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New Guy, The
Columbia/Tri-Star // PG-13 // August 13, 2002
List Price: $27.96 [Buy now and save at Amazon]
Frequently delayed movies are almost never worth the wait. Anyone hoping I would follow those nine words with a comma and something along the lines of "...but The New Guy bucks this trend and [insert soundbite-worthy praise here]!" will be disappointed that no trends are bucked or even slightly nudged. The New Guy joins such dismal flicks as Original Sin, Lost Souls, Texas Rangers, and Rollerball in the Island of Perpetual Delays. I guess my thought process goes something like this: studios beam with pride over unwatchable dreck like Boys and Girls, See Spot Run, and Bless The Child, investing tens of millions of dollars in production and omnipresent advertising campaigns. If a movie comes out that they feel needs to be discreetly swept under the rug, watch out. I was well-aware of the sordid history of The New Guy, which went into turnaround at Buena Vista and wound up in the waiting arms of Revolution Studios. To save a couple of clicks at the IMDb, Revolution Studios is the relative newcomer behind The Animal, Tomcats, and Jet Li's The One. Their list of 2003 releases includes two Adam Sandler vehicles, the Flash-animated Lil' Pimp (maybe presenting competition for Lil' Romeo, Lil' Bow Wow, Lil' Kim, or the fifteen thousand other rappers who tout their tiny stature as part of their stage names?), and -- I kid you not -- Super Knight Rider 3000. Suffice it to say that The New Guy seems to fit in very well with the rest of Revolution's output. An astonishing six release dates came and went before settling on a debut on May 10th, just over a full year after it was originally slated to burst into theaters.
DJ Qualls, Hollywood's stock 98-lb. weakling (Road Trip, the movie that is forever destined to appear in parentheses next to his name), stars as geeky outcast Dizzy Harrison. The aspiring bassist and his social misfit bandmates don't amount to much more than barely discernable blips on the social radar. After being humiliated by a public Porky's-style wang-yanking, Dizzy finds himself imprisoned and turns to cellmate Luther (Eddie Griffin) for some much-needed assistance. Since high school isn't too terribly different than prison, Luther dishes out the rules of survival at the big house. Dizzy takes copious notes and puts Luther's teachings to the test when starting a new life as Gil Harris at a different high school. Gil, whose very slight transformation is even less dramatic than that of Rachael Leigh Cook in the Pygmalionariffic She's All That, quickly becomes the center of attention. He immediately sets out to unseat the Big Man on Campus, even rubbing salt in the wound by stealing the affections of his girlfriend, head cheerleader Danielle (Eliza Dushku, who'd previously paraded her pom-poms in Bring It On). Gil is happier than he's ever been, but his lifelong pals in his garage funk band are becoming a distant memory, and his well-guarded secret can't stay buried forever.
The New Guy is a trailer comedy, filled with just enough moderately amusing moments to fill a two minute trailer and dupe $30 million worth of moviegoers into filling theater seats. With those modest expectations set for The New Guy, it was a success. It wasn't a particularly pricey production but managed to gross just shy of $29 million at the box office, and it's sure to do reasonably well on video and DVD. The New Guy, despite its title, is old hat and plays quite a bit like a 93 minute sitcom. It wouldn't seem too far out of place at all if it had been shot on video in front of a live studio audience. Maybe this shouldn't come as a surprise, considering that the résumés of both director Ed Decter and writer David Kendall feature episodes of the cringe-inducing Boy Meets World.. Kendall's body of work also includes episodes of Growing Pains, Nick Freno: Licensed Teacher, Sister, Sister, and ::shivers:: Mowry #3's Smart Guy. The comedy's lazy, relying heavily on dull potty humor (ha! The old teacher touched his pee-pee!), wacky cameos where the presence of a B-list celebrity is the punchline, and references to movies that by and large will go unappreciated by The New Guy's 14 year old target audience. There's not a good, solid laugh to be had in the movie. I'll leave open the possibility that I might've chuckled once or twice if I hadn't been subjected to countless TV promos and theatrical trailers, but The New Guy is smirk-free territory. I forced a much more forgiving friend of mine to watch it a few days later, and he wasn't any more impressed than I was. It's not the sort of movie that left me shifting uncomfortably on my couch or ceaselessly glancing at the nearest clock. The New Guy is better described as mediocre than truly bad. If I'd plunked down $3.50 for a rental, I'd have been immensely disappointed. Wasting twenty bucks on a purchase would've made me angry. You don't want to see a wiry little guy like me angry, either. It's pretty pathetic.
