Van Wilder: Party Liaison (2002) |
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General | Extras | ||
Category | Comedy |
Main Menu Audio & Animation Featurette-Behind The Scenes Theatrical Trailer Trailer-Can't Hardly Wait; Joe Dirt; Not Another Teen Movie; Tomcats Music Video-Bouncing Off The Walls-Sugarcult |
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Rating | |||
Year Of Production | 2002 | ||
Running Time | 88:53 (Case: 92) | ||
RSDL / Flipper | No/No | Cast & Crew | |
Start Up | Menu | ||
Region Coding | 4 | Directed By | Walt Becker |
Studio
Distributor |
Myriad Pictures Sony Pictures Home Entertain |
Starring |
Ryan Reynolds Tara Reid Kal Penn Daniel Cosgrove |
Case | Amaray-Transparent-Secure Clip | ||
RPI | $39.95 | Music | David Lawrence |
Video | Audio | ||
Pan & Scan/Full Frame | None | English Dolby Digital 2.0 (320Kb/s) | |
Widescreen Aspect Ratio | 1.85:1 | ||
16x9 Enhancement |
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Video Format | 576i (PAL) | ||
Original Aspect Ratio | 1.85:1 | Miscellaneous | |
Jacket Pictures | No | ||
Subtitles | None | Smoking | Yes |
Annoying Product Placement | No | ||
Action In or After Credits | Yes |
Van Wilder (Ryan Reynolds) is a senior at Coolidge College. He has been there for 7 years and is more of a campus hero than anything else - he does not go to class, but instead plans zany schemes to 'paaartay' and have fun. When his father does not see the future in paying for Van's college education anymore, he puts a stop to his funding and Van is forced to fend for himself to keep him in the lifestyle he is accustomed to.
He works out through trial and error that his greatest skill is organising parties and being a 'big man on campus', so he starts up his own business along with his Indian assistant Taj Mahal and becomes Van Wilder: Party Liaison. All the while he is being pursued by the straitlaced Gwen Pearson (Tara Reid) who is trying to interview him for the college paper. Add Gwen's jealous boyfriend, the nerds, the jocks, the big breasted cheerleaders, the uptight faculty members and a dog with some major floating devices and you have enough gags to satisfy your audience who have obviously left their brains at the door.
In the end, this film is not THAT bad. It has a couple of jokes that are genuinely funny, but they use their shock element for most of their set pieces. Reynolds turns in a decent performance as Wilder - he plays it like Chevy Chase with a hint of Jim Carrey, and carries the film well enough. Reid is another story however- every shot of her in this film has bright lights reflecting in her eyes to make her baby blues shine out while she delivers another line exactly how she did the last one. She is only there for 'face' value and does not do much for the film itself.
Van Wilder: Party Liaison is a better than average 'teen sex' comedy, but that does not necessarily mean that it is everyone's cup of tea.
The transfer is presented in an aspect ratio of 1.85:1 and is 16x9 Enhanced.
The main problem with this transfer is its lack of sharpness and shadow detail. For a film that is set on the sunny backdrop of college life, you would expect that there would be a huge amount of bright, deep colours that would fly off the screen. There is one shot that appears out of focus at 60:55, but I believe that this problem stems from the production of the film, not the DVD. This is not the case as this plays with a lot of scenes where the on screen presentation is marred by murky images where it is hard to see what is going on. The most specific references are at 38:43 and 39:50. Coupled with this artefact is a massive amount of grain throughout the film, particularly at 28:40, 34:03, 38:41, 38:43, 39:50, 40:46, 44:02, 53:23 and 62:55. Together, these two problems make some of the film very unclear and difficult to watch as the quality at times is reminiscent of a VHS tape. There are a couple of instances of edge enhancement noticed at 41:02, 60:55, 83:01 and 83:12. They are fairly minor, but still worth noting for the record.
As mentioned above, the colours in this film should have been bright and beautiful. Again this is not the case due to its high amount of grain and lack of definition which makes the film appear dark and dirty. The colours do not leap off the screen like they did in the cinema, but there are no colour related artefacts to speak of.
There are no MPEG related artefacts, but a lot of film to video related artefacts in the form of aliasing. Noticed at 3:33, 7:59, 31:51, 40:01, 40:48, 41:21, 42:54, 43:18 and 67:00, these artefacts are very distracting from the action on screen. There are also a lot of film artefacts with the worst examples at 32:29 and 32:30 and to a lesser extent at 36:39.
There are no subtitles recorded.
This is not an RSDL formatted disc.
Sharpness | |
Shadow Detail | |
Colour | |
Grain/Pixelization | |
Film-To-Video Artefacts | |
Film Artefacts | |
Overall |
The dialogue often was drowned out by the surrounding music and effects. Often I had to rewind the film and turn the sound up to hear what was being said and then turn it down again a couple of minutes later when the sound came back up again. The actual clarity of what was being said was also sub-standard - I do not know whether this was a problem with the production of the film or of the DVD. There were no obvious problems with audio synch.
The music in this film is primarily contemporary songs from the radio. They pop up from time to time during party scenes and go away again just as quickly. The original music in the film is by David Lawrence.
There is next to no surround presence in the entire film.
The subwoofer is not used.
Dialogue | |
Audio Sync | |
Clicks/Pops/Dropouts | |
Surround Channel Use | |
Subwoofer | |
Overall |
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:
The video is grainy, dirty and unclear.
The audio is missing 3.1 channels and the dialogue gets drowned out.
The extras are terrible.
Video | |
Audio | |
Extras | |
Plot | |
Overall |
Review Equipment | |
DVD | Sony DVP-S525, using Component output |
Display | Loewe Xelos (81cm) 16:9. Calibrated with Video Essentials. This display device is 16x9 capable. |
Audio Decoder | Built in to DVD player. Calibrated with Video Essentials. |
Amplification | Onkyo TX-DS797- THX Select |
Speakers | Jamo X550 Left and Right, Jamo X5CEN Centre, Jamo X510 Surround |