Splash

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General		Extras
Category	Comedy	Theatrical Trailer(s)	None
Rating		Other Trailer(s)	None
Year Released	1984	Commentary Tracks	None
Running Time	105:20 minutes	Other Extras	None
RSDL/Flipper	No/No	Cast & Crew
Start Up	Movie
Region	2,4	Director	Ron Howard
Studio Distributor	Warner Home Video	Starring	Tom Hanks Darryl Hannah  Eugene Levy  John Candy
Case	Amaray
RRP	$34.95	Music	Lee Holdridge

Video		Audio
Pan & Scan/Full Frame	None	MPEG	None
Widescreen Aspect Ratio	1.78:1	Dolby Digital	2.0
16x9 Enhancement	No	Soundtrack Languages	English (Dolby Digital 2.0 , 192 Kb/s)  French (Dolby Digital 2.0 , 192 Kb/s)  Italian (Dolby Digital 2.0 , 192 Kb/s)
Theatrical Aspect Ratio	1.85:1	Miscellaneous
Macrovision	Yes	Smoking	No
Subtitles	English English for the Hearing Impaired	Annoying Product Placement	No
		Action In or After Credits	Yes, in credits

    As a young child, Allen Bauer (Tom Hanks) throws himself off a cruise ship off Cape Cod, only to be saved from drowning by a mysterious young mermaid. Jump forward twenty years and the same Allen Bauer is running a produce company in New York, with the dubious assistance of brother Freddie (John Candy), and wondering whether he will ever find the right woman (I know how he feels). After another traumatic break up and a night of bingeing with his brother, Allen grabs a cab and heads off to Cape Cod to recuperate. Dropped on the wrong side of the shore, he gets a local to ferry him across the bay in a small boat. Allen cannot swim so when he falls overboard he is in serious trouble until rescued once again by a mysterious, beautiful mermaid, later to be called Madison (Darryl Hannah). Allen falls in love with Madison but returns to New York without her, until Madison turns up at the Statue of Liberty stark naked, with only Allen's wallet on her. Cue the usual boy meets girl, boy likes girl stuff here. A subplot is geeky scientist Walter Kornbluth (Eugene Levy) chasing down this elusive mermaid, finally catching her then helping to release her when the conscience kicks in. Being Di$ney of course we have the obligatory happy ending all round.

    The screenplay was obviously a good one as it copped an Oscar nomination in 1985, whilst the film itself was nominated for a Golden Globe in the same year for Best Film - Comedy/Musical. Whilst it is a little difficult to comprehend now, in the light of having watched it about thirty times, this was a very fresh, original film back in 1984. Tom Hanks was just starting to show some serious acting ability and in some respects this was something of a break out film for him. Darryl Hannah was stunningly, naively provocative as the mermaid, but the real star here for me was the late, great John Candy as the brother. The whole show was brought together well by Ron Howard, and this really is a nice, enjoyable film.

Video

    The transfer is presented in an aspect ratio of 1.78:1.

    The age of the film is highlighted somewhat by the rather soft definition in the transfer: this is not a sharp transfer at all in general, although at times it is still very good indeed. The main concern is that it is not in general a clear transfer, which compounds a general lack of depth in the transfer. Nothing to really be seriously concerned about mind, and probably as good as we can expect from a fifteen year old film. Shadow detail is not exactly stunning, but only occasionally do you wish it were a lot better than it is. The picture is a little grainy, reflecting both the lack of 16x9 enhancement and the age of the film.

    The colours are nicely rendered, with a nice rich tone indicative of some nice saturation. The film starts a little on the dark side but then seems to get a little brighter. This is not a vibrant transfer at all. There does not appear to be any serious problems with oversaturation in the transfer, despite a couple of instances where it threatened to become a problem.

    There did not appear to be any significant MPEG artefacts in the transfer, and film-to-video artefacts were restricted to some quite minor aliasing. This was far better than I was expecting for a non-16x9 enhanced transfer, given the abundance of the usual culprits in the transfer (such as venetian blinds). There were plenty of film artefacts throughout the film, but in general these were not especially distracting to the film.

Audio

    Dialogue was always clear and easy to understand.

    There were no audio sync problems with this disc.

    The score comes from Lee Holdridge and is not an especially memorable effort, although it set the mood for the film quite well.

    This is not an especially detailed soundtrack, with minimal use made of the surround channels. The film is of course very much dialogue driven so the lack of surround presence is not especially missed. The resultant overall sound picture is reasonably believable however.

    No use at all is made of the bass channel.

Menu

    The video transfer is pretty good.

    The audio transfer is barely better than average.

    Extras?

Video
Audio
Extras
Plot
Overall

© Ian Morris
31st December 1999