Rating summary

Movie		3.0
Video		4.5
Audio		4.0
Extras		2.0
Overall		3.0

Overboard Blu-ray Movie Review

Reviewed by Jeffrey Kauffman July 26, 2018

Goldie Hawn and Kurt Russell were recently featured rather prominently in an online listing of Hollywood couples who have managed to beat the odds and who have stayed together for decades. Perhaps saliently, it should be noted (for those who don’t already know) that Hawn and Russell never officially married, though they played a kinda sorta married couple on the big screen in the original 1987 version of Overboard. Overboard was a fish out of water comedy in more ways than one, with Hawn essaying a cruel and sadistic wealthy woman who gets her comeuppance, albeit unknowingly due to some amnesia after falling off of her yacht, when an everyday shmoe played by Russell tricks her into believing she’s his wife, relegating her to a life as a homebody in charge of several raucous boys. It may have been fun in a sort of meta way had the 2018 version of Overboard paired Anna Faris with her (erstwhile) main squeeze Chris Pratt, but as readers of gossip columns no doubt know, the Faris-Pratt union will not be making any online (or other) lists of long lasting Hollywood relationships (married or otherwise), since the two separated in 2017 and later filed for divorce. There’s a gender switch of sorts going on in this Overboard, with the “rich bitch” becoming a, well, “rich bastard” in the form of Eugenio Derbez as Leonardo Montenegro, the son of the third richest man in the world. While the casting of Derbez opens up a whole Latino subplot that was not part of the original, and which is kind of smartly folded into another character’s love of telenovelas, this film makes a perhaps deadly error early on by making Leo less of an outright boor and more of a spoiled child, kind of like Dudley Moore’s iconic rich twit Arthur. Derbez is almost inherently lovable, even when he’s playing a cad, as was more than evident in How to Be a Latin Lover, and that unmistakable sweetness actually works like a charm for the later part of Overboard. The problem is the whole film hinges on Leo being a horrible person, at least initially, and this version simply doesn’t offer the same amount of animus toward the character that Garry Marshall’s 1987 version did vis a vis the Hawn character and her histrionics.

Kate Sullivan (Anna Faris) is an incredibly hard working single mother attempting to raise three rather sweet little girls (the gender change in this instance may not help the underlying angst of the story). She works multiple jobs, and has to deal with the umbrage of her eldest daughter when she picks the girls up from school with the pizza delivery sign still attached to the top of her car. Kate spends her time driving around listening to educational audio that is getting her ready to take some kind of nurse’s exam, but constant distractions mean she’s really not able to devote full time to bettering herself. One of her supplemental jobs is carpet cleaning, and when Leonardo Montenegro (Eugenio Derbez) pollutes the floor covering of his immense yacht, Kate is called in to clean things up.

And here is another spot where this Overboard may take on too much water to stay afloat. The original film had more of a tether between the mismatched pair, but here it’s almost a random occurrence, and a rather short one, that sets everything into motion. Topping it off is the aforementioned fact that Leo for all his boorish behavior really doesn’t come off as totally objectionable in the same way the Hawn character did in the original. Be that as it may, this version more or less follows the course set by its progenitor by having Leo and Kate spar, leaving Kate in dire straits and Leo setting off to Mexico, where his elderly father is supposedly on his deathbed and ready to hand over the company’s reins to his prodigal son, to the obvious anger of Leo’s sister Magdalena (Cecilia Suárez), who has nonetheless shown up on the yacht to fetch her troublesome sibling and bring him back home. Suffice it to say that Leo ends up washed up on a beach with a serious lack of memory, and after a couple of interstitial vignettes (including Magda telling the doctors attending to Leo that he is not her brother), Kate shows up to claim that he’s her husband.

