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PLEASE NOTE: Michael D's is currently in READ ONLY MODE. Anything submitted will simply not be written to the database.
Lots of stuff is still broken, but at least reviews can now be looked up and read.
The Replacements (2000)

The Replacements (2000)

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Released 2-May-2001
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Details At A Glance

General		Extras
Category	Comedy	Menu Audio Listing-Cast & Crew Audio Commentary-Howard Deutch (Director) Featurette-Making Of Featurette-Making The Plays: An Actor's Guide To Football Theatrical Trailer
Rating
Year Of Production	2000
Running Time	113:28
RSDL / Flipper	RSDL (52:48)	Cast & Crew
Start Up	Menu	Cast & Crew
Region Coding	2,4	Directed By	Howard Deutch
Studio Distributor	Warner Home Video	Starring	Keanu Reeves Gene Hackman Orlando Jones Jon Favreau Brooke Langton Rhys Ifans
Case	Amaray-Transparent	Starring
RPI	$36.95	Music	John Debney

Video		Audio
Pan & Scan/Full Frame	None	English Dolby Digital 5.1 (384Kb/s) Spanish Dolby Digital 5.1 (384Kb/s) Italian Dolby Digital 5.1 (384Kb/s) English Audio Commentary 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	Miscellaneous
Subtitles	English Spanish Italian Dutch Swedish Norwegian Danish Finnish Icelandic Portuguese Hebrew Polish Greek Czech Turkish Hungarian Croatian Arabic Romanian Bulgarian English for the Hearing Impaired Italian for the Hearing Impaired	Smoking	No
		Annoying Product Placement	No
		Action In or After Credits	No

NOTE: The Profanity Filter is ON. Turn it off here.

Plot Synopsis

I must admit that after seeing the woeful Any Given Sunday, The Replacements was a breath of fresh air that I thoroughly enjoyed right from the opening scene. So, when I heard The Replacements was coming to R4 DVD, I jumped at the opportunity to review it. The Replacements is up-beat, entertaining and has a great storyline, even if it is a reasonably simple one. For those who don't know what this movie is all about, read on...

In 1987 many players of the American NFL (National Football League) went on strike, demanding more money. This movie is based around that pivotal event, although the actual events portrayed in the movie are fictional.

The owner of the Washington Sentinels puts their new coach, Jimmy McGinty (Gene Hackman), in charge of finding him a replacement team. Jimmy McGinty takes an unorthodox approach to picking his new team.

The key replacement players he recruits are; Shane Falco (Keanu Reeves), a star quarterback who retired after having a disastrous game where his team lost 45-zip; Clifford Franklin (Orlando Jones), the fastest receiver there ever was, but who has difficulty catching a ball; Nigel Gruff (Rhys Ifans), the kicker, who is "wirey"; and Bateman (Jon Favreau), an ex-cop linebacker who seems just a little crazy but really just needs an outlet for his anger. Of course, there are other recruits, but I'll let you learn about them for yourself.

The other important person in this movie is the principal cheerleader, Annabelle (Brooke Langton), who of course is the love interest in this movie, but she brings more to the screen and the story than just this.

The Replacements has a great soundtrack and the movie is worth watching just for it alone.

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Transfer Quality

Video

The picture is of such high quality that I struggled to find any faults with it, apart from a light sprinkling of small film artefacts.

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

The sharpness is magnificent, as is the detail. I was stunned on more than one occasion. One such example is where you can clearly see hundreds of individual blades of grass on the playing field! Shadow detail is perfect and no low-level noise, edge enhancement or edge bleeding or was noticed. During a pan shot at 20:13 - 20:27, the picture becomes decidedly blurry, but this is not a transfer-induced problem, as this blurriness was also present theatrically. In fact, it was actually more distracting at the cinema than on the DVD.

The colour was exemplary; beautifully saturated, rich and vibrant.

If you get your magnifying glasses out, and take a really close look at the background at 0:56 - 1:05 and 2:40 you will be able to see some minuscule grain, but really this is getting extremely picky.

No MPEG artefacts were noticed and not one instance of aliasing was seen either, which is a magnificent accomplishment, as the detail and picture content could have made this one a shocker. Not even the scenes that contained row upon row of stadium seating could make the picture alias and with only one totally inconsequential moiré artefact at 55:55, this DVD is as close to perfect as any DVD can be in this department.

The only area that denies this DVD from receiving a reference quality rating is film artefacts. Don't get me wrong - this area is still extremely good. I counted thirty tiny-to-small artefacts for the entire film. The three most noticeable of these (which are still small) are located at 16:16, 55:18 and 81:42.

