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  Directed by
    None Listed
  Starring
  Specs
  • Widescreen 1.85:1
  • 16:9 Enhanced
  • Dual Layer (RSDL )
  Languages
  • English: Dolby Digital 5.1 Surround
  Subtitles
  • None
  Extras
  • 5 Theatrical trailer - I Spy; Men In Black II; Mr. Deeds; National Security; Spiderman
  • Audio commentary - Director/Editor/Writer/Producer
  • 4 Featurette

I-Spy

Columbia Pictures/Sony Pictures Home Entertainment . R4 . COLOR . 92 mins . M15+ . PAL

  Feature
Contract

While watching this film, I couldn’t help thinking to myself “Owen Wilson has a nose that looks like a penis.”

Not an entire penis, just the end of it, and it looks like it has been attached to the end of his nose. I mean, what a bizarre looking nose he has. It’s gotta be the weirdest nose since Karl “Whoa! Look at my nose!” Malden.

Oh sure, I’ve seen plenty of films starring Wilson, and I’ve often thought his nose was peculiar, but this is the first time it’s occurred to me that it looks like a penis has been surgically grafted to his face.

I even tried telling this to my wife, who was watching the film with me, but she had fallen asleep. In her own words “I tried to stay awake in case it got better (the film, not his nose), but it didn’t.”

Right about here I’m sure the marketers are dying to jump in and defend the film. “Let us show you some impressive statistical analysis charts highlighting the correlation between box-office takings and actors with dick-noses. The figures don’t lie. People want to see dick-noses.”

And I’m not disputing that. I mean, Wilson is a funny and likable person. He has this hippy-scatterbrain thing going for him, and me makes me laugh. But when the only thing I can recall about a film is his dick-nose, then the film is in trouble.

Not that this story, or the way it was filmed, helps matters. It’s supposedly a rehash of an old television show starring Bill Cosby and someone else. I don’t think it ever showed in Australia, but I could be wrong, because I probably wasn’t even born when it was made. Regardless, I doubt that the show was so great and or a big enough cult fave that anyone other than the creatively-bankrupt Hollywood would have thought we needed a Silverscreen Blockbuster Extravaganza made of it.

But ignoring my advice they went ahead and made it anyway. Silly duffers. This time round, because Cosby is dead (as far as I know), they’ve teamed up Eddie Murphy with Wilson to play the unlikely spy duo out to recover a stolen super-spy plane from a cookie-cutter bad guy Gundars (Malcolm McDowell). In a role that is clearly stretching his ability as a thespian, Murphy is a flashy showoff loudmouth undefeated heavyweight boxing champ called upon by the President of the U.S.A to help bumbling, but well meaning, special agent Dicknose... I mean Wilson. Together they have to infiltrate a party held by Gundars, who’s trying to auction off the plane to the highest bidding evil country (just once, instead of India, Russia and China, I’d like to see Australia portrayed as an evil high-bidding country. “We’ll give ya 800 bucks for the bomb, a tinny of VB for the ute and youse can shag my woife, waddya reckon?”). Wilson and Murphy have to locate where the plane is hidden, stop it falling into the wrong hands, then fly it back safely to America so they can use it to bomb yet another country back into the stone age.

If it sounds simple, it’s because it is. There’s nothing taxing enough so that you have to engage your brain on any level, yet it still manages to come across like they really rushed it. It’s a shame, because it could have been so much better. Murphy shows glimpses of the old-Murphy that made him a star, not the sanitised and slower new-Murphy, but it’s too little to save the film. There’s a bit of chemistry between Wilson and Murphy, but nowhere near enough, and much of it is force-fed down our throats anyway. But the worst culprit is simply the story, nothing interesting happens. There’s no saving anything from the brink of anything else, no development, no nothing. It just demands that you instantly love the new Dynamic-Duo and help them make enough money so they can make a sequel. At the end of the film, you ask, “Is that it?”

So there you have it. Owen Wilson has a nose like a dick, and the film made my wife fall asleep.

Not exactly a glowing recommendation, is it?

