2001: A Space Travesty (2000) (NTSC)

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General		Extras
Category	Comedy	Trailer-Bicentennial Man; Big Daddy; Evolution
Rating
Year Of Production	2000
Running Time	98:01
RSDL / Flipper	No/No	Cast & Crew
Start Up	Menu
Region Coding	1,4	Directed By	Alan A., Goldstein
Studio Distributor	Jeffrey Konvitz FG Sony Pictures Home Entertain	Starring	Leslie Nielsen Ophelie Winter Alexandra Kaamp Peter Egan Damian Mason Ezio Greggio
Case	Soft Brackley-Transp
RPI	$36.95	Music	Claude Foisy

    There is no doubt that the Naked Gun films are classics. Easily the best of their genre, they still stand the test of time, and play very well, even by today's standards. Why? The David Zucker theory paid off in these cases- "Throw as many jokes on the page as you can, and some of them will work". Sadly, not all slapstick films are successful using this method, and therefore, I guess we cannot blame Leslie Nielsen for delivering bad films, it is more the writers and directors that deserve most of our wrath. With this in mind, my main problem with this film, 2001: A Space Travesty, is that there were simply too many jokes- the opening sequence alone has such a "set 'em up and knock 'em down" feel that the movie never really had a chance to build any credibility.

    Come to think of it, The Naked Gun 2.5 was the last slapstick film that was any good. With some absolute shockers being released since, like Wrongfully Accused and the awful Rat Race last year, one has to wonder how much longer we will be subjected to these disgraceful pieces of cinema. With the lousy box office taking that Rat Race delivered, maybe even slapstick genius, David Zucker may have to find a new niche.

    2001: A Space Travesty is a fairly appropriate name for this film. I guess that if you were in the correct frame of mind and partially drunk, you may enjoy pieces of this film, but for the most part, it is pretty sad. Nielsen play Dick Dix (boom-boom) - some sort of intergalactic agent who is sent to the planet Vega along with the stunning Ms Menage (French singer Ophelie Winter) to rescue President Clinton who has been kidnapped by aliens. As is the case with these films, the plot really does not matter too much as it is the frequency and quality of the gags that makes us watch the movie. There are a couple of decent jokes hidden in this film, but consider that the writers have delved to such depths that some of the leading characters were named Dix, Menage, S***zu, Pratt, Kunstler and Wickernuts - it gives you pretty good idea of what we are dealing with here...

Video

    The feature has been 'formatted to fit your screen' which unfortunately means that it has been given the Pan & Scan treatment. Therefore, it is not 16x9 enhanced.
    
    The main problem with this transfer is its lack of sharpness and evidence of grain. There is a LOT of fine grain evident throughout the film with the worst cases to be found around 15:53, 44:56 and 57:34. While these are the worst cases, there is a fine grain and unclear picture for most of the film - it has a very soft look. There are also some instances of heavy edge enhancement, with the most noticeable being at 17:40, 21:00 and 21:27. There were no specific problems with shadow detail or low level noise.

    The colours in the transfer are very consistent. There are no colour-related artefacts in the feature. The planet Vega has a lot of primary colours and they are strong and constant at all times.

    There are no MPEG artefacts to be found, but plenty of film-to-video artefacts in the form of aliasing with some examples at 5:45, 6:33, 17:00, 19:53, 20:39, 22:00, 24:34, 50:19, 57:32 and 60:51. Because this is an NTSC transfer, we are open to seeing one of the most objectionable DVD artefacts - the NTSC '3:2 pull-down' or 'judder'. There are a lot of examples of 3:2 in this transfer with some of the many examples being found at 7:40, 17:20, 50:13.

    I watched about 30 minutes of the film with the English subtitles on, and they were adequately matched with the dialogue on screen. There are no other subtitles recorded here.

    This is a single layer disc.

Video Ratings Summary

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

Audio

    There is one audio track recorded on this disc, an adequate English Dolby Digital 5.1 soundtrack.

    The dialogue was clear and easy to understand for the most part, although at times it was significantly drowned out by the music and other sound effects. There were no problems with audio sync.

    The musical score by Claude Foisy is fairly lacklustre. It is not incredibly memorable and does not add anything to the picture.

    The surround channels are used very well throughout.

    Like the surround channels, the subwoofer gets used well when it is needed, and is quite effective.

Audio Ratings Summary

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

Menu

Theatrical Trailer - Evolution

Theatrical Trailer- Bicentennial Man

Theatrical Trailer- Big Daddy

• Nothing

• Nothing

    The video quality is flawed and to make matters worse, it has been cropped from its original ratio.

    The audio quality is decent but not without its problems.

    The extras are not very exciting.

Video
Audio
Extras
Plot
Overall