Inspector Gadget (1999) |
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General | Extras | ||
Category | Family | None | |
Rating | |||
Year Of Production | 1999 | ||
Running Time | 75:11 | ||
RSDL / Flipper | RSDL (43:39) | Cast & Crew | |
Start Up | Menu | ||
Region Coding | 2,4 | Directed By | David Kellogg |
Studio
Distributor |
Warner Home Video |
Starring |
Matthew Broderick Rupert Everett Joely Fisher Michelle Trachtenberg Michael G. Hagerty Andy Dick Cheri Oteri D.L. Hughley Dabney Coleman |
Case | Amaray-Transparent | ||
RPI | $34.95 | Music | John Debney |
Video | Audio | ||
Pan & Scan/Full Frame | None |
English Dolby Digital 5.1 (384Kb/s) French Dolby Digital 5.1 (384Kb/s) Italian Dolby Digital 5.1 (384Kb/s) Dutch Dolby Digital 2.0 (192Kb/s) Greek Dolby Digital 2.0 (192Kb/s) Hungarian Dolby Digital 2.0 (192Kb/s) Polish Dolby Digital 2.0 (192Kb/s) Czech Dolby Digital 2.0 (192Kb/s) |
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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 |
French Italian Dutch English for the Hearing Impaired Icelandic Croatian Hebrew |
Smoking | No |
Annoying Product Placement | No | ||
Action In or After Credits | Yes, better than the film itself, in fact |
Another annoying factor that could not be more obvious when watching this dreadful film is that its director David Kellogg (whose only other credit is the 1991 film entitled Cool As Ice (as in starring Vanilla Ice), or anyone else involved in the production for that matter, had obviously never caught an episode of the original show. This is made apparent when Doctor Claw (Rupert Everett) tells one of his henchmen that his name is "just Claw... one word". Bzzzzt! Wrong, Disney! It's Doctor Claw - two words - and if there was one unwritten rule in the series, it was this: the face of the rather vile Doctor Claw (who sounded like a cross between James Earl Jones and Lee Dorrian in the cartoon) was never seen. All you ever saw of Doctor Claw during the television series was an arm with a fully-featured hand. This is undoubtedly what led some reviewers to caption publicity shots of Inspector Gadget (Matthew Broderick) and Chief Quimby (Dabney Coleman) with such nasty comments as "Gee, chief, do you feel like an imposter, too?". Then there's the whole usage of Matthew Broderick in this sad piece: I don't know what the hell the staff at Disney think of when they comission a film project, but the first thing I would be thinking when casting for the role would be to get someone who actually looks and sounds like a man. Don Adams might not be in the same vocal class as James Earl Jones, but he might as well be when you compare his voice to that of Broderick. The second Broderick begins reciting the lines that are supposed to activate the plethora of equipment buried within his person, you know its all going to be downhill.
In a nutshell, the sad pretense of a story that is contained in this dreadful film goes something like this. John Brown (Matthew Broderick) is a security guard who wants to be a policeman, but lacks the necessary experience to qualify. Stop and think about that for a second: Matthew Broderick as a security guard who wants to be a policeman, but lacks the necessary experience to qualify. Anyway, during an attempt to catch Doctor Claw (Rupert Everett) after he raids a facility where cybernetics are being researched, John is blown up. Doctor Brenda Bradford (Joely Fisher), whose father was murdered in the raid, transforms John Brown into what Mayor Wilson (Cheri Oteri) describes as the future of law enforcement: Inspector Gadget, or rather a poor substitute for Robocop. Anyway, anything that resembles a plot is really just an excuse for cheap gags that mostly fall flat, and the real hero of the real stories, a dog named Brain, is reduced to an annoyance. Save your money and wait for the real Inspector Gadget to arrive on DVD.
(One last note: oddly enough, Don Adams actually does feature in this travesty, as the voice of Brain for a single scene. Too little, too late.)
No MPEG artefacts were noticed at any point in the film, reflecting the fact that this is a seventy-five minute film compressed over two layers. Film-to-video artefacts consisted of some mild aliasing in areas that you would be hard pressed to notice. Film artefacts were the only disappointment here, as there were one or two large black marks on the picture that distracted a little from the film, although you may not notice them if you're not actually reviewing the film. This really should not happen on a film that is less than a year old, and only lasted a handful of weeks (if that) at the theatres.
Surprisingly, this disc is presented in the RSDL format, with the layer change taking place after Inspector Gadget is caught inside Doctor Claw's headquarters, at 43:39. Although this layer change is quite noticeable on the Toshiba SD-2109, it does not interrupt the flow of the film at all.
The music in this film was a mix of contemporary songs and a score supervised by Peter Afterman, with neither of these inclusions leaving any impression upon me at any point. The much-overused theme from The Good, The Bad, And The Ugly, as composed by Ennio Morricone, makes an appearance during one scene, but this was the only memorable music in the film. Like much of the rest of this film, the general mix of music in this film left very little impression upon me.
The surround channels were used to support everything from helicopter rotors to springed legs, creating a subtle, but involved surround presence that makes for a pleasurable listening experience. A lot of the music was poured through the surround channels, with the dialogue focused on the center and stereo speakers. There are no overly impressive effects directed into any specific channel, but this is a soundtrack that certainly enhances the feel of the film. The subwoofer had some fun with the occasional explosions and car crashes, being very well integrated with the rest of the soundtrack to create a nice, subtle low end.
NOTE: To view non-R4 releases, your equipment needs to be multi-zone compatible and usually also NTSC compatible.
The video quality is near enough to reference quality as makes no odds.
The audio quality is very good.
The extras are non-existent.
Video | |
Audio | |
Extras | |
Plot | |
Overall |
Review Equipment | |
DVD | Toshiba 2109, using S-Video output |
Display | Samsung CS-823AMF (80cm). This display device is 16x9 capable. This display device has a maximum native resolution of 576i (PAL). |
Audio Decoder | Built in to amplifier/receiver. |
Amplification | Sony STR DE-835 |
Speakers | Panasonic S-J1500D Front Speakers, Sharp CP-303A Back Speakers, Philips FB206WC Centre Speaker, JBL Digital 10 Subwoofer |