This is an odd-pairing, even under the “Girls Night In Double Feature” edition as one is a romance-drama with fantasy while the other is just a typical romance-comedy, but even so both films are alright and at a cheap price worth picking up.
Meet Joe Black/Wimbledon
— Girls Night In Double Feature —
(1998/2004)
Genre(s): Drama, Romance
Mill Creek Entertainment| PG13 – 181 min. / 98 min. – $19.99 | September 21, 2021
Date Published: 09/19/2021 | 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 MOVIES |
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MEET JOE BLACK (1998) — Bill Parrish (ANTHONY HOPKINS), businessman and devoted family man, is about to celebrate his 65th birthday. However, before he reaches that landmark, he is visited by Death (BRAD PITT), who has taken human form as Joe Black, a young man who recently died. Joe and Bill make a deal: Bill will be given a few extra days of his life, and Joe will spend the same time getting to know what it’s like to be human. It seems like a perfect arrangement, until Joe falls in love — with Bill’s daughter (CLAIRE FORLANI). Quick Hit Review: Okay romantic-drama features some solid enough performances from both Brad Pitt and Anthony Hopkins but at three hours it is quite long for the kind of movie this is. The romantic aspects between Pitt and Forlani don’t always work however his heartfelt scenes with Hopkins were quite good. 2.5/5 WIMBLEDON (2004) — Frustrated at his own failures and disillusioned with professional sports, tennis player Peter Colt (PAUL BETTANY) resolves to retire from competition and become an instructor at an exclusive private club. But when Colt receives a surprise wild-card berth in Wimbledon, he can’t help but enter the tournament. Soon, Colt meets Lizzie Bradbury (KIRSTEN DUNST), a beautiful American tennis player with an upcoming match of her own, and finds the inspiration he hopes will turn his luck around. Quick Hit Review: Nice enough romantic-comedy, with a sports angle, makes for a fluffy time-waster thanks to the chemistry between Paul Bettany and Kirsten Dunst. It’s nothing terribly new for the genre however worth checking out if you like the cast (with supporting actors that includes Sam Neill and Jon Favreau). 3.25/5 |
SPECIAL FEATURES – 0/5 |
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Unfortunately despite both movies having bonus features on their individual releases, there are none on this release. |
VIDEO – 3/5 |
| With both Meet Joe Black and Wimbledon being on the same disc, and one of those films being 3 hours long, I was concerned how this would look… and there does appear to be some compression issues as neither transfer were especially smooth and some shots looked rough around the edges. Skin tones at least were okay and there didn’t seem to be any significant film damage, though that’s probably not a big surprise given their respective ages. |
AUDIO – 3½/5 |
| Both films come with adequate and satisfactory DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1 tracks. These aren’t films that require lossless tracks or anything but they do at least output crisp and clean dialogue and some decent enough depth for any ambient noises coming through the front and rear channels. |
OVERALL – 2½/5 |
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This is an odd-pairing, even under the “Girls Night In Double Feature” edition as one is a romance-drama with fantasy while the other is just a typical romance-comedy, but even so both films are alright and at a cheap price worth picking up, just know while both did have bonus features, this one is boneless and the video quality is questionable. |