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Without A Paddle: Nature's Calling
[Blu-ray]
Blu-ray ALL - America - Paramount Home Entertainment Review written by and copyright: Jeremiah Chin (17th May 2009). |
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The Film
 Though the budget, production values and quality associated with direct-to-video sequels, prequels or just about anything direct-to-video, can seem incredibly constraining it has the potential to be really liberating. For horror movies it means that they can up the gore or ridiculousness of violence, swearing, whatever needs be simply because they don’t have to go through a rating process to get into theatres. The same sort of liberties apply to teen sex comedies, stoner comedies, or just about any comedy that uses sexual entendres, alcohol, drugs, or even good ol’ swearing. So when you see a sequel that’s intended to be a comedy, go direct-to-video without taking any of the liberties it’s been given, it makes you wonder if the producers really knew what they were doing in trying to draw in an audience with commercials that seem to imply a sex/road comedy that doesn’t even breach a PG-13 rating. I’m not saying that PG-13 movies can’t be funny, just look at “Wayne’s World” (1992), but when you have the opportunity to take chances with a sequel to a moderately successful comedy in “Without a Paddle: Nature’s Calling” I would hope that you would embrace your options rather than shirk potential. But no, the film decided to go directly for a being a sequel in name only by following best friends Ben (Oliver James) and Zach (Kristopher Turner) in the pursuit of a rekindled friendship. After being best friends all through high school, Zach and Ben have lead separate lives in their respective professions until the pursuit of a girl, Heather (Madison Riley) brings them back together. Deciding to take time out from their jobs, Ben and Zach take the chance given to them to try and pursue Ben’s high school crush and girl of his dreams thanks to a lead from one of Zach’s nursing home patients. Rumor has it that this vegetarian environmentalist has taken time to retreat from the real world and go live in the woods to save the environment, though no one has seen her for years. Of course wacky hijinks will ensue, especially after they bring on Nigel (Rik Young) Heather’s randomly British cousin who is just about as tacked on as the plot. I never saw the first film, but nothing carries over into this poor excuse for a movie (not that the first was entirely well received either). Any attempts at jokes fall entirely flat and the needless censorship to achieve a PG-13 direct-to-video rating seem pointless, specifically Zach’s “Holy Shitake” catchphrase that’s better suited to a Disney channel tween sitcom than anything else. There are random subplots with squirrels and jokes about going to high school as an outsider, boy is that awkaward, and being bad at finding directions. Nigel seems there to make British jokes about having an accent and not being like the other two guys, most likely added on just so that they could have three guys on the cover of the disc to match the three guys on the cover of the posters and DVD of the original. Production values are expectedly terrible, but when you have an entire subplot devoted to some mischievous squirrels that do mischievous things in a mischievous way, I would rather have seen some hand puppets to know that more money wasn’t spent on this movie. Similarly, nothing says "direct-to-video" like three unknown actors on the cover without any attempt to even give them a billing on the cover of the disc. Even the makeup crew didn’t put much of an effort into it as you can see some of the serious amounts of powder that were added to actor’s faces based on the lighting of the scene in order to get their skintones even and reduce glare. Overall, it’s a fairly throw away and worthless film, a disappointing sign at desperation for something that may sell in a floundering economy. It’s interesting though to see that even the cheap, never going to see a theatre screening productions are getting a Blu-ray release, when there still isn’t a proper release of a single David Lynch movie. Oh yeah, and Jerry Rice makes a cameo, though I would have thought that his endorsement money and contracts would have been enough money to keep him going, but apparently the acting bug bit him and gave him pneumonia, causing him to be in this movie.
Video
Presented in 1080p 24/fps with a 1.78:1 aspect ratio and AVC MPEG-4 encoding, showing off the cheapness of the production and the film with the high definition format. All of the colors and levels seem a bit bland, looking more like a sitcom for a live studio audience than a real movie production, as well as with some obvious flaws that only become more apparent with the HD format.
Audio
Much like the video, the English Dolby TrueHD 5.1 audio is bland and disinteresting, showing off the flaws of the film, including a soundtrack that was either composed with a bunch of free samples strung together or a hired composer who knew just how bad the movie was and thus was barely getting paid, the soundtrack is terrible. Much of the bad ADR and cheap sound effects also become all too apparent with the HD audio. Optional subtitles are included in English, English for the hearing impaired, French, Portuguese and Spanish.
Extras
Suprisingly there are a fair amount of special features, including three featurettes, deleted scenes (which the packaging calls "hilarious") and a gag reel. First is “Up the Creek the Making of ‘Without a Paddle: Nature’s Calling’” which runs for 10 minutes and 30 seconds. This behind-the-scenes featurette has a lot of plot summary, including actors talking about what they think the movie is about, including some fairly ridiculous compliments, talk of comedy, neither of which can be found in the movie, though Rik Young seems to be taking some subtle digs at the production. “Furious Nuts” runs for 7 minutes. Voice acting veteran Phil Lamarr, who has done some great work in his career, joins the rest of the crew in this featurette that makes jokes about getting the squirrels together, which is all supposed to be a grand comedy scene, talking about wild squirrels, method actor squirrels, just too many jokes to be handled in one featurette. However Lamarr doesn’t even lend his name to the featurette, pretending to be fake executive Reginald B. Reyonalds. “Treehouse Tales,” the final featurette, runs for 3 minutes and 18 seconds, talking about the treehouses that were used in the film, both the soundstage and practical treehouse that was built in the Oregon forest. A little ridiculous that they spent the time to build an actual treehouse, complimenting production designers, always good to see production designers, but even with just 3 minutes it seems like a bit too much time spent. The gag reel runs for 5 minutes and 28 seconds, typical gag reel, lots of fumbled lines and inappropriate smiles along with some laughter and production codes on the outside of the frame. Though Jerry Rice proves that he can’t keep his few lines of dialogue together. Finally are the deleted scenes, 4 in all, running for 1 minute and 16 seconds in total, making them almost cut one liners rather than entire deleted scenes: - “How’d He Do That?” runs for 23 seconds, Ben wonders how he lit a fire. - “Attack the River” runs for 15 seconds, Nigel talks about rafting. - “Let it Go” runs for 16 seconds, Zach drinks a little from the keg before they throw it overboard. - “Treehouse Fight” runs for 20 seconds, Ben scuffles a bit more with the gunman.
Overall
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