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Molly
List Price: Unknown [Buy now and save at Amazon]
The Movie:
Although MGM has achieved a great deal of success with the Bond franchise over the years, recently they've had a string of particularlyl painful failures, with a couple of major pictures that never even made it to theaters. "Molly" is one of those pictures - in fact, it made its world debut on an airline. Reportedly heavily edited, the final product is a sappy, silly mess.
Elizabeth Shue plays Molly, a 28 year old woman who is mentially handicapped. The way Shue plays the character combined with the situations that she is asked to go through by the script made the character seem a little too cartoonish. The film involves Molly's brother(the fantastic actor Aaron Eckheart, who is wasted in this role) finding himself taking care of her, and deciding to go through with hospital tests that could improve her mental ability.
Lines fall flat one right after another and the general level of dialogue makes the lowest of TV movies look like Shakespeare - everything so overly dramatic that the film becomes unbearable after a while. As I've said before, the combination of Shue's performance and the dialogue make this a very tiring character. Eckheart and the rest of the supporting cast are fine, but don't make much of an impression.
It's that kind of movie where when something positive happens, the music swells up. Scenes are almost remarkably manipulative, and edited so bizarrely that the end product is just bad in that really strange way where you can't help but wonder just what odd event will take place next.
I guess "Molly" can take its place with "The Adventures Of Super Dave" in MGM's list of direct-to-video failures. This picture though, is a particularly awful one - it's been edited down to 87 minutes and even that feels like absolute torture.
The DVD
VIDEO: This is a decent looking anamorphic transfer from MGM in the film's original 1.85:1 aspect ratio. While there are some noticable flaws, the picture otherwise has a rather flat look to it, with images that are adequately sharp and show good detail. Colors are natural and occasional bright colors pop up with authority, looking vibrant and never suffering from any problems such as bleeding.
There are no problems with shimmering or pixelation, and the only fault that I noticed was the occasional mark and scratch on the print. Although I haven't been thrilled with some of MGM's efforts lately, "Molly" made for a pleasant viewing experience, even if the actual movie itself wasn't so great.
SOUND: As expected from a small drama like this one, "Molly" is almost completely dialogue driven. With the exception of a light, annoying score, there's not much to it. Surrounds are used a handful of times, but not intensely. Dialogue is clear and easily understood. Nothing more than what I was expecting, in terms of audio, from a film like this.
MENUS:: The main menu contains some slight animation with the title and pictures from the movie, which was an enjoyable suprise from MGM.
EXTRAS: Usually, I'm rather tough on a DVD that just includes a trailer(which is rather odd since it never made it to theaters), but in this case, I'm almost thankful. I don't think I could have sat through a commentary track talking about this movie.
Final Thoughts: The DVD wasn't bad at all, with fine attention to quality, but that didn't save the movie from being a complete mess.
Although MGM has achieved a great deal of success with the Bond franchise over the years, recently they've had a string of particularlyl painful failures, with a couple of major pictures that never even made it to theaters. "Molly" is one of those pictures - in fact, it made its world debut on an airline. Reportedly heavily edited, the final product is a sappy, silly mess.
Elizabeth Shue plays Molly, a 28 year old woman who is mentially handicapped. The way Shue plays the character combined with the situations that she is asked to go through by the script made the character seem a little too cartoonish. The film involves Molly's brother(the fantastic actor Aaron Eckheart, who is wasted in this role) finding himself taking care of her, and deciding to go through with hospital tests that could improve her mental ability.
Lines fall flat one right after another and the general level of dialogue makes the lowest of TV movies look like Shakespeare - everything so overly dramatic that the film becomes unbearable after a while. As I've said before, the combination of Shue's performance and the dialogue make this a very tiring character. Eckheart and the rest of the supporting cast are fine, but don't make much of an impression.
It's that kind of movie where when something positive happens, the music swells up. Scenes are almost remarkably manipulative, and edited so bizarrely that the end product is just bad in that really strange way where you can't help but wonder just what odd event will take place next.
I guess "Molly" can take its place with "The Adventures Of Super Dave" in MGM's list of direct-to-video failures. This picture though, is a particularly awful one - it's been edited down to 87 minutes and even that feels like absolute torture.
The DVD
VIDEO: This is a decent looking anamorphic transfer from MGM in the film's original 1.85:1 aspect ratio. While there are some noticable flaws, the picture otherwise has a rather flat look to it, with images that are adequately sharp and show good detail. Colors are natural and occasional bright colors pop up with authority, looking vibrant and never suffering from any problems such as bleeding.
There are no problems with shimmering or pixelation, and the only fault that I noticed was the occasional mark and scratch on the print. Although I haven't been thrilled with some of MGM's efforts lately, "Molly" made for a pleasant viewing experience, even if the actual movie itself wasn't so great.
SOUND: As expected from a small drama like this one, "Molly" is almost completely dialogue driven. With the exception of a light, annoying score, there's not much to it. Surrounds are used a handful of times, but not intensely. Dialogue is clear and easily understood. Nothing more than what I was expecting, in terms of audio, from a film like this.
MENUS:: The main menu contains some slight animation with the title and pictures from the movie, which was an enjoyable suprise from MGM.
EXTRAS: Usually, I'm rather tough on a DVD that just includes a trailer(which is rather odd since it never made it to theaters), but in this case, I'm almost thankful. I don't think I could have sat through a commentary track talking about this movie.
Final Thoughts: The DVD wasn't bad at all, with fine attention to quality, but that didn't save the movie from being a complete mess.
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