Parental Guidance Blu-ray Review
Score: 65
from 3 reviewers
Review Date:
Parental Guidance on Blu-ray is a serviceable rental at best, showcasing Billy Crystal's diminished comedic impact in a mediocre, uninspired film.
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Disc Release Date
DTS-HD MA
Video: 75
Fox's Blu-ray of 'Parental Guidance' offers a quality high definition video presentation with pronounced grain, vivid colors, and well-balanced contrast. While there are minor issues with oversaturation and softer indoor scenes, the overall image is sharp with clear details, especially in outdoor shots. No notable compression artifacts detected.
Audio: 73
The lossless DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1 track of "Parental Guidance" provides crisp, clear dialogue and well-balanced audio, with ambient sounds subtly filling the rear speakers. Though it lacks dynamic breadth and surround effects are sparse, the mix is appropriate for this dialogue-driven family comedy.
Extra: 55
The Blu-ray extras for 'Parental Guidance' include a laugh-filled audio commentary with Andy Fickman and Billy Crystal, 13 minutes of deleted scenes with optional commentary, a 12-minute gag reel, a brief character interview with the lead actors, and the theatrical trailer—all in HD. The engaging commentary and substantial gag reel are particularly noteworthy.
Movie: 59
While 'Parental Guidance' blends old-school parenting with newfangled tech chaos, its humor largely falls flat with unfunny slapstick and bathroom jokes. Billy Crystal's nostalgic moments shine, but the film feels like standard sitcom fare. Blu-ray offers basic extras including trailers, commentary, and deleted scenes.
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Video: 75
The Blu-ray video presentation of "Parental Guidance" delivers a strong high-definition experience, showcasing impressive detail, particularly during close-up shots. The exterior suburban panoramas are rendered with clarity, allowing for discernible long-range visual acuity. The film's vivid chromatic palette is utilized effectively, ensuring well-balanced tonal consistency. Colors appear natural and pleasing, with lifelike and slightly warm flesh tones. White and black levels are robustly balanced, resulting in punchy whites and stable blacks for a genuinely filmic viewing experience.
"Parental Guidance" was primarily filmed on 35mm, supplemented by select scenes using Panavision Genesis HD cameras. The 1080p/AVC encode on Fox's Blu-ray retains the film's visual fidelity, characterized by noticeable grain that imparts a softer texture to facial and clothing details while preserving high-definition detail without resorting to aggressive digital noise reduction or edge enhancement. While some shadow details may occasionally be lost in darker scenes, overall contrast remains balanced, and the color density is suitably vivid.
Overall, the Blu-ray maintains a sharp presentation, albeit with some variations in scene clarity. Outdoor sequences, particularly those shot around Atlanta, stand out for their visual quality and detail. Indoor scenes may appear slightly softer, with less distinct detail in some cases. Thankfully, there are no significant issues such as excessive digital noise reduction or edge enhancement. The movie is faithfully presented in its original theatrical aspect ratio of 1.85:1, providing an authentic and satisfying high-definition viewing experience.
Audio: 73
The lossless DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1 track on the Blu-Ray of "Parental Guidance" provides a solid auditory experience suitable for a dialogue-driven family comedy. It features lively dynamics and clearly articulated dialogue with an open and airy presentation. The primary instrumental focus is delivered through the front three channels, while ambient effects are subtly extended to the surround speakers, creating a pleasant and immersive environment. The surround mix, although not extensively active, is well-suited for the film, ensuring dialogue remains crisp and clearly discernible, a crucial aspect for this genre.
Notably, the rear speakers are sporadically utilized, mostly for ambient sound such as quiet room noise and light rain, with occasional cross-channel effects like the notable back-to-front plane engine roar at the beginning. Composer Marc Shaiman’s score complements the onscreen action with light, engaging music that, while not extremely dynamic, is clear and appropriately balanced. This audio mix maintains excellent clarity and proper balance between dialogue and sound effects, avoiding any disruptive variances in volume levels. Overall, this mix provides a coherent auditory experience that supports the film's content without overwhelming it.
