First Kid (1996)

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General		Extras
Category	Family	None
Rating
Year Of Production	1996
Running Time	96:41
RSDL / Flipper	No/No	Cast & Crew
Start Up	Language Select Then Menu
Region Coding	2,4	Directed By	David M. Evans
Studio Distributor	Walt Disney Studios Home Ent.	Starring	Sinbad Brock Pierce Blake Boyd Timothy Busfield Art LaFleur Robert Guillaume Lisa Eichhorn James Naughton Fawn Reed Erin Williby Zachery Ty Bryan Michael Krawic Bill Cobbs
Case	Amaray-Transparent-Secure Clip
RPI	$19.95	Music	Richard Gibbs Philip Giffin Michael Jay

Video		Audio
Pan & Scan/Full Frame	None	English Dolby Digital 5.1 (384Kb/s) Spanish Dolby Digital 5.1 (384Kb/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 English for the Hearing Impaired Spanish Swedish Norwegian Danish Finnish Spanish Titling	Smoking	No
		Annoying Product Placement	No
		Action In or After Credits	No

    Luke Davenport (Brock Pierce) is the only son of the President of the United States of America and the First Lady - hence where this film gets its title - he's the Presidential First Kid. Life as a thirteen-year-old confined to the White House and followed everywhere by a bevy of Secret Service agents is not all that exciting. Just entering puberty, and moving to junior high school for the first time is a stressful enough time for any youngster, but when everything you do in public makes the nightly news, the pressure is increased ten-fold. Life at home is also not that great, with a very busy father in the middle of an election year and both parents away for months at a time on the campaign trail. Having just got his most recent secret service agent, Woods (Timothy Busfield), dismissed for man-handling him in a clothing store, all while he was mooning the television crews from the change rooms, Luke is none-too-impressed when new recruit Sam Simms (Sinbad) takes on the job of guarding the presidential youngster. Simms is also not that keen on the role, since everyone in the White House staff knows that Luke is a spoiled brat and spells trouble at every turn. But he accepts the job begrudgingly since this is about the only way he can see of getting bumped up to protecting the big man - the President.

    The story from this point on is actually about agent Simms and not really about Luke at all. He's just an accessory to the story as Simms has to suffer the ignominy of attending school and actually having to sit through the science lessons with Luke (the fact the teacher is a pretty young thing around Simms' age seems to soften the blow somewhat). Luke goes through all the usual problems a new kid at school has to deal with - a bully in the form of Rob (Zachery Ty Bryan) and new love in the form of Katie (Erin Williby), a pretty girl who catches his eye. All this of course happens under the watchful eye of agent Simms. But the wish for a normal life is not about to come true for a lonely Luke. All he wants is a friend, but aside from a pal he has met online, the only person he has to talk to is agent Simms. Simms starts to feel sorry for the depressed kid and decides to help him out - effectively breaking every rule and busting the kid out of the White House one night for a little fun with some normal people.

    Sinbad is a funny guy. He's charming and carries a pretty large screen presence with him. Unfortunately, he alone cannot save this film from being anything more than your stock-standard, don't-offend-anyone Disney fare - despite the M rating (there's a little bit of gun-related violence in the climax).

Video

    The transfer for this film is really nothing to get excited over.

    It is presented in its original theatrical aspect ratio of 1.85:1, but it is NOT 16x9 enhanced.

    You could not call this transfer sharp. It is really quite soft, which is no doubt not helped by the non-anamorphic transfer, and there is plenty of edge enhancement throughout the entire film. Shadow detail suffers ever-so-slightly on several occasions. The level of grain is quite obvious, but it is rather fine and easily ignored. There is no low level noise.

    Colours are fairly bland, which is probably the most disappointing aspect of this transfer and there isn't a whole lot of vibrancy on offer.

    There are no MPEG artefacts. Aliasing pops up quite frequently, but it is quite trivial in size and duration. Film artefacts are quite abundant, though most are small enough to ignore.

    There are several subtitle streams available. The English variety are excellent, if perhaps a little obtrusive in their placement during the opening credits sequences.

    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 only two audio soundtracks on this disc. Both are Dolby Digital 5.1 efforts with the languages being English and Spanish. I naturally listened to the English soundtrack. It is an average soundtrack at best, though this is no fault of the transfer or mastering here, it is simply some rather uninspiring source material  There is reasonable separation across the front channels with a few directional effects, but basically nothing in the way of surround activity.

    Dialogue is precise enough without being startling. There are certainly no audio sync problems.

    The score is suitably presidential when needed.

    There is surprisingly little (if any) surround channel use.

    The subwoofer gets only a little work to do. It isn't really missed.

Audio Ratings Summary

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

    There are no extras.

    Reliable information is a little limited, but from what I can gather, the Region 1 disc is identical to the Region 4 version.

    First Kid is bit of a rarity for a Disney presented film - it's rated M (based on a bit of low level violence and some gun fighting). Sinbad acts like he's having a good time here, though the story is really not all that taxing on the brain and is basic Disney fare.

    The video is below average with a non-16x9 enhanced widescreen image that is quite grubby and soft.

    The audio is fairly basic with some separation across the front but little in the way of surround activity.

    There are no extras.

Video
Audio
Extras
Plot
Overall