Blank Cheque (Blank Check) (1994)

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General		Extras
Category	Comedy	None
Rating
Year Of Production	1994
Running Time	89:27
RSDL / Flipper	No/No	Cast & Crew
Start Up	Menu
Region Coding	2,4	Directed By	Rupert Wainwright
Studio Distributor	Warner Home Video	Starring	Brian Bonsall Karen Duffy Miguel Ferrer James Rebhorn Tone Loc Jayne Atkinson Michael Lerner
Case	Amaray-Opaque
RPI	$36.95	Music	Nicholas Pike

Video		Audio
Pan & Scan/Full Frame	None	English Dolby Digital 2.0 (192Kb/s) French Dolby Digital 2.0 (192Kb/s) Italian 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	English English for the Hearing Impaired Dutch	Smoking	Yes
		Annoying Product Placement	Yes, extremely
		Action In or After Credits	No

    The opening scene of this movie is uncharacteristically dark and violent for a Disney movie, but sets the scene for what is to come. Our bad guy is introduced, in the form of Biderman (Michael Lerner). As is usual for Disney movies, the bad guy is strictly one-dimensional, although in this case, not a lot of his actions during the movie really make a lot of sense when you stop and think about them.

    Next, our good guy is introduced, in the form of oppressed youngest brother of three Preston Waters (Brian Bonsall). Preston is perpetually short of cash due to a misguidedly-stingy father, so when an unfortunate congruence of events sees Preston's bike run over by Biderman, Preston finds himself in possession of a blank cheque.

    Preston does what any normal 11-year-old would do in such a situation - he fills in the cheque appropriately - to the princely sum of $1,000,000. Through a further improbable congruence of events, the cheque is cashed by the bank, and Preston embarks upon the spending spree of a lifetime.

    Pretty soon, Biderman and the FBI are after him, but we know that everything will turn out just fine and dandy for our junior embezzler since this is Disney, after all.

Video

    This transfer is presented in an aspect ratio of 1.85:1. It is not 16x9 enhanced.

    The transfer is reasonably sharp, but misses out on a lot of finer detail by virtue of its lack of 16x9 enhancement. This is mostly evident in the slight lack of detail in the backgrounds of images, which are simply not up to the level of detail that a 16x9 enhanced transfer is capable of providing. Image pans tended to result in a slight further loss of image detail.

    Shadow detail is reasonable, although not a lot of this movie takes place in conditions of low lighting. There is no low level noise.

    The colours were very highly saturated and cartoonish, occasionally to the extent of being oversaturated. Skin tones in particular took on an excessively reddish tone at times.

    There were no MPEG artefacts seen. Aliasing was occasionally problematic and much coarser in appearance than usual due to the non-enhanced nature of this transfer. All the usual suspects were responsible for the aliasing such as venetian blinds and car chrome. Additionally, the opening titles of the film shimmered notably. Film artefacts were rare and unobtrusive.

Video Ratings Summary

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

Audio

    Dialogue was generally clear and easy to understand. A few dialogue peaks here and there distorted a little, but this did not detract markedly from the intelligibility of the dialogue. There were no audio sync problems other than with clearly overdubbed dialogue in a number of scenes.

    The score by Nicholas Pike was surprisingly dark and ominous for a Disney movie and clashed at times with the relatively light-hearted visuals. The most jarring juxtaposition was during the opening sequence, when the music was far too serious for this type of movie, and you could easily be forgiven for thinking that you were about to watch a gritty crime thriller rather than a family movie.

    The surround channel was used unevenly. At times, it was silent. At other times, it would spring suddenly to life, calling attention to itself. All-in-all, it did not create the most immersive of aural experiences.

    The .1 channel was not specifically encoded, but the subwoofer was kept moderately busy with the music.

Audio Ratings Summary

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

Menu

    The video quality is passable, although the colour is oversaturated at times and there is a fair amount of aliasing.

    The audio quality is passable.

    There are no extras.

Video
Audio
Extras
Plot
Overall