Fools Rush In (1997)

This review is sponsored by

BUY IT

General		Extras
Category	Romantic Comedy	Dolby Digital Trailer-City Theatrical Trailer Trailer-It Could Happen To You; Sleepless In Seattle Trailer-My Best Friend's Wedding
Rating
Year Of Production	1997
Running Time	104:40
RSDL / Flipper	RSDL (58:00)	Cast & Crew
Start Up	Menu
Region Coding	2,4	Directed By	Andy Tennant
Studio Distributor	Sony Pictures Home Entertain	Starring	Matthew Perry Salma Hayek Jon Tenney Carlos Gomez Tomas Milian Siobhan Fallon John Bennett Perry Stanley DeSantis Anne Betancourt Suzanne Snyder Jill Clayburgh
Case	Soft Brackley-Transp
RPI	$36.95	Music	Alan Silvestri

Video		Audio
Pan & Scan/Full Frame	None	English Dolby Digital 5.1 (448Kb/s) French Dolby Digital 5.1 (448Kb/s) German Dolby Digital 5.1 (448Kb/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 French German Dutch Arabic Bulgarian Croatian Czech Danish Finnish Greek Hebrew Hindi Hungarian Icelandic Norwegian Polish Swedish Turkish	Smoking	Yes
		Annoying Product Placement	No
		Action In or After Credits	No

    Fools Rush In is the first half of a proverb: "Fools rush in where angels fear to tread". Yeah, yeah, you knew that.

    Alex Whitman (Matthew Perry, playing a role somewhat like his role in Friends, but doesn't he always?) is a successful man. He supervises the building and opening of new nightclubs, with the latest one being built in Las Vegas. Isabel Fuentes (Salma Hayek, playing a completely new role, but doesn't she always?) is a photographer, working in a Las Vegas night club to pay the bills, but with big plans to publish a book of photographs of the magnificent landscapes around Las Vegas. Two completely different people who bump into one another in a restaurant, waiting in line for the toilet (how romantic? Well, it is different...). They spend one passionate night together, and practice safe sex, but clearly not safe enough - she shows up three months later, pregnant. That's when things get interesting.

    I find it intensely annoying (in a movie, or novel) when a conflict between two people is caused by one of them failing to discuss something with the other. Makes me wonder if the writer has been married. There are lots of more realistic ways to introduce conflict. Apart from that, this is a nicely made movie, and it is quite believable that these two characters can fall in love. They are both warm caring people, and it is easy for the audience to care about them (especially Salma Hayek - she is absolutely gorgeous in this part). And the ending is judged just right - very important.

    Hey, guys - this is an excellent movie to choose if you want to seem sensitive, and you may enjoy it, too. Make sure you are prepared to explain where Alex went wrong, and what he should have done differently. And try not to ogle Salma Hayek too openly...

    Hey, ladies - here's one you might get your boyfriend to watch without inflicting permanent damage. And he might like it, but he may not admit it. Oh, and if you can manage to cook the way she does, you'll have him hooked for life!

Video

    This film is presented in an aspect ratio of 1.78:1, and is 16x9 enhanced, very important with such scenery on display. The transfer looks beautiful on a widescreen display.

    The picture is sharp and clear. There's excellent shadow detail and no low level noise.

    Colour is superb, with very vivid colours in the Nevada (and Mexican) sunlight. There are no problems with the colour rendition in this transfer at all.

    There is a bit of film grain (especially around 67:11), but it is never a problem. There are a couple of miniscule film artefacts, but you really have to strain to see them. There's virtually no aliasing or moire, which is quite impressive. There is an infinitesimal amount of MPEG shimmer, but it's hard to spot. All-in-all, this is an extremely clean transfer - I'd rate it spotless on any TV 80cm or below.

    There are heaps of subtitles, with three pages of subtitle setup! There are also subtitles (in English) burned into the image for some of the Spanish dialogue - it looks a bit silly to see the same words subtitled twice, but the English subtitles repeat what the burned-in ones say - I'd have thought they'd have had the sense to omit the English subtitles for that portion of the dialogue, but no. The English subtitles are quite good - easy to read, well-timed, and quite accurate. I caught one slip, where the dialogue says "your" but the subtitles read "our" - it's a small error, and doesn't affect the meaning of the scene.

    The disc is single sided (with a nice picture label) and RSDL-formatted. The layer change is to be found at 58:00. It is placed at a scene change, and is essentially invisible on some players.

Video Ratings Summary

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

Audio

    The soundtrack is available in three languages, but I only listened to the English Dolby Digital 5.1 one (presented at 448kbps - the higher bitrate).

    The dialogue is clear and comprehensible. Audio sync is never a problem.

    The score is courtesy of Alan Silvestri. It is nothing extraordinary, but it is pleasant. There's a cute reference in the music to The Magnificent Seven at the moment we see the 400-year-old hacienda in Mexico, but it's an isolated moment.

    This may be a 5.1 soundtrack, but there's no apparent reason for it - there's nothing noticeable in the way of directional sound, and the subwoofer does nothing significant. There's a bit of ambience leaked into the surrounds, but that's about it..

Audio Ratings Summary

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

Menu

    The menu is static and silent. Easy to operate, but that's pretty much it.

Trailers 

    There are four trailers (wonder if there's anything in common with these movies?):

• Fools Rush In (2:28)
• It Could Happen to You (2:15)
• Sleepless in Seattle (2:30)
• My Best Friend's Wedding (2:18) 

    The Region 1 disc is one of those widescreen on one side / fullscreen on the other side discs. We get the benefit of having the widescreen presentation spread over two layers - I like that. We get lots of subtitle languages - the R1 doesn't. The R1 video quality sounds equal to the R4. I don't think you'd regret buying either.

    Fools Rush In is a pleasant romantic comedy, given an excellent transfer onto DVD.

    The video quality is very good.

    The audio quality is perfectly adequate.

    The extras are rudimentary.

Video
Audio
Extras
Plot
Overall