The Odd Couple II (Neil Simon's) (1998)

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General		Extras
Category	Comedy	Theatrical Trailer
Rating
Year Of Production	1998
Running Time	92:24
RSDL / Flipper	RSDL (53:18)	Cast & Crew
Start Up	Language Select Then Programme
Region Coding	4	Directed By	Howard Deutch
Studio Distributor	Paramount Home Entertainment	Starring	Jack Lemmon Walter Matthau Richard Riehle Jonathan Silverman Lisa Waltz Mary Beth Peil Christine Baranski
Case	?
RPI	$24.95	Music	Alan Silvestri

Video		Audio
Pan & Scan/Full Frame	None	English Dolby Digital 5.1 (448Kb/s) German Dolby Digital 5.1 (448Kb/s) Spanish Dolby Digital 5.1 (448Kb/s) French Dolby Digital 5.1 (448Kb/s) Italian Dolby Digital 5.1 (448Kb/s)
Widescreen Aspect Ratio	2.35:1
16x9 Enhancement
Video Format	576i (PAL)
Original Aspect Ratio	2.35:1	Miscellaneous
Jacket Pictures	No
Subtitles	English German Spanish French Italian Danish Dutch Norwegian Swedish Turkish English for the Hearing Impaired	Smoking	Yes
		Annoying Product Placement	No
		Action In or After Credits	No

    In 1968, The Odd Couple was released. Thirty years later, in 1998, came the sequel - The Odd Couple II. Everyone likes different things and this is a classic example. For me, the second film was funnier than the first but the scores on the IMDB do not follow my thinking at all. In fact, they are the other way round.

    I think as a sequel it works very well. I like the introduction of the road trip concept into the buddy film that we had in the first film. Felix and Oscar, by the strange and sometimes downright inimical hand of fate, are off to their children's wedding. The fact that they are going to the same wedding is where fate has dealt the cards from a loaded deck.

    The two actors have aged but have not lost one iota of their wit and acting ability. If anything, it has been sharpened by the passage of time. The film does rely heavily on the age gags and on reflected humour from the first film, such as where Felix is still clearing his sinuses the same way even thirty years on. Having only recently reviewed the original film, everything was fresh in my mind and this may have made the references a little clearer. This is probably the way to view these films - about two weeks apart.

    Our two friends/antagonists are off on a car trip to an obscure little town somewhere near San something or other. Along the way, fate and their own actions combine to leave them stranded, arrested, kidnapped, and so on through an enjoyable 92 odd minutes.

Video

    The transfer is presented at 2.31:1 and is 16x9 enhanced.

    Sharpness is good most of the time, but fast moving objects do lose definition. An example is seen at 0:27, a scene with a baseball pitcher. Black levels and shadow detail are both good, and there are only very minor levels of low level noise.

    The colours are very good. They are bright and free of noise.

    There are subtle MPEG artefacts throughout the transfer. At 12:30 the background exhibits blocking around the scene change. Another example of this is at 45:22. There is also some edge enhancement such as at 5:22 and 24:32. There are only minor film artefacts present.

    The subtitles are reasonably accurate, though they do occasionally miss some dialogue. There are also English for the Hearing Impaired titles that include some audio cues.

    The layer change occurs at 52:18 and is not too distracting.

Video Ratings Summary

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

Audio

    Despite being a Dolby Digital 5.1 soundtrack there is little other than the music in the surrounds and the sub only had one minor occasion to sound off.

    There are English, French, German Spanish and Italian soundtracks on this DVD, all in Dolby Digital 5.1. I listened to the English track.

    There are no problems with the dialogue nor with the audio sync.

    The music worked well within the film and made excellent use of the famous theme song.

    Other than music, there was little surround activity. The subwoofer only came to life during a single car explosion.

Audio Ratings Summary

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

Menu

    A static picture menu with no audio.

Theatrical Trailer (2:21)

    Presented at 1.33:1 and accompanied by a Dolby Digital 2.0 soundtrack. The quality is the same as the main feature.

    The discs appear identical across the planet with R2 and R1 the same as ours. Not having personally seen the transfer in other countries I cannot comment on the quality so will give R4 the nod on personal preference for a PAL transfer.

    I almost seem to be alone in liking this film. Admittedly, it is not great cinema but it makes for a nice Rainy Saturday Afternoon watch.

    The video is a bit disappointing.

    The audio is front-heavy.

    A trailer does not make a big impression as the total of the extras.

Video
Audio
Extras
Plot
Overall