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Category:    Home > Reviews > Drama > Comedy > Teens > Middle Of Nowhere (2008/Image Blu-ray + DVD)

Middle Of Nowhere (2008/Image Blu-ray + DVD)

 

Picture: B-/C+     Sound: B-/C+     Extras: C     Film: C-

 

 

The teen coming-of-age movie is not easy to do, but one of the more awkward attempts of late has been John Stockwell’s Middle Of Nowhere (2008), which wants to focus on the changes in the life of a young lady, but keeps moving onto other characters when it cannot figure out what to do with her or how to expand her character.

 

Eva Amurri (Californication) plays Grace, the older of two sisters wanting to go to college when she takes a job as a lifeguard at a waterpark.  Her mother (Susan Sarandon as yet another irresponsible counterculture mother) has been using said daughter’s name to take out credit cards she has yet to pay on, preventing her from going to college among other things.  This never gets beyond the point of soap opera.

 

At her job, Grace meets Dorian (Anton Yelchin of Charlie Bartlett, Alpha Dog, the Star Trek revival and fourth Terminator film) who wants to get to know her better, deal drugs and have fun while trying to avoid dealing with his family who have sent him to the area to live with an annoying, strict relative.  He has issues, but is will to look out for Grace, who herself becomes interested in Ben (Justin Chatwin of Spielberg’s War Of The Worlds remake) who may not be as innocent as he seems.

 

Michelle Morgan’s script is far from well-rounded and can never finish anything it starts, while Stockwell was coming off of a pair of awful duds in Into The Blue (a silly remake of The Deep) and Turistas (more torture porn) so he was even less prepared to deal with any material like this and certainly with any kind of depth.  The cast is likable and even has some chemistry.  They can act and fit well, but they are let down by everything around them and the film never adds up into anything we have not seen, takes no risks and is quickly forgotten.  Compare to the far superior Greg Mottola film Adventureland (reviewed elsewhere in this site) and the flaws are even more painfully obvious.

 

The 1080p 1.85 X 1 digital High Definition image is a disappointment, looking soft, sometimes shockingly so and has more noise than a recent production should.  The anamorphically enhanced DVD is even poorer with Video Black and detail that suffer further.  The DTS-HD MA (Master Audio) lossless 5.1 mix is slightly warmer than the Dolby Digital 5.1 in the DVD, but both are dialogue-based mixes with sometimes problematic sound and weak soundfields.

 

Extras in both versions are exactly the same and include a Trailer, Cast/Crew Interviews, Deleted Scenes and a Making Of featurette.

 

 

-   Nicholas Sheffo


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