Twins

• Cat.no: UDR 90004
• Cert: PG
• Running time: 102 minutes
• Year: 1988
• Pressing: 1999
• Region(s): 2, PAL
• Chapters: 16 plus extras
• Sound: Dolby Digital 2.0 (Dolby Surround), Mono
• Languages: English, German, Czech, Hungarian, Polish
• Subtitles: English, Swedish, Norwegian, Dutch
• Fullscreen: 1.33:1 (full frame)
• 16:9-Enhanced: No
• Macrovision: Yes
• Disc Format: DVD 5
• Price: £19.99
• Extras : Scene index, Theatrical trailer, Biographies, Filmographies, Production Notes.

Director:

Ivan Reitman

(Dave, Father’s Day, Ghostbusters, Ghostbusters II, Junior, Kindergarten Cop, Legal Eagles, Meatballs, Six Days Seven Nights, Stripes)

Producer:

Screenplay:

William Davies, William Osborne, Timothy Harris and Herschel Weingrod

Music:

Georges Delerue and Randy Edelman

Cast:

Julius: Arnold Schwarzenegger (Batman and Robin, Dave, Eraser, I Am Legend, Jingle All The Way, Junior, Kindergarten Cop, The Last Action Hero, On Wings As Eagles, Raw Deal, Red Heat, Terminator 1 & 2, Total Recall, True Lies)
Vincent: Danny DeVito (Batman Returns, Get Shorty, Hoffa, Jack The Bear, Junior, The Kiss, L.A. Confidential, One Flew Over The Cuckoo’s Nest, Other People’s Money, Out of Sight, Mars Attacks !, Matilda, The Rainmaker, Renaissance Man,Throw Momma From The Train)
Marnie: Kelly Preston (Addicted To Love, From Dusk Till Dawn, Holy Man, Jerry Maguire, Nothing To Lose, Only You (1992))
Linda: Chloe Webb (A Dangerous Woman, Ghostbusters II, Heart Condition, Love Affair, The Newton Boys, Sid And Nancy)
Mary Ann: Bonnie Bartlett (Dave, Ghosts of Mississippi)

Twinshas one of the most unlikely premises for a film, in that the two twins areplayed by Arnold Schwarzenegger and Danny DeVito. The reasoning behindthis is that they are the product of a top-secret governmental genetic experiment,but only one of them was intentional. After mixing the sperm of six top scientiststhe result was meant to be the perfect son in the form of Julius (Arnie), but therewas a bit left over and their mother, Mary Ann (Bonnie Bartlett) gave birth toVincent (DeVito) as well.

Julius was raised on a tropical island closer to Fiji than anywhere elsewhere, perfectlyeducated but without any chance to put life’s learnings to practice. His brother,Vincent, was put in an orphanage from birth and when the film begins we see him runningfrom one dodgy situation to the next, involving some very shady types along the way.The only thing that will save him is a source of strength and it doesn’t take a geniusto work out that once Julius learns he has a brother he’ll go off to find him and thatthey’ll sort everything out and become best of friends, while having a few hairyadventures along the way.

That said, this is a funny comedy which is still very watchable eleven years after I firstsaw it and has many comic moments, some of which get censored badly every time it is shownon BBC1, for example when Vincent is in jail, innocent Julius goes to visit him andVincent asks him to pay his bail money, the following conversation :

Vincent: Remeber, money talks and bullshit walks
Julius (confused) : How does bullshit walk?

before Julius sees sense and goes to pay, is reduced to :

Vincent: Remeber, money talks.

followed by Julius apparently smiling inanely, hence it’s nice to see the complete versionfor a change.

The film is presented in full-frame 4:3 as opposed to a widescreen or pan-and-scantransfer and while it’s watchable, it’s not too bad and has some scenes looking moregrainy than others, but it’s odd that Universal would put such an average transferout as one of its first titles without bothering to sort out a remastered widescreenpicture which could have benefitted from being presented in anamorphic format. The4:3 image though looks fine on a widescreen TV zoomed-in to 14:9, but not oftenzoomed-in to 16:9 as you’re viewing the central portion of the image, while a typicalwidescreen transfer would mostly be struck from the top-most portion of the image sothat people’s heads won’t get cut off.

The average bitrate is 5.53Mb/s, occasionally peaking over 7Mb/s.

The sound on the disc is fine but there’s nothing that leaps out at you, despite beingfilmed in Dolby Stereo, which is presented here in Dolby Digital 2.0.

Twins is one of the first Universal DVDs to be released under theColumbia TriStar label. It seems an odd choice to be one of the first as it’snot the biggest blockbuster ever made. Perhaps Universal have brought it outnow for the family market ? It’s certainly not for the purpose of demonstratingdemo-quality material.

However, anyone looking to buy this disc will find no reason to turn it down infavour of the American release as that has the same extras on as well as afullscreen transfer. No doubt it won’t be long before the follow-up, Junior,makes it to DVD, reuniting Arnie, Danny and director Reitman.

FILM : ****PICTURE QUALITY: ***SOUND QUALITY: ***EXTRAS: ***——————————-OVERALL: ***

Review copyright © Dominic Robinson, 1999.