Beauty & The Briefcase (ABC Family Telefilm/Image Blu-ray) + Beverly Hills Chihuahua 2 + You Again (2010/Disney Blu-rays w/DVDs)

 

Picture: B-/B- & C/ B- & C+     Sound: B-/B & C+/B & B-     Extras: D/D/C-     Features: D/D/C-

 

 

Disney does make some fund animated features and documentaries, but the live-action department can be very mixed.  One problem comes up with comedies and theirs is usually aimed at a suburban/children’s audience.  This causes all kinds of complications in their poorest works and the following three productions are all poor, all stuck in the 1980s and all unfunny.

 

 

First comes Hilary Duff, whose greatest achievement is not becoming a drug addict like some of her contemporaries, has made the remarkably silly cable telefilm (from Disney’s ABC Family channel) with Beauty & The Briefcase.  In it, she finds an old briefcase and a note that says if she kisses it, a prince will come, but when she does, it turns into a blood-thirsty monster…  No, only kidding, unfortunately.

 

This is not that challenging or interesting.  Instead, she is a ditz with no education trying to get a well-paying job at a corporation and falling for a guy she is not certain she should be with, but she reads Cosmopolitan magazine obsessively, so she’ll think of something.  Sounds like the first idea was more realistic too, huh?  Gil Junger directs this mess and the only think it can do is keep Ms. Duff off of drugs, but as for her fans, even 86 minutes may be too much.

 

Then there is Beverly Hills Chihuahua 2, a highly unnecessary sequel to the dogs-with-digital-talking-mouths sillifest called Beverly Hills Chihuahua (no “1” required) which I suffered through at this link:

 

http://www.fulvuedrive-in.com/review/8287/Beverly+Hills+Chihuahua+(Disney+Blu

 

This manages to be worse, more empty, more tired and more unnecessary, adding more puppies and less storyline (how is that possible?) but even the voice-over actors sound bored and their attempts at sounding innocent, excited and childlike sounds childish, flat and dull.  Except for young children, I cannot imagine who would want to see this pseudo-adventure.

 

Last and almost least is Andy Fickman (remember that name, it stands for bad judgment) who has directed what we can more than safely call the worst waste of talent for 2010: You Again.  This one-note, bad-note, thinks-its-a-comedy manages to waste Sigourney Weaver, Jamie Lee Curtis, Betty White and a large supporting cast in this horrid hackjob of a feature in which the daughters of Curtis and Weaver (Kristen Bell and Odette Yustman) are rivals the way they turn out to have been in their high school days.

 

Everyone is an idiot, everyone is a moron, anything having to do with serious issues is a joke and even a topic like poverty and class division are just hilarious... to Fickman.  Ms. White is actually spared telling dirty jokes to make her look like a “funny old person” (the way SNL humiliated her) but what could have been an interesting comedy is a trash heap.  You can also see Weaver and Curtis are well-matched, but given nothing to do, so their better acting moments are like Michael Jackson and Mick Jagger yucking it up on The Jacksons’ hit State Of Shock, but with a few hours to fill versus a few minutes.

 

There are also cameos that usually don’t work and even make little sense, but we’ll save those for you in case you are trapped into watching this timekiller.  In real life, this could have worked because the talent is here, but they were at least smart to get their paychecks as this will quickly be forgotten and no one will be blamed but Fickman & writer Moe Jelline and boy, do they deserve it!

 

The 1.78 X 1 digital High Definition image on all three Blu-rays (save the 2.35 X 1 in Again) are equally limited in depth, detail and fullness, with noise (all look like HD shoots) and none offer anything in the neighborhood of what we would consider demo material.  The anamorphically enhanced image on the DVDs of Hills and Again are weaker still with Hills looking especially degraded, no doubt from all the cheesy digital work.  All three Blu-rays also have DTS-HD MA (Master Audio) 5.1 lossless mixes that are better than expected, save the weaker recording on Briefcase, but none of them have what anyone could consider good soundfields.  The Dolby Digital 5.1 mixes on the DVDs of Hills and Again are weaker, but Hills has more trouble matching the Blu-ray DTS.

 

Extras (for what they are worth) are only on Hills and Again, including their own blooper reels.  Hills adds an interactive game, BD Live interactive features on the Blu-ray and a Music Video.  Again has three making of featurettes and 11 deleted scenes, including some Weaver/Curtis material that should have stayed.

 

Avoid them all!

 

 

-   Nicholas Sheffo