Review Archives

1 | 2 | 3

Today's Date is:

A Guy Thing - Special Edition

Cheuvanistic and sloppy, "A Guy Thing" easily resembles the inside of a bachelor's apartment... an unkempt bachelor, that is. This isn't even one of those movies where you question how such a talented cast could be so wasted, but rather find yourself asking what actors like Jason Lee, Selma Blair, and Julia Stiles were smoking before they agreed to sign on for this tripe. Lee plays Paul, a soon-to-be-married, typical joe who finds himself in bed with Becky (Stiles) the morning after his bachelor party. Fearing that his fiancee Karen (Blair) will discover his infidelity, he desperately tries to cover his tracks, but finds it increasingly hard when he A) finds out that the two women are cousins, and B) comes face-to-face with Becky's psycho-cop ex. ***

All this and fart jokes too, accompanied by misplaced sexual gags, bodily function farces, and a complete and utter lack of any inspiration or even entertainment value behind the sum of these horribly exasperating movie. With a tally of four different screenwriters, it's amazing that not a single one of them could come up with something besides this tasteless parade of seriously misguided visual humor and outright terrible dialogue. Lee, hot off the set of "Stealing Harvard," continues his downward spiral with increasing speed, while Blair and Stiles, once full of potential and promise, seem to be following a similar course of descent. Director Chris Koch, whose credits are mostly comprised of television episodes, has no control over this tailspin of a film that reels like flatulence and resembles a dirty crotch. Beware.

One of MGM's more mediocre transfers. "A Guy Thing" is presented both in its original aspect ratio of 1.85:1 and a fullframe version; the widescreen version looks very good in terms of color saturation, with vibrant hues and accurate fleshtones, but the dark appearance of the picture makes for some problems. Contrast looks flat in places and shadow detail is just fair, and there is a great deal of film grain and compression artifacts visible throughout. Edges are sharp, but also contain very intrusive enhancement halos. ***

The sound is equally so-so, a very front-heavy mix that puts a great deal of emphasis on the music and leaves everything else out to dry. Dialogue sounds quite natural, and front-end separation is nicely done, but surrounds aren't used for anything more than the occasional atmospheric effect, and deep bass, although used in certain moments, isn't very prevalent. Nothing special.

An obvious attempt by MGM to rake in more money off of the box office bomb that was "A Guy Thing," this DVD comes loaded with special features that don't do a damn thing for the movie at all. In addition to the commentary we have the fun fact track, which displays subtitles throughout the movie containing more pointless, unneeded info about the disaster. ***

Then we move on to a collection of three featurettes: the first, entitled "Inside A Guy Thing," is your basic tell-all by the filmmakers and cast about how the story came to be, and how the movie was produced, and all that useless babble that you just don't give a hoot about if the movie sucked. What surprised me was the revelation that the script took a little over a year to write (and that was all they could come up with in that period of time?). Then we move on to "Bachelor Party Confidential," which is just the actors and crew giving their own opinions of what bachelor parties are. Who cares? Ending the pain (or increasing it, perhaps) is "Groovy Gravy," which is so pointless and pathetic an attempt at a DVD extra that it has to be seen to be believed. All of these feature lifeless, boring interviews with the primary participants. ***

The rest of the DVD is pure tripe, through and through. We have a gallery of seven deleted scenes and three alternate endings complete with intros by Koch; if anything, these scenes just add to the swelling of an already-enormous migraine. Then there is a gag reel (gag me), a really tiresome compatability quiz (strangle me), and a photo gallery and trailer. --