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Jump In!
R1 - America - Buena Vista Home Entertainment Review written by and copyright: Noor Razzak and Jon Batt (30th April 2007). |
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The Film
 Did you know, there are more chickens in the world than people? That's a fact that I found on the internet, and it may very well not be true. Do you feel ripped off that I have so flagrantly wasted 20 seconds of your life? You should. Now I want you to hold on to that hard-done-by feeling you have, and remember that you have only lost probably about 30 seconds now (depending on how fast you read). I have lost 85 minutes watching this film. 85 minutes that I will never get back. I could have gone for a walk, made some dinner, blinked approximately 10,500 times, or had sex 170 times. But no, all these things are lost to me now. A smarter man would have realized that when the blurb on the back cover includes the phrase 'the hit Disney Channel original' you aren't going to be pleasantly surprised. I do now understand why so many children's films are now animated. The movie itself is about a 12-15 year-old boy called Izzy (Corbin Bleu) whose father, Kenneth (played by real-life father David Reivers) was a boxer, and who is a promising boxer himself. He falls in with the 'wrong' crowd, and winds up in a jump rope team. He goes in competitions and he wonders why he gets mocked by his school. His naivety reminds me of myself for watching this movie. I suppose that I can concede as a 20-something male, I'm probably not the target demographic for this movie. But there are still a huge number of children's movies out there that are good times (try anything from Pixar for a start). I wish I had watched one of those. I'm unsure if children would like it, I was going to get one to watch it, but I was scared that they too would hate it, and bite me. Children are easily riled. Needless to say, Izzy joins the team, triumphs over adversity and makes a strike out for teenagers of differing groups everywhere. I assume this is a metaphor for being black/gay/fat/geeky or some other dynamic that the 'cool kids' pick on you for, but it is at best a poor one, jump rope for pity's sake. It's a shame as Izzy clearly has some good moves on him; there's a free running-esque bit at the start where he does flips and whatnot that unfairly raised my hopes for the film. In conclusion, do not watch this. Don't give it to your kids to watch, they can do better. There's a reason you haven't heard of it, or seen it at the cinema.
Video
Presented in the film's original broadcast ratio of 1.33:1, this full screen transfer is a fairly decent effort. The image is harp and displays detail quite well, I was pleased with the vivid color palette displayed in the film, with skin tones also appearing natural. Blacks are bold and shadow detail remains consistent throughout the print, no evidence of compression artefacts, edge-enhancement or other problems can be seen aside from a very instance of moire effect against some line patterns. Other than that it's a fine presentation.
Audio
A single English Dolby Digital 5.1 track is included, the dialogue is clean and distortion free with a majority of the sound mix focused on the front the rear surround speakers really kicked in during the scenes with music and seems to do a decent enough job of enveloping the viewer. It's not a dynamic track or one that will likely impress but seems to do the trick for this TV movie and is slightly better than the average stereo or surround tracks that most made for TV DVDs seem to get. Optional subtitles are included in English for the hearing impaired.
Extras
Included on this disc is a series of 5 short featurettes that come under the title "Learning The Moves" they can be viewed individually or with a 'play all' function. They include: - "Intro" which runs for 1 minute 49 seconds, actor Corbin Bleu intros us into thie feature and plans on showing the viewer how to achieve some simple moves. - "Turning" runs for 33 seconds, here we learn how to turn amid the ropes. - "Jumping In" runs for 1 minute 1 second, Corbin shows us how to jump directly into the moving ropes. - "Jumping Out" runs for 44 seconds; Corbin shows us how to jump out amid the moving ropes. - "Advanced Tricks" runs for 1 minute 12 second, Corbin shows us how to perform a push-up trick, a donkey kick and a straddle entrance. Next up is "Inside the Ropes: The Making of Jump In!" featurette runs for 6 minutes 37 seconds. This is a standard EPK style clip that takes a look behind-the-scenes of the film and also takes a look at double dutch jump rope performance, the filmmakers talk about how great actor Corbin Bleu is as the rest of the cast tell us how much fun this movie was to make...great...and by great I mean boring. A series of 2 music videos are also included: - "Jumpin" performed by Keke Palmer which runs for 3 minutes 3 seconds. - "Vertical" performed by T-squad which runs for 2 minutes 59 seconds. Rounding out the extras are some bonus trailers for: - "Ratatouille" which runs for 1 minute 49 seconds. - "Hannah Montana: Pop Star Profile" which runs for 1 minute 11 seconds. - "Cheetah Girls 2" which runs for 1 minute 10 seconds. - "Disney Movie Rewards" spot which runs for 32 seconds. - "That's so Suite Life of Hannah Montana" which runs for 32 seconds. - "Read it and Weep" which runs for 32 seconds. - "Enchanted Tales" which runs for 1 minute 20 seconds.
Packaging
This DVD is packaged in an amaray case housed in a cardboard slip-cover.
Overall
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