6.7 | / 10 |
Users | 2.9 | |
Reviewer | 3.0 | |
Overall | 3.0 |
Louie Jeffries is happily married to Corinne. On their first anniversary, Louie is killed crossing the road. Louie is reincarnated as Alex Finch, and twenty years later, fate brings Alex and Louie's daughter, Miranda, together.
Starring: Cybill Shepherd, Robert Downey Jr., Ryan O'Neal, Mary Stuart Masterson, Christopher McDonaldRomance | 100% |
Comedy | 28% |
Fantasy | Insignificant |
Video codec: MPEG-4 AVC
Video resolution: 1080p
Aspect ratio: 1.85:1
Original aspect ratio: 1.85:1
English: DTS-HD Master Audio 2.0
English SDH
25GB Blu-ray Disc
Single disc (1 BD)
Region A (C untested)
Movie | 4.0 | |
Video | 2.0 | |
Audio | 3.5 | |
Extras | 0.0 | |
Overall | 3.0 |
Director Emile Ardolino first found success as an Emmy- and Oscar-winning director of documentaries about dancers. When he moved to features, he directed two smash hits, Dirty Dancing and Sister Act, before his untimely death at the age of 50 from AIDS-related causes. He also made a romantic comedy called Chances Are that has retained a devoted following ever since its moderately successful release in 1989. The most familiar faces were those of Cybill Shepherd (fresh off her hit series, Moonlighting ) and Ryan O'Neal (still blessed with the boyish good looks that made him a star in the Seventies), but the key role was played by a relative newcomer named Robert Downey Jr., who had to manage the difficult trick of playing two people inhabiting the same body. Downey, as everyone now knows, can do almost anything, and his performance as a reincarnated soul who tries to resume his old life is the crazy center around which Chances Are spins delightfully. Unfortunately, the Blu-ray presentation from Sony and Image Entertainment leaves much to be desired. More on that below.
Chances Are is one of the catalog titles that Sony licensed to Image Entertainment. Image has been sitting on it for a long time, but when it finally released the film to DVD on January 14, 2014, the Blu-ray was postponed an additional three months. Now that the Blu has finally arrived, it's unclear what all the delay was for. While Sony has generally provided Image with excellent transfers, the presentation of Chances Are is a crushing disappointment. Chances Are was shot by the late William A. Fraker, a notorious perfectionist, three-time president of the cinematographer's guild, and the DP on such notable films as Bullitt, Rosemary's Baby and The Freshman. It is simply not credible that the flat, soft, undetailed and noisy image on this Blu-ray represents either Fraker's or Ardolino's intention. One could perhaps accept such a look due to deliberate use of diffusion for the scenes set in 1964, but all that should change when the film shifts to present day—and it doesn't. The image remains soft, bland and lacking in detail throughout the film's running time. I always hesitate to speculate about what went wrong when a Blu-ray presentation falls short, but this looks to me like a transfer made from elements multiple generations removed from the negative, so that substantial detail had already been lost. If that is the case, it is hard to imagine why a better quality source could not be found for a film released in 1989. Is the Blu-ray an improvement over the DVD? Yes, but not by much. (The audio is a different story.) The colors are better differentiated, and the Blu-ray's greater resolution does improve the presentation of large crowds and detailed sets like the interiors of Corinne's Georgetown home. But it's not the kind of quantum leap we usually see, and it comes with a lot of video noise that shouldn't be there. At an average bitrate of 25.03 Mbps, compression problems aren't an issue, but almost everything else is.
Chances Are was released in Dolby Stereo, which is reproduced on Blu-ray in lossless DTS-HD MA 2.0. It's a solid track with good fidelity, clearly intelligible dialogue and a decent sense of environmental ambiance in crowded scenes like the grand reception that Corinne hosts for her Smithsonian exhibit or the courtroom scene where all the various subplots collide. Scenes like these expand into the rear speakers when the track is played through a good surround decoder. Maurice Jarre's charming score sounds as good as I've ever heard it, as does the essential selection of popular standards that comment on the action, which include Johnny Mathis' "Chances Are" and "Wonderful, Wonderful", Rod Stewart's "Forever Young" and the Oscar-nominated love theme, "After All", which plays both instrumentally and in a vocal rendition by Cher and Peter Cetera. (It lost to "Under the Sea" from The Little Mermaid.)
The disc has no extras. The DVD released by Columba Tristar in 1998 had the film's trailer.
Chances Are is a delightful and original romantic comedy that still holds up. The Blu-ray produced by Sony and Image is a botched effort, but it's the best the film has ever looked, or is likely to look, on home video for the foreseeable future. It's up to you.
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