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Along Came Polly stars Jennifer Aniston, whose films fall into two categories – “Rachel from Friends” and “well worth watching”. Sadly, this is not the latter, although the only one that did hit the spot was The Good Girl.
Professional risk assessor Reuben (Ben Stiller) is getting married to his other half of nearly five years, Lisa (Will & Grace‘s Debra Messing), but things go wrong immediately on their honeymoon when she cops off with sleazy scuba instructor Claude (Hank Azaria, who does many a voice for The Simpsons), and so before long he’s back home, bumps into old school friend Polly (Jennifer Aniston), they go salsa dancing, go for meals, and do all the usual dating things, with occasional comic off-shoots.
It has some funny moments, such as when he’s with his best friend Sandy (Philip Seymour Hoffman), an ex-Brat-Pack actor who has a reality film crew following him around, go playing 1-on-1 basketball and Reuben gets covered in sweat from one of their opponents, plus later when Reuben’s Mum brings up the subject of his slutty wife at an impromptu dinner with Polly, as well as a Breakfast Club pastiche.
That said, it’s all predictable stuff and passes 90 minutes easily, but it’s not a particularly funny comedy throughout and it doesn’t engage in the romantic stakes as there’s no chemistry in either couple. Alec Baldwin does a reasonable turn as a domineering boss and Bryan Brown very sporty CEO of a big company, his action antics shown as he goes BASE jumping and plays a violent squash game. Once it’s over, it’s not the most memorable, nor recommendable, film I’ve seen this year.
In addition, and this is a spoiler, it even has the same ending as Friends where Jennifer Aniston is leaving town, and the male half of the couple goes running off after her.
There’s no problems with the picture, which is in the original 1.85:1 widescreen ratio and is anamorphic. Soundwise, again, Universal have included a DTS soundtrack and, while it doesn’t make a massive difference here, it’s always good to see it included.
The extras on this DVD are listed below. Any film clips are 1.85:1 letterbox, while non-movie footage is in 4:3:
- Original Opening (1½ mins): We see where Reuben works, rather than starting with the wedding preparations, but we get the idea of his company, and we see it later on anyway, so this isn’t really required.
- Rodolfo Goes To Hollywood (4½ mins): A rather pointless featurette cutting all the clips together that prove the film’s ferret is blind – so lots of bumping into things. This was funny the first couple of times as part of the main feature, but went on a bit after that.
- Deleted Scenes (6 mins): Seven scenes, but nothing that would’ve changed the dynamic of the film in any way. I might’ve put back in the last two of the restaurant parking lot and Reuben talking to his boss, but that’s about it.
- Outtakes (4½ mins): Lines are fluffed. Contains spoilers so watch after the film.
- Making of Along Came Polly (10½ mins): Nothing deviating from the usual. Film clips mixed in with chat from principal cast and crew members.
- Trailer (2½ mins): In 1.85:1 letterbox, and contains a clip from the parking lot deleted scene that didn’t make it to the final movie.
- Audio commentary: with director John Hamburg.
Subtitles are in English only, there are 20 chapters and the menu features a few clips from the film rotating until you’ve had enough of them. You also get moments from the movie intersecting with the menus when selecting different options which is quite clever.
Along Came Polly is out now on DVD.
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FILM CONTENT PICTURE QUALITY SOUND QUALITY EXTRAS |
4 8 7 3 |
| OVERALL | 5.5 |
Detailed specs:
Cert: 
Running time: 86 minutes
Studio: Universal Pictures Video
Year: 2004
Released: 2004
Region(s): 2, PAL
Cat no. 8222961
Chapters: 20
Sound: Dolby Digital 5.1, DTS 5.1
Languages: English
Subtitles: English
Widescreen: 1.85:1
16:9-Enhanced: Yes
Macrovision: Yes
Disc Format: DVD9
Director: John Hamburg
Producers: Danny DeVito, Michael Shamberg, Stacey Sher
Screenplay: John Hamburg
Music: Theodore Shapiro, Andrew Lloyd Webber
Cast:
Reuben Feffer: Ben Stiller
Polly Prince: Jennifer Aniston
Sandy Lyle: Philip Seymour Hoffman
Lisa Kramer: Debra Messing
Stan Indursky: Alec Baldwin
Claude: Hank Azaria
Leland Van Lew: Bryan Brown
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.