View From the Top (Rental)

View From the Top is the story of Gwyneth Paltrow’s breasts. They live in a small town with no future and no hope. Her breasts are surrounded by other girls’ breasts which are destined to be hidden inside the uniforms of supermarket checkout chicks, dental assistants and beauticians. But Gwyneth’s boobs want more from life rather than a dead end career shoved inside a cheap and flimsy bra made from poorly breathing polyester material.

"What? You'll have to speak up..I'm wearing a bikini!"

Spying a news report about famed airline stewardess Sally Weston (Candice Bergen’s boobs), Gwyneth’s chest decides that the high-flying life trotting the globe serving people tiny bland meals and dealing with drunks in first class is the life they want.

So her boobs pack their favourite support bra and skin-firming lotions into a suitcase and set off for the high life.

Along the way on their trip to the top, they meet up with unexpected deception from well padded close quarters, form supportive new friendships, engage in figure boosting romance and suffer deflating heartbreak.

On their own, Gwyneth’s boobs have some natural talent, but there’s no doubt that they’ve been given firm support and some uplifting assistance to help them improve their dramatic range. The scenes that work best have a natural flair which creates a free going and entertaining dynamic when they share the screen with other boobs, (such as Christina Applegate’s lovely hurfhurrs, essentially reprising their role from The Sweetest Thing), but too often the exchanges play out as stiff and rubbery, rather than natural and bouncy.

Sorry, I've got boob induced writers block on this one.

Attempting to add some pathos are the breasts of Kelly Preston, Gwyneth’s boobs being simply too perky and young to truly illicit any feelings other than joy. Preston pops up as Sherry, the old timer junk air stewardess who mentors Paltrow’s boobs in their early days, lifting and shaping them to a pleasant form which supports the back. Preston’s mammaries dream of a better, more snug fitting cup with one of the bigger airlines, but time has taken its toll on her once taut skin and leaves her to face the saggy reality of a life spent serving schlups who try to get a free look at her gazongas when she pours them a domestic beer.

"Sure honey, but I doubt Einstein took into account the relative velocity of theoretical neutrinos when he derived his final theory of relativity. Uh'huh."

Ill-fitting in this film is Mike Myers as a lazy-eyed airline etiquette instructor. He once again reminds us that he has just one trick in his bag, and that trick is getting old. He doesn’t appear to have boobs, either real or fake, but his characterisation hints that he might wear a nice lacy bra when he’s alone at night.

Although the story plays upon the fetish of women in uniform for the benefit of Internet deprived cinema-going men the world over, the story ambles along, swinging freely from side to side in an unrestricted fashion, rather than jumping with the snap associated with a good quality sports bra.

Looking just as perky as Gwyneth is the vibrant picture, here in 2.35:1 and 9:16 enhanced (which is the same as 16:9, but made for dyslexic DVD watchers). Colours are about as punchy as you wanna get, striking a great contrast against some of the duller locations, the uniforms in particular standing out as much as possible. Detail is nice, as is clarity, with the transfer coming up trumps.

For this film the audio is mostly perfect, with just a little over-emphasis on the score in the front L/R channels knocking it back a notch. Although it comes across as bright and jumpy, it can be seen (heard) as being a little OTT when you consider the balance with the dialogue. Overall ambience in the Dolby Digital 5.1 mix is good, if a little underwhelming considering the few possibilities it could have played a little harder with, but generally this strikes me as pleasingly transparent aside from the one issue I mentioned.

There’s also an Italian Dolby Digital 5.1 track, and I thought it made everyone sound sexier, even though I couldn’t understand a thing they said. That’s what makes foreigners so much fun though. They could be insulting the colour of my socks, but as far as I’m concerned they may as well be admiring my great arse.

Three included featurettes give hope to bonus junkies for some extended viewing, but the truth is that they add little to the package.

The better of the three is The History of the Flight Attendant, which manages to give a good understanding of how they came into being and the changes that occurred over the years as flight became cheaper and customers became ruder. Some kind of expert, an old baldy with glasses, gets the most screen time, but mostly you get the impression that when the cameras are turned off he likes to wear a female flight attendant's uniform and stare at himself in the mirror while rubbing Vaseline into his scalp.

If you want to see some verbal wanking, watch A Journey Inside – A View From the Top. Everyone wanks everyone else over how great, amazing and brilliant everyone on this film is. Wank, wank, wankety-wank. I feel so violated.

Then, for the music lovers, get an eyeful of Music of View From the Top. Lots of bland American girls affirming their independence and sweet brand of inoffensive girl power. I liked it better when they burned their bras and didn’t sing.

Who does this film appeal to? I’m at a loss. Not me, that’s for sure, much as I enjoyed the energetic and appealing performance of Paltrow’s boobs. It’s just every other part of her I couldn’t stand. The less said about Mike Myers the better. Rob Lowe even appears for about 12 seconds. Why? Why did Gwyneth even make this film? Why was the film made at all? Would they have made the film if the story was about the rise to the upper echelon of checkout chicks?

See, these are all questions thrown up by View From the Top, and that’s just asking too much when I should really be thinking about how to launch the Orbiting Space Laser O’ Doom I built in my backyard. Putting the kit together was easy, getting it into a geo-synchronous orbit is working out to be a bit harder than expected.

As such, I find it hard to recommend View From the Top for the merits of the story. The quality of the A/V is without doubt absolutely fine, but the bonus features are hardly worthy of a look-in.

Make of this what you will. I’m done.