I don't much care for DJ Qualls. I don't even like his name, and I cannot realistically envision a scenario in which I would refer to another person as "DJ" or even an abbreviated "Deej". Though obviously the only reason he's ever cast in a feature film is because he's so gosh-darn quirky, he lacks the charisma or anything approximating appeal to carry a movie. I can see him becoming fairly sought-after for supporting roles over the next couple of years, but his chops fall short of what a lead should offer. I've also been told that Qualls bears no small resemblance to me, which I find depressing to no end. Still, he's gotten the chance to make-out on camera with the always lovely Eliza Dushku, a pretty impressive feat I've yet to accomplish outside of the limitless possibilities Photoshop provides. (I'm kidding, by the way. I'm a pretty creepy person, but digitally inserting myself into the lives of celebrities is a depth to which I've yet to sink. Give me time, though.) Dushku was actually my primary motivation for giving The New Guy a shot, following her very memorable role as Faith on Buffy the Vampire Slayer and Angel, as well as turns in Bring It On, Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back, and the considerably less enjoyable Soul Survivors. Her talent is wasted here, saddled with a character who's present just because every teen movie has to have a love interest, and it's convenient from a storytelling standpoint to have a character whose disregard-th'-little-people ascension to popularity mirrors Dizzy's own. Though I'll giddily admit to finding her extremely attractive, the lengthy sequence in which Dushku is paraded around as eye candy while trying on a series of skimpy bathing suits screams "obligatory".
Eddie Griffin's role isn't as large as previews suggest, especially considering that almost every single frame in which he appears turned up in some form during The New Guy's promotional onslaught three months back. Lyle Lovitt's casting as Dizzy's pop works well on paper, but in practice...the word that immediately springs to mind is "embarrassing". Perhaps not coincidentally, that also describes the presence of Illeana Douglas as a cliché-spouting, bracefaced counselor and the innumerable awkward cameos. Tommy Lee, Gene Simmons, Tony Hawk, Henry Rollins, Horatio Sanz, Jerry and Charlie O'Connell, Vanilla Ice, Kool Moe Dee, Tenacious D's Kyle Gass, and David Hasselhoff all pop in and collect a quick paycheck. I guess it's easier to go for cheap laughs by making the audience go, "hey, that's Tony Hawk! Look, everyone's ignoring him at that party even though he's Tony Hawk!" than to actually come up with anything clever or witty.
The New Guy is a wholly unremarkable movie with precious little thought or effort put into it, and its release on DVD is every bit as lackluster.
Video: Both full-frame and 1.85:1 anamorphic widescreen presentations of The New Guy are provided on this DVD release. The widescreen version is all over the map in terms of quality, falling short of what I've come to expect for a movie so recently out of theaters. It's not so much that the film is battered or mired in dust and assorted specks. It's more that this DVD makes The New Guy looks as if it were shot on two very different film stocks, and for all I know, maybe it was. Much of the movie looks razor sharp, sporting vibrant colors and a pretty impressive amount of detail. Other portions look flat and extremely grainy, far more so than any recent release I can think of off the top of my head. It would be an exaggeration to say that these portions, which make up a considerable portion of the runtime, look like blown-up 16mm footage, but that's in the general ballpark. This DVD release of The New Guy may be representative of how the movie appeared theatrically, but the image here is inconsistent and, as a whole, less attractive than most of the fifteen year old catalog titles on my shelf.
Audio: The New Guy's Dolby Digital 5.1 audio is pretty standard, featuring some decent stereo separation and a bit of surround use outside of the usual music reinforcement. As is invariably the case with comedies, though, the action is anchored front and center. Bass seemed a little lacking for the first third of the film, even in the funk and requisite hip-hop/techno/anything-else-with-artificial-beats scattered around the soundtrack. After that point, though, the subwoofer proved to be a lot livelier, particularly when those same styles of music would appear. No idea why.
