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The
Movie:
Movie releases tend to come in pairs, with two similarly themed movies
normally
being released around the same time. And for some studios, being
second
to release lets you see how the first one did, then either capitalize
on the
theme or wait it out and hope everyone forgets the first and comes to
yours. The latter is what happened here with First Daughter
and
the similar Chasing Liberty. First Daughter is the fifth
movie
from actor/director Forest Whitaker, and stars Katie Holmes, Marc
Blucas,
Amerie, and Michael Keaton. Katie Holmes is the title character,
Samantha
Mackenzie, who is about to embark on that once in a lifetime journey
known as
leaving home for college. Naturally, being the daughter of a
President
has its advantages and disadvantages, such as the benefit of having a
beautiful roommate, played by Amerie and the disadvantage of having
large men
follow you every step you take, unless of course you put on a hooded
sweatshirt
and baseball cap so they can't recognize you.
A running idea throughout the movie is how Sam wants to be treated like
a normal
college student. She wants to go to class, attend parties, and
meet
normal everyday students without having the Secret Service follow her
every move
or being inundated with renditions of Hail to the Cheif when she moves
about
campus. Of course, it wouldn't be a teen-centric movie without
some
romantic interest, and that is where Blucas comes in. He and
Holmes share
a decent amount of screen time together in scenes ranging from a quite
fun
first date "get to know you" session, to an almost too cute scene in
a boat with Ms. Holmes holding an umbrella to keep the sun off her. Who
does
that?
The supporting cast does a great job making this film work.
Keaton does a
great job as a man who not only has a huge job to do, but also
struggles with
the parental side of things. His only daughter is moving 3000
miles away
to attend school, and he gets to spend less than 5 minutes saying good
buy to
her before being rushed off to another function. As Keaton can do
well,
he does a lot of acting without having to say much, his emotion came
across in
the limit scenes he had to work with as a very caring father trying his
best. Amerie who plays Mia, Sam's roommate does a nice job of
bringing
some life to Katie's character who has gone through her life being
quite
sheltered and hasn't had a chance to experience the simple joys of
adolescence.
Get ready for a self-described fairy-tale of a movie, with the princess
actually
becoming in touch with the little people. I cna't find too much
to
complain about in the movie department, when I take the target audience
into
consideration. But once you step out of the targeted section of
humanity,
there'll be a lot of issues that slip through like the aforementioned
ability
of a girl to sneak past the Secret Service for example.
Thankfully,
movies area choice, and if you feel that this might not be the
best movie
to suit your needs, then you can move past it in the aisle.
The DVD:
How's it look:
First
Daughter is presented in both a 1.85:1 widescreen, as well as a full
screen
presentation on the reverse side of the disc. The widescreen
version has
the pleasure of being anamorphically enhanced for those of use who have
the
technology to make an enhanced disc look its best. However, some of the
colors throughout
the movie seemed a little washed out and slightly soft. One scene
in
particular really made this apparent, and that was an exterior shot of
the
college that Sam is attending, with a brown brick building in the
background
and some bland looking green grass in the foreground. However,
when
Amerie's character was in the shot, chances were good for some extra
color, as
her jaunt outfits really set up a contrast with the plain Jane color
scheme of
Katie Holmes'.
I
did
however notice some slight dust and grain in the image.
Admittedly, the
only time I noticed the defects was during a brightly lit scene and
then the
black outline of a speck is more
noticeable.
How's it Sound:
First
Daughter contains the requisite Dolby Digital 5.1 with two
supplemental tracks; 2 channel Spanish and French. Because of the type
of movie
this is, the surrounds were not used all that often for things other
than
ambiance. And given that terribly mixed sound can really stand
out, I did
not notice that the speakers were poorly used at all so the effects
were well
mixed.
The
score
for the movie fit the tone quite perfectly, and that was the theme of a
fairy
tale which was intended by the original composer Michael Kamen.
Michael
Kamen died shortly after composing the score, and a tribute to him is
one of
the extras on the disc. His music was very well thought out and
as I
mentioned, fit in with the movie as a whole. The composer
who
stepped in to fill the shoes of Mr. Kamen was Blake Neely, who I felt
did a
good job of taking someone's vision and keeping it intact.
Extras:
As
mentioned, a short featurette on Michael Kamen is on the fullscreen
side of the
disc. This short clip features Blake Neely discussing what it was
like to
work with Michael on the score, and how he felt and sub-sequentially
dealt with
things after he heard about Michael's death. The feature
essentially
discussed details of First Daughter and didn't really highlight much
else of
Michael's career, so it wasn't a complete tribute to his life, but more
on the
effect he had on parts of the production who work worked with him.
One
other featurette is included that highlights some of the choreography
in the
movie. While not a dance movie like some recent high energy
movies, First
Daughter did have some formal ballroom dancing in it, the predominant
dance was
the Foxtrot, which was highlighted in this short piece of fluff.
Not
terribly interesting, but it showed some of the practice sessions that
the
actors had to endure to move as gracefully as they did on the screen.
Two
extended scenes are included, which lengthen some current scenes in the
movie
and look to be removed for slight pacing changes that they may have
caused. A
commentary is also included with the three primary actors who recorded
it in a
single session, so you do hear some of hte interaction between each
other. Not one of the more interesting commentaries I've listened
too, as
it was basically the three of them reminiscing about certain scenes
like
"I remember doing this at 5am", or "This was my first scene
with Michael Keaton".
Final Thoughts
While
somewhat predicable as most movies of this type are, there were enough
slight
differences here to actually make this movie worth watching as a date
movie. It's got the romance part that the girls love, and
just
enough cute women to make the movie bearable for the male crowd.
It's not
going to win any best of DVD awards anytime soon, but the presentation
is
adequate for a movie of this type. As a DVD, there isn't much
here to
warrant a purchase, as the extras included are your basic fluff piece
and
extended scenes, memorial tribute aside. I'll give this a solid
rental recommendation,
as I felt that is was an OK time filler and one viewing will probably
suffice.
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