  Video
Contract

I was a little taken aback with the look of I-Spy, because I expected that a recent action/comedy blockbuster film would be bright and super sharp and incredibly detailed, with the stars leaping off the screen and into my lap. But the impression this left me with was that it looked a bit dull from time to time, and the clarity was a little lower than expected. But don’t get the wrong idea, this is still a very good picture, it was just my expectation that threw me off.

The picture is presented as 1.85:1 and is 16:9 enhanced, so it’ll make almost full use of your widescreen telly keeping your wife (or husband) off your back for a while for spending all that dosh on a box rather than fixing the plumbing in the loo. A lot of exterior night scenes are utilised, particularly for the finale, and these look great, even if the blacks are a little dense and devoid of detail. There’s a smattering of fine grain which pops up in varying intensities depending on the setting, but other than one brief scene early on it never presents any problem. Like I said, the clarity is good, just a little softer than expected, but it still has oodles of detail thrown around on-screen, it's just not as finely reproduced as could be.

  Audio
Contract

We're given a very active and sometimes effective audio track in Dolby Digital 5.1, trotting along at a nice leisurely 448kbps. Except for the dialogue, it’s a great example of the typical lazy action style mix.

I wasn’t too happy with the dialogue because I found it far too muddy for the most part - something which is more pronounced with Eddie Murphy’s fast-talking. It never descends into being entirely unintelligible, but it comes perilously close at times, so it is often a strain to make out the odd line or two, taking you out of “brain-off” mode and into “I didn’t get that” mode instead. This comes into effect very early on in the film, and takes the shine off what would have otherwise been a fine sounding film.

On the upside, stereo and surrounds are well used, with an effective creation of an all encompassing soundfield for a few scenes, but the overall “blahness” of the film itself can’t be saved by just having copious use of gunfire come from behind you during shootouts.

  Extras
Contract

Filmmakers Commentary
With director, editor, one of the producers and two writers, this is a bit all over the place at times, with overlapping comments and conflicting views. Director Betty Thomas voices her opinion early on that she didn’t think Murphy’s character was introduced early enough. Some of it is scene specific, some of it is just general banter about the film. A mixed bag, but I didn’t find this a “must listen” effort. Most interesting fact: The director made every black character shave their head.

Featurette - Cloak and Camouflage (4:25)
Just a look at the outfitting of the actors and their individual looks. Not very interesting unless you have a clothes fetish, or you dress people for a living.

Featurette – Gadgets and Gizmos (4:35)
This covers the physical spy props, CGI elements, green screen effects, etc etc. Far too brief to really be of use, as they can only just barely skim the surface.

Featurette – Schematics and Blueprints (5:02)
With much shot on location in Budapest, this outlines how they dressed up a castle in the heart of the city to resemble its former glory, rebuilt a Caesar's Palace fight location and very quickly how they created the look of the plane.

Featurette – The Slugafest (4:10)
In the original TV series, Murphy’s character is a basketball player, but Murphy is a shortarse, so that was out of the question here. He has a familiarity with boxing, so that was the reasoning behind the choice for his role. Let’s have a look at him doing some, shall we, and we’ll discuss how much of a natural he is while we watch?

Trailers
One trailer for I-Spy, and four more for Men in Black II, Mr. Deeds, National Security (which is only just out here in Australia in cinemas) and Spider-Man. Not a bad selection, eh? No compliants here.

Easter Egg
Check out our Easter Eggs section to find out how to access this.

  Overall  
Contract

Hollywood just keep pumping these things out, and people just keep on not going to see them. And now thanks to DVD we get to archive even the most mundane of films for eternity, so that one day aliens will visit our dying planet and all they will find will be the history of our grand civilisation summarised by a white guy with a dicknose kicking a black guy in the nuts.

Life is wonderful isn't it?


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      And I quote...
    "Owen Wilson has a nose like a dick, and the film made my wife fall asleep."
    - Vince Carrozza
      Review Equipment
    • DVD Player:
          Sony DVP-525
    • TV:
          Sony 68cm
    • Receiver:
          Sony STR-DB1070
    • Speakers:
          Wharfedale s500
    • Centre Speaker:
          Polk Audio CS245
    • Surrounds:
          Wharfedale WH-2
    • Subwoofer:
          DB Dynamics TITAN
    • Audio Cables:
          Standard Optical
    • Video Cables:
          standard s-video
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