Nights In Rodanthe (2008/Warner Blu-ray + DVD-Video)
Picture:
B/C/C- Sound: B/C+ Extras: D Film: D
Every few
films, Richard Gere does a dumb, lightweight, romantic release to keep his
female audience happy and it is usually a bad film. Some are worse than others, but the one that
may be the most boring yet (a true achievement) is George C. Wolfe’s monotonous
Nights In Rodanthe (2008) with the
likable Diane Lane about to take a bad man back. Of course, she has a black best friend (Viola
Davis, a great actress wasted here) who can see things better, but another man
is about to enter the picture who will rekindle romance and hope. Now who might that be…
The film
is content (in between appearances by Scott Glenn and Christopher Meloni)
showing constant images of beaches, oceans and people in quiet shots or quiet
in some kind of despair (oh, how depressing to live with great weather and in
nice real estate!) in the kind of melodrama that died in the 1960s and this is
somehow phonier and so very, very tiring.
Maybe if these people invited a Rock band to play at the beach…
This is
never believable and could replace sleeping pills in some cases. All the characters are cardboard and
one-dimensional, the story formulaic (when it is even being told at all) and is
a quiet run-on that takes a long 97 minutes to unfold. Unless you are very awake and have nothing better to do, avoid this and do
not play while driving or operating heavy equipment.
The 1080p
2.35 X 1 digital High Definition image looks a little weaker than expected versus
the 35mm copy I saw but has some detail and color limits. The anamorphically enhanced widescreen
version on the DVD is much softer and the 1.33 X 1 pan & scan version on
the DVD flipside is a disaster. Both
editions actually offer only Dolby Digital 5.1 mixes and there is nothing here
to be impressed with, though the DVD versions are much weaker than the already
weak and limited Blu-ray version.
Extras
include a DVD-ROM for Digital Copy that gives you a low-def version of the film
for PC and PC portable devices in both versions (yawn) and while the DVD has no
extras, the Blu-ray adds three featurettes, a Music Video for a song that not
even Gavin Rossdale can energize, alternate scenes with optional commentary
that would make zero difference in the film and BD-Live with even more
exclusive content that makes the film go on and on and on and on. Maybe Toho should make Nights With Rodan, which
would be much more interesting than what we get here
- Nicholas Sheffo
