Dunston Checks In (1996)

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General		Extras
Category	Childrens	Theatrical Trailer
Rating
Year Of Production	1996
Running Time	84:35
RSDL / Flipper	RSDL (54:01)	Cast & Crew
Start Up	Programme
Region Coding	2,4	Directed By	Ken Kwapis
Studio Distributor	Twentieth Century Fox	Starring	Jason Alexander Rupert Everett Eric Lloyd Faye Dunaway Paul Reubens Graham Sack
Case	?
RPI	$26.95	Music	Miles Goodman

Video		Audio
Pan & Scan/Full Frame	None	English Dolby Digital 5.1 (448Kb/s) French Dolby Digital 2.0 (192Kb/s) German Dolby Digital 2.0 (192Kb/s) Italian Dolby Digital 2.0 (192Kb/s) Spanish Dolby Digital 2.0 (192Kb/s)
Widescreen Aspect Ratio	1.85:1
16x9 Enhancement
Video Format	576i (PAL)
Original Aspect Ratio	1.85:1	Miscellaneous
Jacket Pictures	No
Subtitles	Dutch English for the Hearing Impaired French German for the Hearing Impaired Italian Spanish	Smoking	Yes
		Annoying Product Placement	No
		Action In or After Credits	No

    Hotel Manager Robert Grant (Jason Alexander: Pretty Woman: 1990,  Seinfeld (TV): 1990-1999) is a single father trying to raise two sons and manage a five star hotel in New York. Although Robert keeps his sons in the lap of luxury, boys will be boys and they can't help themselves when the opportunity to have a bit of fun comes along. This includes spying on hotel staff and setting up practical jokes for the ones they don't like. This sometimes goes awry and gets the boys grounded for their efforts. But the boys are about to get more that they bargained for this time around.

    In the guise of Royalty, the self-proclaimed Lord Rutledge (Rupert Everett:  My Best Friend's Wedding: 1997) has checked into the hotel with the pompous and arrogant attitude expected, but also with a hidden agenda. For the supposed Lord Rutledge is in fact a common jewel thief with an uncommon accomplice: none other than Dunston the Orang-utan. This is a caper that the two have done before and as soon as Lord Rutledge is in his room, plans are afoot to fleece the diamonds and pearls of the hotel's guests. With an orang-utan loose in a five star hotel, someone would have to notice something and someone indeed does: the hotel manager's son. At first, no one believes young Kyle (Eric Lloyd) but soon the mounting evidence and strange goings on lead Kyle to convince his brother Brian (Graham Sack) that there is something going on and the hairy monster that Kyle is talking about is not a figment of his imagination. With an upcoming ball in the works and the hotel chain's owner (Faye Dunaway: Mommy Dearest:  1981) paying a visit, a scheming thief and accompanying orang-utan are not the best combination. It rests with the boys to save the hotel, their dad's job and indeed Dunston himself from the clutches of the cruel Lord Rutledge who is soon to find out that evil has a new enemy and justice has a brand new fac............hang on. Sorry, wrong movie.

    With director Ken Kwapis (He Said, She Said: 1991) on board and the surprisingly versatile Jason Alexander in a starring role, this film had all the makings of a great mass appeal film that would serve to entertain both young and old alike. Alas, this film only fulfils half its potential with really nothing to capture the attention of anyone above the age of 11. Don't get me wrong - there is plenty of family fun and harmless adventure for the young ones, but adults will only be passively entertained at best. This film makes Shrek (2001) look like American Beauty (2000) in terms of entertainment value to grown-ups. Performances are up to scratch with all concerned playing their 2 dimensional roles to reasonable effect including Paul Rubens (Pee-wee's Big Adventure: 1985) who plays an animal controller (exterminator) and an over-the-top Rupert Everett playing the perfect dastardly fiend.

    This film had the ability to be so much more than what it eventually became. If you need a movie to occupy the young ones that won't give them nightmares or make them ask "Mommy, why is that man lying on top of that lady?", then with the exception of some mild harsh language this may be the film for you. Set up the home theatre for the littlies and get a good book for yourself. Recommended for kids only.

