The Last Great Ride (1998/Children)

 

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

 

 

Let’s face it, Ernest Borgnine and Eileen Brennan are very likable people, and a pairing of them together should have been fun, but The Last Great Ride (1998) is more concerned about the undeveloped children characters and a talking dog that is very unconvincing than telling a story.  There is some subplot of gangster’s treasure, but the film is too cutesy to develop a subplot either.

 

Part of the story is that the kids have to spend the summer at their grandmother’s (Brennan) and they expect a boring time.  Though they are supposedly having excitement in the film, maybe a quite summer with grandma would have meant character development.  Too bad because the talent wasted here is tragic and trying to appeal in such a shallow way to the children’s market is insulting.

 

The DVD is even more dishonest.  Though the full frame 1.33 X 1 image looks like it was shot on film, the shooting and directing is more like a tired TV movie.  The DVD screams how it is in Dolby Digital (and it has 2.0 Stereo with very weak surrounds), plus adds a Dolby Digital trailer, the one that want to remind us of Indiana Jones.  The sound is far from dynamic and was actually issued in the dreaded analog Ultra Stereo format that was not even as good as Dolby A!  The disc further claims to be a very interactive DVD-ROM and makes all viewers have to press the menu button just to get to the film due to a frame that wants to brag about being a DVD-ROM.  The ROM part has coloring book pages to print, but that’s it.  Stills are the only other extra, but other previews are added for even less promising children’s fare.  No wonder Disney is a brand name.

 

 

-   Nicholas Sheffo