Out on a Limb Blu-ray Movie

Rating summary

Movie		2.0
Video		2.5
Audio		3.5
Extras		0.0
Overall		2.0

Out on a Limb Blu-ray Movie Review

Reviewed by Martin Liebman October 2, 2020

There is a lot of lame-brained, bottom-scraping entertainment out there, and Out on a Limb tries very hard to join those ranks. It teeters on the edge of stupidity as it dives headfirst into absurdity, telling a completely inane story yet finding just enough amiableness to hold serve. French Director Francis Veber, who also helmed 1989's Three Fugitives, struggles to find the film's identity, inject into it a purpose, or make it to be anything other than a mindless romp through weak jokes and poor performances. Very forgiving audiences may find it to be a passable time waster, but there's little intrinsic or artistic value at play.

When prompted on the first day of school to share what happened to her over the summer, young Marci (Courtney Peldon) tells a wild story involving her stepfather and his twin, murder, and misadventure. One day, she learned her stepfather Peter Van Der Haven (Jeffrey Jones) was not the upright citizen -- the mayor of the small town of Buzzsaw -- he made himself out to be. She catches him in angry dealings and engaging in subterfuge, but nobody will believe her. Turns out he is in trouble. His twin brother Matt Skearns (also Jones) is in town, out for blood, and out to assume his brother’s identity for a big payday.

Desperate for help, Marci contacts her big brother and big time businessman Bill Campbell (Matthew Broderick) who has just sealed a big $140 million deal. With a couple of days to spare before officially closing the deal, he returns home only to find himself caught in a series of dangerous misadventures, most prominently one involving a fugitive named Sally (Heidi Kling) who snatches his wallet and the only contact information he has for the deal’s final details. To make matters worse, a pair off local buffoons, brothers Jim and Jim (Michael Monks and John C. Reilly), only make a bad situation worse with their unpredictable antics and general stupidity.

The story is told within the framework of a child’s imagination, and one of the movie’s simple, and really only, charms is that one never really knows if all of this really happened to Marci or if she’s just making it up as she goes along. Is the story real, one born of a real life experience, or is it just the product of a tremendously active imagination? Of course it’s a lot to consider and conceive and construct in the matter of moments, but maybe she’s just that sharp. Or maybe she really did experience this adventure. In her class are two students who are mini-me clones of Siskel and Ebert who occasionally critique her story in a good parody of the famous critics (who are no strangers to appearing as characters in a movie). As a figment of a little girl’s imagination, the movie is vivid and fun. If it’s a straight Comedy, it’s pretty poor.

As it is, for the bulk of the film there’s little flow or flavor; it’s a jumble of chase scenes, comedy routines, and mildly humorous misadventures that never really add up to anything of even modest interest. Performances are shaky, too, probably because the actors struggle to find relevance in a script that gives them precious little opportunity to stretch their characters, or themselves. It grows repetitive as it goes nowhere, and even running at less than 90 minutes the movie quickly grows tedious and tiresome as it digs itself into a hole from which it never recovers. Beyond the interesting set-up and the obvious potential, the middle stretch and the final act just suck any and all possibilities from the story, resulting in a lukewarm, at very best, production.

Out on a Limb Blu-ray Movie, Video Quality 

Out on a Limb is yet another of Universal's lower end catalogue releases, clearly sourced from a dated, heavily processed master that renders the movie watchable but hardly attractive. The processing is very evident. The picture has a flat look to it. Edge enhancement is prevalent, detailing has been reduced, and grain is inorganic. Fine details are poor. Grasses and shrubbery, terrain, many of the background elements lack razor definition, looking instead smeary and unnatural, a shame given the otherwise beautiful locations scattered throughout the film (the Jims' "homestead" notwithstanding, though even there the transfer can't quite allow the viewers to clearly see the slovenly clutter strewn about). Fortunately, close-up character presentations fare well enough, showing good general sharpness and basic core detailing, well above standard definition qualities (for which this source was obviously created), but nowhere near so attractive as they would have been without all of the heavy-handed processing. Colors are pasty and flat, never dull but there's not a lot of tonal nuance in play, either. Cars, clothes, and natural greens offer adequate baseline depth but no real feel for pizzaz. Skin tones are less than ideal and black levels offer fair general depth. The image shows a handful of speckles but other source maladies are nonexistent and encode artifacts are very few and far between. Could be much better, could be a bit worse.

Out on a Limb Blu-ray Movie, Audio Quality 

Out on a Limb features a two-channel DTS-HD Master Audio lossless soundtrack. It's big and engaging, taking full advantage of the limited resources at its disposal. Large thunder cracks and big musical cues define one of the opening scenes when Marci first begins to recall her story for her class. There's a jumble of office sounds in the scene to follow. It's a bit loud and overbearing, competing with dialogue, which is still clear enough but it's certainly not very well balanced. It's like that throughout, with various crashes and chases filling the stage with high output shenanigans. Some long distance reverb through the woods in chapter six pushes the front end to its limits, and gunfire in chapter seven also presents with inordinately prominent depth and volume. It's generally fun even if it lacks precision. That it's a fun listen and makes so much of the little available to it earns it relatively high marks, but better balance is needed for it to earn an even better score.

Out on a Limb Blu-ray Movie, Special Features and Extras 

This Blu-ray release of Out on a Limb contains no supplemental content. There is no "top menu;" hitting that button on the remote simply restarts the movie from the beginning. The "pop up menu" only offers users the ability to toggle subtitles on and off. No DVD or digital copies are included with purchase. This release does not ship with a slipcover.

Out on a Limb Blu-ray Movie, Overall Score and Recommendation 

Out on a Limb is one of those no harm, no foul movies. It's pointless and directionless but to its credit it only attempts to tell a silly story and provide 80-some minutes of escape for audiences willing to disconnect from the world and go on a wild ride. Audiences looking for smarts and depth should steer clear, but those who don't mind silly escapes just might find this one to be a treat. Universal's Blu-ray is featureless. It is also hamstrung by a poor 1080p presentation sourced form a dated master. The 2.0 channel lossless soundtrack lacks finesse and it's too loud at reference but it's rather fun and serves as the disc's lone highlight. Skip this one unless it's on a seriously good sale, which would mean it's priced where it should have been at release, which is around $7.