This disc is an RSDL disc with the layer change occurring between Chapters 19 and 20 at 52:48, on a scene change. You will need a reasonably keen eye to spot this one, as its placement is excellent. What gives its position away is the short pause before the sound starts again. This is a very well-placed layer change that does not disrupt the flow of the movie.

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

Audio

The words fantastic and great pretty much sum up the audio quality of the soundtrack, with only a few trivial faults denying it reference quality status.

There are four audio tracks on this DVD; English Dolby Digital 5.1 (384Kb/s), Spanish Dolby Digital 5.1 (384Kb/s), Italian Dolby Digital 5.1 (384Kb/s), and an English Audio Commentary track which has a 192Kb/s Dolby Digital 2.0 surround-encoded soundtrack. I listened to the audio commentary and the English soundtrack.

The dialogue was very clear and easy to understand, with only one or two lines being just a little harder to make out. There were also a couple of instances where Gene Hackman's dialogue sounded ever-so-slightly distorted, such as at 31:52 and 92:18, but I do not believe this is a transfer-induced fault.

No audio sync problems were noticed with this transfer.

John Debney's music score is great and it really lifts the movie.

Surround channel use is fantastic. There is a lot of music in this movie and the surround channels are heavily utilized to support the music. There are also subtle sound effects and ambient noises. Put these things together and you have one hell of an enveloping soundtrack. Placement across the front soundstage was good, but I have heard better. Surround sound highlights...where to start? I could easily say "the whole movie", but I guess the best sequences in this great soundtrack would be at 17:53 - 18:07, 40:00 - 40:30 and 87:50 - 92:40.

The Replacements soundtrack doesn't have the pounding, window-and-floor-shaking bass of The Haunting, but the subwoofer is used extremely well in this movie. It is continually being used to add bass to most scenes (via the music) and is very active during some of the more action-oriented sequences. Highlights are at 11:39, 45:40 - 46:05, 61:30 and 100:20.

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

Extras

There is a pretty reasonable selection of extras present.

Cast & Crew

This section only contains a list of the main actors and the characters they played, plus key members of the crew.

Audio Commentary - Howard Deutch (Director)

This commentary features Howard Deutch in the centre channel speaking over the film's 192Kb/s Dolby Digital 2.0 surround-encoded soundtrack. I found the audio commentary to be good, with some interesting facts and behind-the-scenes information offered. There are some gaps, but overall it's pretty good.

Featurette - HBO Making of "The Replacements" (15:04 minutes)

This is basically a 15 minute promotional piece for the movie, hosted by Orlando Jones. It is mostly made up of movie footage, with some behind-the-scenes footage and interviews. The interviews and behind-the-scenes footage is presented in an aspect ratio of 1.33:1, while the film footage is presented in the non-16x9 enhanced aspect ratio of 1.78:1, with a accompanying 192Kb/s Dolby Digital 2.0 soundtrack. All footage except the locker room footage with Orlando Jones is of very good quality.

Featurette - Making the Plays: An Actor's Guide to Football (9:04 minutes)

This featurette is presented in the non-16x9 enhanced aspect ratios of 1.33:1 and 1.78:1. I personally felt this featurette was the better of the two, as it was more serious and interesting. It is mostly made up of behind-the-scenes footage and interviews, with only some movie footage. Picture and sound quality is very good.

Theatrical Trailer (2:23 minutes)

The picture quality of this trailer is great. It is presented in the 16x9 enhanced aspect ratio of 1.78:1, with a 192Kb/s Dolby Digital 2.0 surround-encoded soundtrack.

R4 vs R1

NOTE: To view non-R4 releases, your equipment needs to be multi-zone compatible and usually also NTSC compatible.

The Region 4 version of this disc misses out on;

Higher bit rate (448Kb/s) Dolby Digital 5.1 soundtrack. (The R4 version has a 384Kb/s DD5.1 soundtrack)
Cast & Crew biographies and filmographies

The Region 1 version of this disc misses out on;

Nothing

Apart from the slightly higher bit-rate of the R1 Dolby Digital soundtrack, the R4 DVD is definitely the superior DVD here, simply because of PAL's higher picture resolution and lack of 3:2 pull-down artefacts.

Summary

I really enjoyed The Replacements at the cinema and found it equally entertaining and enjoyable this time around. It is presented on an exemplary DVD.

The video quality is superb and only just misses out on receiving a reference quality rating.

The audio quality is excellent, with only a few trivial faults denying it reference quality status.