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Jason Maloney reviews
Buena Vista
- Cert:
- Cat.no: D 034639
- Running time: 112 minutes
- Year: 1999
- Pressing: 2000
- Region(s): 2, PAL
- Chapters: 21 plus extras
- Sound: Dolby Digital 5.0
- Languages: English, French, German, Spanish
- Subtitles: French, German, Spanish, Dutch, Swedish, Norwegian, Danish, Finnish, Portugese, Icelandic, English for the hearing impaired.
- Widescreen: 2.35:1
- 16:9-Enhanced: Yes
- Macrovision: Yes
- Disc Format: DVD 9
- Price: £15.99
- Extras: Interactive menus, Scene access
Director:
- Garry Marshall
Cast:
- Ike Graham: Richard Gere
Maggie Carpenter: Julia Roberts
Peggy Fleming: Joan Cusack
Ellie: Rita Wilson
Fisher: Hector Elizondo
Walter: Paul Dooley
Bob: Christopher Meloni
Runaway Bride is to Pretty Woman what You’ve Got Mail was to Sleepless In Seattle. That is, it reunites its two leading stars with the same director, only the story and characters are unconnected to the previous, hugely-sucessful project.
Gere plays a New York columnist, famous for his disparaging pieces on the fairer sex, who’s hit a writer’s block. Needing inspiration for fresh material, he comes across the story of a woman who has jilted several men at the altar, fleeing from the ceremony at the last moment. The runaway bride… and guess who that might be?
Roberts has looked better than she does here, but there’s still that appeal which is hard to put your finger on. The character she plays hardly elicits a huge degree of sympathy, yet as in Notting Hill she shows that portraying screwed-up women is something she is rather good at, even if it doesn’t always make for easy viewing.
Pretty Woman was one of the highest-grossing films of 1990, and launched Julia Roberts into the realms of superstardom while kick-starting Richard Gere’s faltering career in the process. Ten years on, here they are again… but would it have been better not to tempt fate by trying to hit the jackpot a second time?
On the evidence of Runaway Bride, the answer would have to be… maybe. Then again, maybe not. For this is an often charming romantic comedy which just about finds the right formula necessary to pull off such a contrived concept. Indeed, formula is the key here. Everything follows the usual cliched path towards the eventual conclusion, making sure it presses all the required buttons along the way.
That’s not to say it doesn’t throw a few curve balls here and there with some witty dialogue and intelligent scripting. However, at almost two hours, the film – much like You’ve Got Mail, in fact – is too long and stretches a decent enough idea a little too thinly.
The disc will not go down in history as one of Buena Vista’s finest, as there are several irritating defects as well as the usual absence of any extra features. The picture stutters each time the chapter changes over, and there are some serious lip-synch problems during the scene in the workshop of one of Roberts’ former beaus. Some of the dialogue elsewhere is also poorly re-recorded. At least the anamorphic widescreen print is up to scratch.
Runaway Bride is perfectly satisfying, though inessential, fluff which will really only appeal to fans of Gere, Roberts or this type of romantic comedy in general. No surprises there, then.
(DVDfever Ed: And note how like the difference between 48 Hours and Another 48 Hours, the two main stars’ names have swapped over for the sequel!)
PICTURE QUALITY
SOUND QUALITY
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Check out Jason’s homepage: The Slipstream.
Reviewer of movies, videogames and music since 1994. Aortic valve operation survivor from the same year. Running DVDfever.co.uk since 2000. Nobel Peace Prize winner 2021.