The usual French dub has been provided, along with subtitles in both English and French.
Supplements: The New Guy is pretty barebones. DJ Qualls and Eddie Griffin did do some publicity for the movie, including a series of bumpers on Comedy Central. None of that wound up on the disc, though. The only extra of note is a music video for Simple Plan's hopelessly generic "I'm Just A Kid". The video features the band members failing miserably to impress Eliza Dushku, who still winds up with Dizzy. That's about it, aside from a trailer gallery featuring XXX, Spider-Man, Mr. Deeds, The Animal, and, of course, The New Guy.
Conclusion: Skip It.
DJ Qualls, Hollywood's stock 98-lb. weakling (Road Trip, the movie that is forever destined to appear in parentheses next to his name), stars as geeky outcast Dizzy Harrison. The aspiring bassist and his social misfit bandmates don't amount to much more than barely discernable blips on the social radar. After being humiliated by a public Porky's-style wang-yanking, Dizzy finds himself imprisoned and turns to cellmate Luther (Eddie Griffin) for some much-needed assistance. Since high school isn't too terribly different than prison, Luther dishes out the rules of survival at the big house. Dizzy takes copious notes and puts Luther's teachings to the test when starting a new life as Gil Harris at a different high school. Gil, whose very slight transformation is even less dramatic than that of Rachael Leigh Cook in the Pygmalionariffic She's All That, quickly becomes the center of attention. He immediately sets out to unseat the Big Man on Campus, even rubbing salt in the wound by stealing the affections of his girlfriend, head cheerleader Danielle (Eliza Dushku, who'd previously paraded her pom-poms in Bring It On). Gil is happier than he's ever been, but his lifelong pals in his garage funk band are becoming a distant memory, and his well-guarded secret can't stay buried forever.
The New Guy is a trailer comedy, filled with just enough moderately amusing moments to fill a two minute trailer and dupe $30 million worth of moviegoers into filling theater seats. With those modest expectations set for The New Guy, it was a success. It wasn't a particularly pricey production but managed to gross just shy of $29 million at the box office, and it's sure to do reasonably well on video and DVD. The New Guy, despite its title, is old hat and plays quite a bit like a 93 minute sitcom. It wouldn't seem too far out of place at all if it had been shot on video in front of a live studio audience. Maybe this shouldn't come as a surprise, considering that the résumés of both director Ed Decter and writer David Kendall feature episodes of the cringe-inducing Boy Meets World.. Kendall's body of work also includes episodes of Growing Pains, Nick Freno: Licensed Teacher, Sister, Sister, and ::shivers:: Mowry #3's Smart Guy. The comedy's lazy, relying heavily on dull potty humor (ha! The old teacher touched his pee-pee!), wacky cameos where the presence of a B-list celebrity is the punchline, and references to movies that by and large will go unappreciated by The New Guy's 14 year old target audience. There's not a good, solid laugh to be had in the movie. I'll leave open the possibility that I might've chuckled once or twice if I hadn't been subjected to countless TV promos and theatrical trailers, but The New Guy is smirk-free territory. I forced a much more forgiving friend of mine to watch it a few days later, and he wasn't any more impressed than I was. It's not the sort of movie that left me shifting uncomfortably on my couch or ceaselessly glancing at the nearest clock. The New Guy is better described as mediocre than truly bad. If I'd plunked down $3.50 for a rental, I'd have been immensely disappointed. Wasting twenty bucks on a purchase would've made me angry. You don't want to see a wiry little guy like me angry, either. It's pretty pathetic.