In addition to the DTS-HD track, the disc includes several supplementary audio options: an English Descriptive 5.1 track, Spanish and French Dolby Digital 5.1 dubs, as well as optional English SDH and Spanish subtitles for the hearing impaired. These additional features ensure the film is accessible to a broader audience, enhancing its inclusiveness. While "Parental Guidance" may not showcase your speaker system's capabilities extensively, its audio presentation is competently done and effectively supports the film’s needs.
Extra: 55
The Blu-ray extras for "Parental Guidance" offer a comprehensive and entertaining look behind the scenes. The standout feature is the engaging commentary by Director Andy Fickman and Billy Crystal, providing insightful anecdotes and humorous insights about the film’s production. Fans will appreciate the fifteen deleted and extended scenes, available with optional director commentary, which provide additional context but do not significantly alter the film’s narrative. The gag reel is a solid addition, although its nearly thirteen minutes of outtakes tend to wane in entertainment value towards the end. Additional features include a short interview segment with Billy Crystal, Bette Midler, and Marisa Tomei, presented by Fox Movie Channel, as well as the theatrical trailer, ensuring that fans get a robust collection of features.
Extras included in this disc:
Audio Commentary: Directorial insights and humorous anecdotes by Andy Fickman and Billy Crystal.
Deleted Scenes: Fifteen scenes with optional commentary by Fickman.
Gag Reel: Almost thirteen minutes of outtakes.
FXM Presents: In Character: Short collective interview with Crystal, Midler, and Tomei.
Theatrical Trailer: Original promotional trailer for the film.
Bonus DVD: Additional viewing content.
Digital Copy: Portable digital version of the film.
Movie: 59
"Parental Guidance" stars Billy Crystal and Bette Midler as grandparents Artie and Diane, who find themselves in over their heads while babysitting their daughter’s overprotected kids. The premise centers around the cultural clash between Artie's old-fashioned ways and the modern, high-tech parental methods of his daughter Alice (Marisa Tomei) and her husband Phil (Tom Everett Scott). The film touches on themes of technology, modern parenting, and familial bonds with humor that varies from slapstick to sentimental.
While the film attempts to capture the chaos and comedy of old-school versus new-school parenting, it often settles into predictable territory. Scenes like Artie’s mishaps with smart-home technology could have been fresh but mostly end up as tired gags. Physical comedy moments, such as being hit in the crotch or grotesquely vomiting, fall flat due to Crystal's lack of physical comedic aptitude. Where Crystal does shine is with his sharp, sarcastic remarks and genuine moments of connection with his grandchildren, particularly around his love for baseball, which subtly reflects his personal passion.
The movie's charm lies in its unoffensive, wholesome approach, making it suitable for family viewing—an uncommon trait in modern comedies. However, blights like frequent anatomical humor and formulaic resolutions dilute its potential. The film ultimately feels sluggish despite its frantic comedic efforts. While it does have heartfelt scenes, notably involving young Turner’s stutter and Artie’s professional aspirations, it often succumbs to cliché and manufactured sentimentality. Though "Parental Guidance" doesn’t deliver consistent laughs or innovation, it remains an innocuous choice for a family night.
Total: 65
"Parental Guidance" is a family-oriented comedy that attempts to traverse the well-trodden landscape of generational conflicts and parenting styles. While it draws inevitable comparisons to modern-day sitcoms like "Modern Family," its humor and cultural insight lack the sharpness and cleverness that define the genre's successful counterparts. The film embodies a safe, middle-ground approach that fails to leave a lasting impact — it is neither offensively bad nor particularly memorable. Notably, Billy Crystal's performance, although it showcases fleeting moments of his past comedic brilliance, does not live up to his erstwhile glory.
Technically, the Blu-ray edition by 20th Century Fox offers commendable picture and sound quality that enhances the viewing experience. The High Definition transfer is clean and vibrant, benefiting from the efforts of a proficient technical setup. Audio quality is equally robust, providing clear dialogue and effective surround sound effects. However, despite this proficient presentation, the film's content itself doesn't justify a permanent spot in your home media collection. The supplementary features included in the Blu-ray release are standard offerings, which, while well-executed, don't add significant value.
In conclusion, "Parental Guidance" falls short of offering substantial entertainment value beyond a single viewing. Although it may evoke occasional chuckles and serve as a decent family rental, purchasing it is not recommended. The film is best enjoyed as a casual, one-time rental rather than a staple in your Blu-ray library.
