The Wedding Planner
Sony Pictures Home Entertainment
Cast: Jennifer Lopez, Matthew McConaughey, Justin Chambers
Extras: Commentary Track, Featurettes, Deleted Scenes, Trailers
Rating:
Jennifer Lopez seems to have trouble deciding what she wants to do, dance, sing or act. While she used to be a great dancer, the latter two areas are just not her strength. Neither the limitations of her vocal abilities nor the poor range of acting skills make her a truly interesting contender. Nonetheless, here is ’The Wedding Planner’ a romantic comedy that revolves around her character, a manically organized and ambitious young woman who falls in love with a doctor. Love wasn’t part of her agenda or daily schedules and she has trouble coping with the distraction and complications the relationship and her feelings cause. Basically, the film plays like an overly emotional episode of ’Ally McBeal’ without the courtroom aspects.
Columbia TriStar Home Entertainment is presenting ’The Wedding Planner’ in an anamorphic widescreen presentation on this DVD in the movie’s original 2.35:1 aspect ratio. Being a brand new film it is hardly surprising that the transfer is absolutely clean, clear and free of defects. The transfer has a high level of detail but sadly edge-enhancement is quite noticeable in a number of scenes. Colors are very faithful and create a very natural-looking picture throughout that exhibits strong colors and natural look skin tones. Blacks are deep and solid and shadows always maintain good level of detail without breaking up. The compression has been done without flaws, maintaining the high definition of the transfer.
The DVD contains a 5.1 channel Dolby Digital audio track as well as an English Dolby Surround track. Other language tracks are missing form the release, but subtitles in English, French and Spanish make up for their lack to a degree. The audio is very well produced and has a very wide and natural sounding frequency response. The dynamic range is good, although the film itself doesn’t lend itself to overly aggressive dynamic use or surrounds.
The DVD contains a number of extras, such as a commentary track by director Adam Shankman and writers Pamela Falk and Michael Ellis, during which they offer additional insight into the film and its production. Although the commentary tries to maintain an entertaining note, I found it not overly informative or enjoyable. A number of featurettes and deleted scenes are also part of the disc, adding more value to the DVD.
’The Wedding Planner’ is a shallow experience and one that doesn’t really satisfy. While the DVD is another great Columbia TriStar release, the movie quickly loses impetus and becomes increasingly predictable with every minute that it goes along.
