Mallrats (1995)

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General		Extras
Category	Comedy	Theatrical Trailer-2:16
Rating
Year Of Production	1995
Running Time	91:13
RSDL / Flipper	No/No	Cast & Crew
Start Up	Language Select Then Menu
Region Coding	2,4	Directed By	Kevin Smith
Studio Distributor	Universal Pictures Home Video	Starring	Jeremy London Jason Lee Shannen Doherty Claire Forlani Ben Affleck Joey Lauren Adams Renee Humphrey Jason Mewes Kevin Smith Ethan Suplee Michael Rooker
Case	?
RPI	$19.95	Music	Ira Newborn

Video		Audio
Pan & Scan/Full Frame	None	English Dolby Digital 5.0 (384Kb/s) German Dolby Digital 2.0 (192Kb/s)
Widescreen Aspect Ratio	1.78:1
16x9 Enhancement
Video Format	576i (PAL)
Original Aspect Ratio	1.85:1	Miscellaneous
Jacket Pictures	No
Subtitles	English for the Hearing Impaired German Dutch Swedish Norwegian Danish Finnish	Smoking	Yes, tobacco, and other substances...
		Annoying Product Placement	No
		Action In or After Credits	No

    TS (Jeremy London) and Brodie (Jason Lee) have just been dumped by the girls they love. Like all real men, they try to distract themselves from the hurt they are feeling by heading to the mall. Or something like that...

    Brodie is heavily obsessed with comics (a theme that reappears in Chasing Amy) and the mall - he is concerned about minutiae such as whether the cookie shop is considered part of the food court. It's TS who is the fundamentally nice guy we're barracking for. Unfortunately, TS is too nice to be really interesting, so we get stuck with more of Brodie. Oh, well.

    Mallrats is a modern love story, but it's written and directed by Kevin Smith. He believes, quite strongly, in having several story threads running at once. We follow the romance between TS and Brandi (Claire Forlani), the story of Brandi's dad (Michael Rooker) and his new TV show, the lust between Brodie and Rene (Shannen Doherty). Then there are the supporting cast, including the obligatory Jay (Jason Mewes) and Silent Bob (Kevin Smith - the director). Keep watching out for the minor characters, like Tricia, Willem, and Gwen - they are interesting, if a bit strange. 

    If you've read other reviews, you'll have read that Clerks (the movie Kevin Smith made before this one) and Chasing Amy (the movie after this one) are both wonderful, and this one isn't. I don't quite agree. This movie is not complicated or "deep", but it is fun. There are times when what you want is not an intellectual challenge, or a deeply meaningful experience, but rather a piece of simple fun. Part of the fun in this movie is the strange concepts, and sophisticated conversation, that are sprinkled throughout it. These moments are interspersed with a fair bit of foul language (why do some Americans think that's funny?), a lot of discussion of sex, and the occasional naked breast. 

    You will get more out of this movie if you know most movies derived from comics made in the last 30 years.

    In essence, this is an enjoyable movie, unless you are put off by the language.

Video

    This film is presented on DVD in an aspect ratio of 1.78:1. It is 16x9 enhanced.

    The picture is a little bit soft for every shot except real close-ups (which are quite sharp), but always clear. Shadow detail is good, and there's no low level noise.

    Colour is excellent, and the transfer gets plenty of chance to show it off. There is no colour bleed, and no oversaturation.

    The only aliasing that appears is minor, and barely visible. There are a couple of moments of minimal background shimmer. There are no significant film artefacts. This is really quite a clean transfer.

    There are subtitles in seven languages; they are accurate, well-timed, and easy to read.

    The disc is single-sided and single-layered. No layer change, which is always nice.

Video Ratings Summary

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

Audio

    There are only two soundtracks, one in English (Dolby Digital 5.0), and one in German (Dolby Digital 2.0, surround encoded). I only listened to the English soundtrack.

    The dialogue is easy to understand. There are no visible audio sync problems.

    The score (by Ira Newborn) is good, including some major shopping mall muzak. There are many songs during the film, by a variety of contemporary bands.

    The surrounds get one moment of directional sound, but otherwise they do little but provide some depth to the score. It is a 5.0 soundtrack, so the subwoofer gets nothing to do - it is no loss, because there are no gunshots or explosions in this film (does that qualify as a spoiler?).

Audio Ratings Summary

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

Menu

    The menu is static and silent.

Trailer (2:16)

    This trailer is presented in an aspect ratio of 1.33:1, not 16x9 enhanced. It has rather poorer video quality than the movie.

    The Region 1 version of this disc is reportedly similar quality to this one, but it has a far wider range of extras, including a commentary, production notes, a lot of deleted footage, a "making of", and more. What we get is very much the cut-price quickie by comparison. Still, the list price of the R1 is almost US$30, which is roughly triple the price of the R4. Tough choice.

    Mallrats is a fun movie, presented reasonably well on DVD.

    The video quality is decent, although somewhat soft.

    The audio quality is good.

    The extra is basic.

Video
Audio
Extras
Plot
Overall