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Warner Bros./Warner Home Video . R4 . COLOR . 83 mins . G . PAL

  Feature
Contract

Shudder. Just when you thought things couldn’t get any worse, the Olsen twins come up with this utter garbage of a film. Soccer. Girls. Pranks. NTSC. What else? Ewwwwww! But anyway, here we go...

Now this film is produced by and stars the Olsen twins, the two cuties from Full House. But now their cuteness from Full House has disappeared and they adopt a mature outlook on things. But they’re still so young, that’s the issue. Young and talking about kissing boys? Hmmm well some parents may not want these sort of ideas fed into their children’s minds, but still it's up to personal opinions on that matter. Just keep away from Target where you can buy a Mary-Kate and Ashley G-String and Bra set for your infant. It’s a new range. Honest. Hmm, OK not really, but to be frank it doesn't seem like we're far off from that...

So what is the film about? Well let's look at who the Olsen twins are. They are Mary-Kate and Ashley (duh) and they are identical twins. So much so that even after four Olsen twins discs, this reviewer still has NFI as to which is which. So that works perfectly for this film! Sam (uh... Ashley... no Mary-Kate) is a tomboy who loves sports, and Emma (um, by elimination Ashley) is more into the girly things – boys. So then when Emma starts to get her father’s affection, she is picked for his soccer team but can’t play to save her life. But when the team starts losing, the girls switch names and Emma becomes Sam and Sam becomes Emma. Sort of. In the normal non-science fiction type of way. So yeah away we go with a ride down this lane. For fans, this is suitable. For others, it holds little interest, and really bears nothing in the form of technical content.

  Video
Contract

OK so where is the logic? So far DVDnet has seen Our Lips Are Sealed, Billboard Dad and Holiday in the Sun with R4 NTSC transfers, and then When in Rome with a R4 PAL transfer. So why, oh why, does this transfer revert back to the "good" ol’ NTSC ways? Good bloody question, and one that can’t really be answered. It’s like the question – "why are we here"? No one knows. Now what’s even worse than an NTSC transfer is a bad NTSC transfer. The colours are simply awfully mastered, with heavily saturated tones, and an open door leading towards a very reddish transfer. The whole image suffers from a terribly pinky-red wash and is painfully disgusting to watch. Fine macro blocking artefacts subtly cover the image, breaking up tonal colours into ugly blocks of colour. But sigh, what can you do? And the next point – who actually cares? It’s the Olsen twins...

This 4:3 transfer suffers from some severe colour issues, among other things, and really isn’t the best example of a Warner NTSC disc. So let’s go on with the faults. Such as the detail level. Well, the clarity of the image is so low, with terribly soft edges which just make the quality of the image fall over on its bum. The red levels don’t really help this issue either. So after all of this whinge, whinge, whinge, nag, whinge and whinge, what can be said positively about this transfer? Well... um... not a lot sadly. Technically speaking, this transfer just lacks it all, but much of the target audience won't really give any thought to these things. Still, some colour correction issues would have been nice...

  Audio
Contract

Three audio tracks have been thrown on this disc, all Dolby Digital 2.0, with language options of English, Spanish and French. Now the English track is the prime listening option, and is suitable given the content, but nothing terribly thrilling or unique. Dialogue is clear throughout, with no synch issues, and is shared evenly between the left and right channels. Discrete effects are severely limited, and offer really no aural excitement. And that’s it... plain audio and a cruddy video. Wow, what a start. Now onto the extras...

  Extras
Contract

So extra features, eh? Well we have some lovely 16:9 enhanced menus, with bright colours and crisp edges. Accessable from this menu is the extra features page, which features three options. Wowee, three options! Hmm, but after selecting cast and crew information and seeing a very empty text page, and selecting the five pages of the Mary-Kate and Ashley Video Highlights we have one option left. And that’s already two down! So finally, the Mary-Kate and Ashley Videocassette/DVD Collection Trailer is a 1:35 trailer for Winning London and Our Lips Are Sealed. So as soon as we started with extras, we’re at the end of the list already, with the textual information pages brief and relatively meaningless, and the trailer not relating to this film at all.

  Overall  
Contract

This Warner NTSC disc really lacks technically, with some severe colour issues and a plain audio transfer that is suitable but nothing intriguing. The extra features are nothing special and really hold no information regarding the film. So for fans, go for it...


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      And I quote...
    "Shudder..."
    - Martin Friedel
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