Blu-ray.com review by Casey BroadwaterRead review here
Video: 70
The combination of a chunky film stock and spherical lenses means that grain is quite pronounced, even in brighter scenes, which has the inherent effect of softening the image, leaving facial and clothing...
Audio: 80
The rear speakers are only sparsely utilized for anything other than quiet ambience�light room noise, raining falling, that sort of thing�with only one or two notable cross-channel effects, like the back-to-front...
Extras: 50
In Character with Billy Crystal, Bette Midler, and Marisa Tomei (SD, 4:56): A short collective interview with the three leads, talking about getting into character....
Movie: 50
Starring Billy Crystal and Bette Midler�who play out-of-touch oldsters trying to keep up with their crazy, over-parented grandkids�the film is a pureed blend of embarrassing sight-gags, this is how we...
Total: 50
20th Century Fox's Blu-ray release is nicely put together for this sort of film, but Parental Guidance would make a better Netflix rental than a solid purchase....
High-Def DigestRead review here
Video: 80
There a few scenes (primarily the ones shot indoors) that appear softer than others in which details are not as distinguished, but overall the picture is sharp throughout....
Audio: 60
The audio levels are properly balanced between the dialogue and the soundtrack and sound effects, so this isn't one of those titles where the dialogue is low and everything else is overbearing....
Extras: 20
Fickman and Crystal provide an informative and often humorous insight into the making of the picture, which seems to have been recorded shortly before the movie's theatrical release (as there are several...
Movie: 40
The kids' understanding of computers and gadgets and Artie's lack of knowledge of them could have made for an entertaining story, but aside from a few scenes here and there, the movie abandons that idea...
Total: 60
It pales in comparison to most of Billy Crystal's previous work, but he does show glimmers here of what made him such a huge success in the late 80s and early 90s....
AVSForumRead review here
Video: 88
The exterior pans of the suburbs are clearly rendered while offering lucid long range visual acuity that allows the physical structure of baseball fields, streets and objects in backgrounds to be discernible....
Audio: 84
The lossless DTS-HD MA soundtrack is above average for a dialogue driven film like this and features lively dynamics, clearly articulated dialogue, in an open sounding and airy presentation....
Extras: 50
(HD) 15 deleted scenes with optional director commentary (HD) Gag reel – 12 minutes Fox Movie Channel presents: In character with Billy Crystal, Marisa Tomei, and Bette Midler – 5 minutes Audio commentary...
Movie: 50
By playing by his own rules, which include sugary snacks, old fashioned games and tough love, Artie manages to outsmart the kids and achieve the impossible- bring the family closer together!...
Total: 68
16x9 Screen Marantz AV8801 11.2 Channel Audio/Video Processor Sherbourn Technologies - 7/200 Seven Channel Amplifier B&K Reference 200.7 Series 2 Seven Channel Amplifier Oppo BDP-103 Universal Disc/3D...
Director: Andy Fickman
Actors: Billy Crystal, Bette Midler, Marisa Tomei
PlotArtie Decker is a minor league baseball announcer who finds himself unemployed and struggling to adapt to his forced retirement. His daughter, Alice Simmons, invites him and his wife, Diane, to watch their three grandchildren in Atlanta while she and her husband, Phil, attend a work-related event. The couple is initially hesitant because of their old-fashioned parenting methods, but they reluctantly agree to help out. Upon arriving, Artie and Diane discover that Alice and Phil have created a highly structured, technology-driven environment for raising their kids, using modern parenting techniques that clash with their own.
As Artie and Diane attempt to manage the household, they face numerous challenges due to their outdated views on child-rearing. The children, accustomed to a high-tech lifestyle and specific behavioral guidelines, struggle to connect with their grandparents. Despite initial friction and a series of comedic misadventures, Artie and Diane gradually find ways to bridge the generational gap. By integrating a blend of contemporary and traditional approaches, they begin to establish a deeper bond with their grandchildren, leading to unexpected and heartwarming outcomes.
Writers: Lisa Addario, Joe Syracuse
Release Date: 25 Dec 2012
Runtime: 105 min
Rating: PG
Country: United States
Language: English