Maid in Manhattan is a harmless enough rom-com but not entirely memorable either, though I suppose Jennifer Lopez acquitted herself well enough, though Ralph Fiennes seemed completely wrong for the role.
Maid in Manhattan
(2002)
Genre(s): Romance, Comedy
Mill Creek Entertainment | PG13 – 105 min. – $14.98 | January 28, 2020
Date Published: 01/15/2020 | Author: The Movieman
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Mill Creek Entertainment provided me with a free copy of the Blu-ray I reviewed in this Blog Post.
The opinions I share are my own.
THE MOVIE — 2.5/5 |
| Note: This portion was copied from my original review of the Blu-ray release from 2010.
Plot Synopsis: Marisa Ventura (JENNIFER LOPEZ) is a struggling single mom who works at a posh Manhattan hotel and dreams of a better life for her and her young son (TYLER POSEY). One fateful day, hotel guest and senatorial candidate Christopher Marshall (RALPH FIENNES meets Marisa and mistakes her for a wealthy socialite. After an enchanting evening together, the two fall madly in love. But when Marisa’s true identity is revealed, issues of class and social status threaten to separate them. Can two people from very different worlds overcome their differences and live happily ever after? Review: I probably last saw Maid in Manhattan upon its initial release back in 2002. Heck, I might’ve even checked a sneak preview of it. One thing I do remember is that I didn’t like it then and I didn’t like it upon only my second viewing, now on Blu-ray. It’s not for the lack of talent that the film doesn’t work. Despite what some people say, I think Jennifer Lopez is a good actress especially if she’s given the right script and the right director (see: Out of Sight) and Ralph Fiennes has turned a good/great performance a time or two over the years (Schindler’s List, heck even Red Dragon) but the combo here never works. Part of the problem is that no matter how good an actor might be, if he or she is wrong for the character, it doesn’t matter how charismatic you are and while Ralph Fiennes is one of my favorite actors working today, he never quite fit the role. Lopez, on the other hand, was alright for her part but really, the screenplay fails on her by giving us a story that doesn’t quite click. Since I could find nothing else about this film to really interest me, I decided to check out a bit of trivia and discovered that at one time Hilary Swank was going to star when it was titled The Chambermaid and was set in the 1920s. But studio heads prevailed and it was updated to become a run-of-the-mill rom-com that would be forgotten in the lore’s of 99 cent video rentals. As you might imagine, stay away from this. Although it’s not a terrible movie by any stretch – there is a certain charm lingering underneath a stilted screenplay and poor casting –, it’s still just another forgettable romantic comedy. |
SPECIAL FEATURES – 0/5 |
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No features were included, not even a scene access or even the gag reel from Sony’s Blu-ray release. I guess the lone positive is that the artwork on the Blu-ray and DVD are different… |
VIDEO – 4.25/5 |
| Watching this a decade later, the picture pretty much remained the same from 2010: Maid in Manhattan sports a surprisingly pleasing looking 1080p high-def transfer (2.40 aspect ratio). The picture is bright, pops off the screen and doesn’t have a noticeable amount of dust or scratches. There is some natural noise here and there but the detail levels are nice and the colors are well balanced. I don’t know how much work Sony did for this release, but it’s a good transfer. |
AUDIO – 4.0/5 |
| This comes with a standard but fine DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1 track (the previous release was Dolby TrueHD), but from my ears, I doubt there was a significant difference. This is a dialogue-driven film so the majority of sounds does come through the center speakers, with modest audio from the front and rear channels, mostly for the ambient noises or Alan Silvestri’s score. |
OVERALL – 2.0/5 |
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Maid in Manhattan is a harmless enough rom-com but not entirely memorable either, though I suppose Jennifer Lopez acquitted herself well enough, though Ralph Fiennes seemed completely wrong in the role. This Blu-ray release from Mill Creek is certainly cheap and maybe worth picking up if you didn’t already own the original Sony release. |