mike Chapman, a one-time child television star who starred in his own sit-com series, appropriately titled Life With Mikey, many years previous. Like all good child stars, he is now a complete has-been - reduced to staying at home watching repeats of his once famous series. He is also unable to get any acting jobs and is now reduced to making small cameo in-store appearances at the opening of cheap 'n' nasty fast food stores and living pretty much on the memories of past glories. For a living he runs a struggling talent agency with his brother Ed (Nathan Lane), and it's a talent agency dedicated to finding other child stars. Unfortunately the agency is not that successful, and despite holding several open days when prospective talent is encouraged to audition, the pickings have been pretty slim. In fact, the boys have just one successful client, Barry Corman (a young David Krumholtz) - an obnoxious ego-maniac and self-titled "cereal king" (since this seems to be the only television commercials he does - but they do pay the bills).

    Mikey's luck changes one day when he has his pocket picked by a young lady in the street named Angie (Christina Vidal). Impressed by the way she talks herself out of getting sent off to the police, Mikey decides to sign her up, convinced she can act and become the one client that the Chapman and Chapman Talent Agency so desperately needs. But all is not well with Christina's home life, and in particular the relationship she has with her alcoholic father. Mikey is also more than a little flabbergasted when Christina decides to move in with him in an effort to concentrate fully on her acting. He reluctantly agrees, providing Christina heads back to school. He then sets about finding her some commercials to star in, while also playing the stand-in father figure and trying to patch things up between her and her estranged father. In the process Mikey might just learn something about himself and the need to move on in life and not try to relive his past success.

Video

    This transfer is presented in an aspect ratio of 1.78:1 and is 16x9 enhanced.

    This is a pretty decent transfer in terms of sharpness though there is a little too much grain at times in some scenes. There isn't a trace of edge enhancement, and no low level noise. While certainly not setting the world on fire with an eye-popping image, what is on offer here is more than adequate for the intended audience of the film.

    Colours, while not jumping off the screen, are at least well rendered with no obvious problems. Skin tones are spot on.

    There are no apparent MPEG artefacts. Making a pleasant change is the lack of aliasing in any form. Probably the biggest fault is the appearance of the usual brief smattering of film artefacts in the form of white and black spots and flecks which appear throughout. These are not overly disruptive, just obvious.

    There are several subtitle options present. I verified the presence of them all and extensively sampled the English flavour. No apparent problems were noticed and the subtitles were about 90 per cent accurate.

    This disc is single sided and single layered so there is no layer change.

Video Ratings Summary

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

Audio

    There are three audio soundtracks on this disc. An English Dolby Digital 5.1 soundtrack was my choice, but there are also French and German Dolby Digital 5.1 tracks for those that need them.

    This is not a startling track by any means. There is some separation across the front channels, but the rears remained almost silent throughout. Dialogue is anchored front and centre but the left and right channels do carry some action and miscellaneous effect noise.

    The score for this film is by Alan Menken and is fairly light, breezy and well suited to a kids film.

    There is basically no surround channel use and the subwoofer is also seldom heard.

Audio Ratings Summary

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

   Menu Audio

    Not really an extra but it's all we get.

    I can't find much reliable information about this title in Region 1. From the limited bit I can find it would appear that their version is identical to this one.

    A fairly unoriginal family tale whereby the down-and-out adult is taught several important life lessons from the worldly child. Michael J. Fox doesn't really get out of second gear in this G-rated film, but there are a few laugh-out-loud moments - particularly the very funny audition scenes where a bunch of near talentless children are paraded in front of the agents by parents who really do think they are the next best thing.

    The video and audio are functional. They are without flaw, but are not really that startling.

    There are no extras.

Video
Audio
Extras
Plot
Overall