Video

    We have a reasonably clear transfer here with sharpness being fairly good and an image that for this title is quite watchable. While most of this film takes place during daylight hours and in well lit locales, shadow detail is quite good with detail easily seen during some darker scenes such as at 25:39. Low level noise is kept at bay.

    Colour use is quite good with this feature and is sometimes presented in a sort of yesteryear style in keeping with the featured hotel's art deco look. Colour presentation as seen on this disc is also reasonably good with only a just slightly faded appearance. This could be due to the film stock used or could be intended by the director but in any case is no cause for concern with a watchable picture throughout.

    MPEG artefacts are not a major bane with this title with only the slightest pixelization visible at 54:31. Despite the many lines and straight edges seen on screen, aliasing is kept at bay with this title and no real issue raise their heads. Repeat offender edge enhancement makes only a minor appearance during this film and the worst to be seen is at 46:55. Film artefacts are largely absent and only the very occasional fleck is evident.

    There are several subtitle options available with this title and this reviewer watched over half of the film with the English subtitles enabled. This is because I wanted to be sure that what I had seen was not a once-off. It wasn't. What I saw were entire phrases missing from the subtitle text during many dialogue passages during the film. This wasn't the usual truncating of dialogue in written form as is sometimes the necessity of subtitling, but the wholesale deletion of dialogue at times. While the subtitles will do the job in conveying the general gist of the film, they are far from word for word.

    This title is formatted RSDL with the layer change taking place at 54:01 which is within Chapter 11. It is at a place that is fairly well chosen for a layer change and many players will render it unnoticeably.

Video Ratings Summary

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

Audio

    There are five audio tracks available on this disc with all but the English being in Dolby Digital 2.0 surround encoded. The English track is presented in Dolby Digital 5.1.

    The dialogue quality is quite good with the spoken word able to be understood throughout this picture.

    While the audio sync is fairly good during most of this title, there are a couple of times where the dialogue is not quite in sync due to what seems to be dialogue looped into the audio mix, such as at 9:08 and 15:44. These are minor instances, but they are there.

    Music for this movie was composed by Miles Goodman who passed away in 1996 at the very young age of 46. Like other films he composed scores for such as Footloose (1984) and He Said, She Said (1991), this film's score does the job well with a nice, light-hearted feel and jovial musical cues as required along with the occasional homage to other famous films as hinted at during the film.

    The surrounds are fairly active during this feature with much to be heard from the rear especially during many of the musical passages in the film (19:54 for example). This seems to be a native 5.1 mix and not some derived quasi-discrete mix as we get with some titles. Surround activity for the feature in regards to action on-screen is appropriate, but mostly atmospheric and works well in the context of the story.

    The subwoofer gets a minor workout with most of its role being as a back-up for the music. In this supporting role it works well and never unduly attracts attention to itself.

Audio Ratings Summary

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

    After the various copyright warnings and studio logos, we are taken directly to the feature. On selection of the Menu, we are offered the following options:

• Play
• Language Selection
• Scene Selection
• Trailer

    The Language Selection menu offers both the audio and subtitle options for the disc with the audio options being:

• English
• Francias (French)
• Italiano (Italian)
• Deutsch (German)
• Castellano (Spanish)

    The Scene Selection menu offers a group of 4 images from each block of 4 chapters selectable at the bottom of the screen. The 4 screen shot images are static with only the chapter number under each image and not the chapter's title. This menu features an image of Dunston climbing a pole and is presented silent, static and 16x9 enhanced.

Trailer:  Theatrical Trailer 1:06

    The video transfer is quite reasonable with a clean image presented throughout.

    The audio is quite good with a nice 5.1 mix that uses all the channels well without any gimmicks.

    The extras are almost non existent with only a theatrical trailer on offer.

Video
Audio
Extras
Plot
Overall