Now here’s the interesting part, at least in terms of how this film departs from the original’s formulations. The whole scheme to make Leo pay for his perceived rudeness is hatched by Kate’s friend Theresa (Eva Longoria), who enables the artifice by having fake documents made that seem to support Kate’s story that Leo and she have been together for fifteen years. Theresa’s staff is largely Hispanic, and early in the film it’s revealed in an offhand way that Kate also speaks Spanish, something that in turn comes into play when Kate overhears a heated argument between Leo and Magda on Leo’s yacht. Also playing into the film’s subplot is a repeated reference to telenovelas, and the film’s raucous climax overtly mentions how Overboard is kind of like a telenovela on steroids, at least in this iteration. It’s here that this Overboard manages to find something at least a little innovative to do with the material.

Overboard delivers a few scattered laughs along the way, including some kind of schtick laden physical comedy as Leo attempts to become a working stiff at a construction site, but a lot of the film kind of meanders, albeit generally congenially enough. The charisma of the cast manages to keep the film’s head above water, if only barely, and fans of Farris may find this easy enough to take, even if it never really delivers hilarity in generous amounts.

Overboard Blu-ray Movie, Video Quality 

Overboard is presented on Blu-ray courtesy of Lionsgate Films with an AVC encoded 1080p transfer in 2.39:1. Once again the IMDb hasn't provided any real technical data on the shoot, but a bit of internet sleuthing turned up what looks like reliable data that the Sony F55 was used to digitally capture the imagery, which I'm assuming was then finished at a 2K DI (this assumption I haven't been able to either verify or debunk, so if anyone has verifiable authoritative information, send it on and I'll happily update the review). This is an often bright and colorful presentation that easily supports typically excellent fine detail levels across the board (over or otherwise). In what may be a subliminal tip o' the hat to those who often perceive a "teal" grade to films that aren't supposed to have one, the film does have a prevalence of blue-green tones, as can be seen in several of the screenshots accompanying this review. Director Rob Greenberg and cinemtographer Michael Barrett (evidently Faris' new post-Pratt main squeeze) commendably don't tart up the proceedings with many stylistic bells and whistles, something that actually helps to support good detail levels and a fairly natural looking palette. There are just a couple of brief sequences where either nighttime or day for night shooting techniques tend to add a kind of murky haze to the proceedings, something that in turn tends to mask some fine detail levels.

Overboard Blu-ray Movie, Audio Quality 

Overboard's DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1 mix springs fitfully to life when there are sequences of Leo partying hearty on his yacht, or even in some of the pizza joint scenes where a glut of background noise nicely spills into the surround channels. But most of the sporadic immersion in this track comes courtesy of ambient environmental sounds and Lyle Workman's score. Otherwise, while not impressively "showy" in any way, dialogue is always rendered cleanly and clearly and is typically well prioritized.

Overboard Blu-ray Movie, Special Features and Extras 

• Audio Commentary by Writer-Director Rob Greenberg, Writer Bob Fisher and Producer Benjamin Odell


• Chemistry is Comedy (1080p; 13:50) is an agreeable enough EPK focusing on the camaraderie of the cast.


• Culture Clash (1080p; 6:39) looks at what is arguably the biggest difference between this version and the original, even more than the gender switch.


• Captains of the Ship: Bob and Rob (1080p; 3:56) profiles Greenberg and Fisher.

Overboard Blu-ray Movie, Overall Score and Recommendation 

Overboard kind of subtly does rehash one element from the original, namely the story's supposed location in my home state of Oregon (this production was filmed in Vancouver, a pretty good lookalike, but if you notice many of the cars have Oregon plates, and there are references to both Eugene and Salem scattered throughout the dialogue). As anyone who has lived here for any amount of time will probably tell you, our state is arguably more full of hipsters than arrogant rich folks, and in fact about the only "snob" types you can find here are what lifelong residents have cheekily called the Society for Native Oregon Born. That part of the film may be at least similar to the original, but this version's gender switch actually turns out to be less interesting than some of the interactions between Hispanics and non-Hispanics. This Overboard never really delivers huge laughs, but it's often kind of sweet natured and while not fantastic isn't horrible, either. Technical merits are solid for those considering a purchase.