6.9 | / 10 |
Users | 0.0 | |
Reviewer | 3.0 | |
Overall | 3.0 |
Valentin is Acapulco’s resident playboy until a former fling leaves a baby on his doorstep and takes off without a trace. Valentin leaves Mexico for Los Angeles to find the baby’s mother, but only ends up finding a new home for himself and his newfound daughter, Maggie. An unlikely father figure, Valentin raises Maggie for six years, while also establishing himself as one of Hollywood’s top stuntmen to pay the bills, with Maggie acting as his on-set coach. As Valentin raises Maggie, she forces him to grow up too. But their unique and offbeat family is threatened when Maggie’s birth mom shows up out of the blue, and Valentin realizes he’s in danger of losing his daughter and his best friend.
Starring: Eugenio Derbez, Jessica Lindsey, Loreto Peralta, Daniel Raymont, Alessandra RosaldoComedy | 100% |
Foreign | Insignificant |
Video codec: MPEG-4 AVC
Video resolution: 1080p
Aspect ratio: 1.78:1
Original aspect ratio: 1.85:1
Spanish: DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1 (48kHz, 24-bit)
English SDH, Spanish
25GB Blu-ray Disc
Single disc (1 BD)
UV digital copy
Slipcover in original pressing
Region A (B, C untested)
Movie | 2.5 | |
Video | 4.0 | |
Audio | 4.0 | |
Extras | 1.5 | |
Overall | 3.0 |
That old adage that kids don’t come with instructions manual is put to the test in the hokey but fitfully charming Spanish language film Instructions Not Included, which according to the breathless press release accompanying this Blu- ray is evidently the most successful Spanish language film ever released in the United States. Co-written, directed and starring Mexican television favorite Eugenio Derbez (La Familia P. Luche), Instructions Not Included is breezy and often gently amusing, if only occasionally laugh out loud hilarious. Derbez’s persona may remind some of another ebullient foreigner who co-wrote, directed and starred in a film which became a significant hit stateside, Roberto Benigni (Life Is Beautiful ). Both Derbez and Benigni have an innate charm and kind of loosey-goosey physical demeanor that makes them seem like grown up kids, and both of them interact beautifully with the actual kids who are part of their respective films. While Benigni’s film posited a happily married husband and father, Derbez’s formulation finds a confirmed bachelor playboy type whose life of hedonistic luxury is suddenly interrupted by the arrival of a baby he evidently fathered a few months previously. Derbez’s character of Valentin isn’t exactly a bad egg, but he’s more than devoted to the pleasures of flesh, something that is perhaps a defensive reaction to having been repeatedly traumatized by his father as a child. Both of these extremes are depicted in amusing montages that start the film off on a briskly enjoyable pace. We see Valentin as a young boy being taught by his father not to fear things like a giant tarantula crawling up his face, jumping off a humongous cliff into the sea, or spending the night locked in a cemetery mausoleum which also happens to inhabited by feral wolves. The film seems to suggest that having survived those rigors, Valentin is out to cram as much enjoyment into his adult life as possible, and the next montage sees the now grown man in various acts of seduction with a huge variety of women. He is in fact asleep with two females when his doorbell rings one sunny Acapulco morning and he’s greeted by a long ago lover who presents to him his previously unknown progeny.
Instructions Not Included is presented on Blu-ray courtesy of Lionsgate Films with an AVC encoded 1080p transfer in 1.78:1. While this is a candy colored outing that features some incredibly bright primaries which pop very nicely in this high definition presentation, things tend to look a little soft for much of the film, especially in midrange and wide shots. The film benefits from many brightly lit outdoor scenes, where a bright golden hue infuses many sequences. Contrast is generally strong and close-ups reveal very good levels of fine detail.
Instructions Not Included features a perfectly serviceable lossless DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1 mix in the original Spanish. (This is yet another recent release with an introductory menu asking the viewer to select what language they want the main menu to be in. It defaults to English. If you happen to choose Spanish inadvertently and aren't fluent, there's an obvious choice at the bottom of the main menu to convert things back into English.) This is a rather front heavy mix that only tends to really utilize the surrounds in some of the score and occasional ambient environmental effects. Dialogue is very cleanly presented and there are no problems of any kind to report.
Instructions Not Included is decidedly a mixed bag, and your personal reaction is probably going to depend on how tolerant you are of sudden changes in tone as well as how much you can stand some pretty incessant mugging on the part of some of the performers. There's a sweetness to a lot of the interactions between Debrez and little Peralto, but I personally found the two left turns this film takes in its third act actually annoying. The film obviously pleased a lot of people based on its box office (which frankly isn't at true blockbuster levels), and those folks should certainly be pleased by the solid technical merits of this release. With the caveats expressed in this review duly noted, and for those who don't mind a somewhat uneasy mix of slapstick and melodrama, Instructions Not Included comes Recommended.
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