I don't much care for DJ Qualls. I don't even like his name, and I cannot realistically envision a scenario in which I would refer to another person as "DJ" or even an abbreviated "Deej". Though obviously the only reason he's ever cast in a feature film is because he's so gosh-darn quirky, he lacks the charisma or anything approximating appeal to carry a movie. I can see him becoming fairly sought-after for supporting roles over the next couple of years, but his chops fall short of what a lead should offer. I've also been told that Qualls bears no small resemblance to me, which I find depressing to no end. Still, he's gotten the chance to make-out on camera with the always lovely Eliza Dushku, a pretty impressive feat I've yet to accomplish outside of the limitless possibilities Photoshop provides. (I'm kidding, by the way. I'm a pretty creepy person, but digitally inserting myself into the lives of celebrities is a depth to which I've yet to sink. Give me time, though.) Dushku was actually my primary motivation for giving The New Guy a shot, following her very memorable role as Faith on Buffy the Vampire Slayer and Angel, as well as turns in Bring It On, Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back, and the considerably less enjoyable Soul Survivors. Her talent is wasted here, saddled with a character who's present just because every teen movie has to have a love interest, and it's convenient from a storytelling standpoint to have a character whose disregard-th'-little-people ascension to popularity mirrors Dizzy's own. Though I'll giddily admit to finding her extremely attractive, the lengthy sequence in which Dushku is paraded around as eye candy while trying on a series of skimpy bathing suits screams "obligatory".
Eddie Griffin's role isn't as large as previews suggest, especially considering that almost every single frame in which he appears turned up in some form during The New Guy's promotional onslaught three months back. Lyle Lovitt's casting as Dizzy's pop works well on paper, but in practice...the word that immediately springs to mind is "embarrassing". Perhaps not coincidentally, that also describes the presence of Illeana Douglas as a cliché-spouting, bracefaced counselor and the innumerable awkward cameos. Tommy Lee, Gene Simmons, Tony Hawk, Henry Rollins, Horatio Sanz, Jerry and Charlie O'Connell, Vanilla Ice, Kool Moe Dee, Tenacious D's Kyle Gass, and David Hasselhoff all pop in and collect a quick paycheck. I guess it's easier to go for cheap laughs by making the audience go, "hey, that's Tony Hawk! Look, everyone's ignoring him at that party even though he's Tony Hawk!" than to actually come up with anything clever or witty.
The New Guy is a wholly unremarkable movie with precious little thought or effort put into it, and its release on DVD is every bit as lackluster.
Video: Both full-frame and 1.85:1 anamorphic widescreen presentations of The New Guy are provided on this DVD release. The widescreen version is all over the map in terms of quality, falling short of what I've come to expect for a movie so recently out of theaters. It's not so much that the film is battered or mired in dust and assorted specks. It's more that this DVD makes The New Guy looks as if it were shot on two very different film stocks, and for all I know, maybe it was. Much of the movie looks razor sharp, sporting vibrant colors and a pretty impressive amount of detail. Other portions look flat and extremely grainy, far more so than any recent release I can think of off the top of my head. It would be an exaggeration to say that these portions, which make up a considerable portion of the runtime, look like blown-up 16mm footage, but that's in the general ballpark. This DVD release of The New Guy may be representative of how the movie appeared theatrically, but the image here is inconsistent and, as a whole, less attractive than most of the fifteen year old catalog titles on my shelf.
Audio: The New Guy's Dolby Digital 5.1 audio is pretty standard, featuring some decent stereo separation and a bit of surround use outside of the usual music reinforcement. As is invariably the case with comedies, though, the action is anchored front and center. Bass seemed a little lacking for the first third of the film, even in the funk and requisite hip-hop/techno/anything-else-with-artificial-beats scattered around the soundtrack. After that point, though, the subwoofer proved to be a lot livelier, particularly when those same styles of music would appear. No idea why.
The usual French dub has been provided, along with subtitles in both English and French.
Supplements: The New Guy is pretty barebones. DJ Qualls and Eddie Griffin did do some publicity for the movie, including a series of bumpers on Comedy Central. None of that wound up on the disc, though. The only extra of note is a music video for Simple Plan's hopelessly generic "I'm Just A Kid". The video features the band members failing miserably to impress Eliza Dushku, who still winds up with Dizzy. That's about it, aside from a trailer gallery featuring XXX, Spider-Man, Mr. Deeds, The Animal, and, of course, The New Guy.
Conclusion: Skip It.
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