Henry Poole Is Here (2008/Overture/Anchor Bay Blu-ray + DVD)
Picture:
B-/C+/C Sound: B- Extras: D Film: D
When it
comes to once-promising directors, Mark Pellington may have had a good start
doing classic MTV promos and a few good Music Videos, but as soon as he started
doing narratives and feature films, he could forget it. Henry
Poole Is Here (2008) is his fourth feature film and first in six years
(since the awful Mothman Prophecies)
and it is yet another dud as Luke Wilson plays the title character.
In
another would-be existential mess, Poole has abandoned his confining work and
girlfriend (poor guy) to find new meaning in life, temporarily getting a
supposedly isolated suburban house that is not in the best shape. Instead, he finds an annoying real estate
agent, divorcee nearby and her cutesy, shy daughter. There is also the Hispanic neighbor who first
spots a holy sign/symbol/formation on the side of his new place and now, he’ll
never get any peace.
The film
thinks it is being spiritual and profound, plus a little funny. Unfortunately, it is bad, boring and
everything we have ever seen before. I
like Wilson and the supporting cast including Radha Mitchell, Cheryl Hines,
Adriana Barraza, George Lopez, Beth Grant, Morgan Lily and Richard Benjamin,
all of whom the film wastes. I cannot
believe how dull this was. Let’s hope it
is longer than six years (maybe never again?) ‘til Pellington helms the next
train wreck. A boring one!
The 1080p
2.35 X 1 digital High Definition image is poor and disappointing, with weak
colors, weak detail and forget depth. It
is also noisy, which is worse on the anamorphically enhanced DVD and especially
bad on the weak 1.33 X 1 pan & scan disaster for analog TVs also on the
DVD. This was actually shot in Super
35mm film, but you would not know it for the way the picture has been
manipulated. The Dolby True HD 5.1 on
the Blu-ray is barely better than Dolby Digital 5.1 on the DVD, so this
dialogue-based comedy in unimpressive in both ways of playback. Even John Frizzell (Alien Resurrection, Office
Space) can save this.
Extras
are the same in both format releases, including trailer, Music Video from a guy
who won a MySpace contest, deleted scenes with optional commentary, two feature
length commentary tracks by Pellington (one with Director of Photography Eric
Schmidt, the other with Writer Albert Torres, both “fascinating”) and a making
of featurette.
- Nicholas Sheffo
