Always remember the cardinal rule of eating out; Never mess with people who handle your food! Ryan Reynolds, Anna Faris and Justin Long star in this hilarious comedy about the band of mischievous waiters, waitresses and cooks just waiting to show guests how extraordinary the serivce at ShenaniganZ restaurant can be.
Ever since 1998's There's Something About Mary, and the following year's American
Pie were received with the much deserved box office success with which they were both
lavished, there has been a seemingly never ending onslaught of so called "gross out" comedies.
Waiting… is one of the many in this long line of comedies, and all it seems to do is to be
gross with very little in the way of laughs.
that guy from Van Wilder
Waiting… tries to be a smart comedy about twenty-something servers in a restaurant
waiting around for life to begin. Somewhere in there is a movie trying to be Clerks, but
Clerks it isn't. What it is, is a vulgar and annoying triviality with no stand-out performances
from any of the actors starring that guy from Van Wilder, who was supposed to get people into the
theatres to see it, I suppose, and Anna Faris of Scary Movie fame who might as well have been a
mannequin, because I couldn't even figure out why her character was there.
Presented in a 1.78:1 aspect ratio and encoded in the MPEG-4/AVC video codec in 1080p on this
Blu-ray Disc release, the picture quality of this video transfer is nothing to rave about whatsoever.
Though there are not much compression artifacts to speak of, it is the other issues that damage
the quality of this transfer.
The contrast is a bit too low and black levels are a bit too dark causing shadow details to get
somewhat lost, flesh tones look rather unnatural, and there are definitely some scenes that show
evidence of some edge enhancement and video noise, in particular the final party scene near the
end of the film, and where there are flat colors such as background walls or dark shadows. Besides
the aforementioned issues, the transfer is clean, but relatively dull looking, and slightly
soft.
Lionsgate have provided a well mastered and reasonably mixed 7.1 uncompressed PCM soundtrack
in addition to a 5.1 Dolby Digital Surround EX soundtrack.
The PCM soundtrack is clear, well balanced and easy on the ears, but making it 7.1 may have been
completely unnecessary in this case as there is not much going on at all in the surround channels,
and there is certainly not much in the lower frequency range to speak of. None of these things are
surprising for a movie of this sort. In all, the soundtrack is good for what it is, but is really just an
average soundtrack overall.
With that said, dialogue is clear, crisp, well placed, and the soundstage is presented with
accuracy. The midrange is well done, and high frequencies are never a nuisance.
The alternative music on the soundtrack that pops up frequently throughout the movie sounds
exceptional – better than most CDs available today – and works well within the confines of the
subdued 7.1 uncompressed PCM mix.
There are many extras on this disc, far too many to go into depth for each and every one within
the scope of this review. I found most of the extras provided on this Blu-ray release to be
unnecessary and repetitive in nature, as if Lionsgate were merely filling up the space in order to
get people to spend their money with the enticement of more features, For example, the extra
feature "That Little Extra" Producer's Documentary (standard definition; 4:3) which goes over
the story of Waiting… and how it came into being through interviews with Writer/Director Rob
McKittrick and co-producer John J. Anderson, is gone over again through interviews with the
same people in another extra feature entitled The Works: All Access Interactive Video
Commentary, which itself includes casting and screen tests, which another extra feature Side
Dishez (high definition 16:9/standard definition; 4:3) also includes – do you see where I'm going
with this? I found sitting through all of these extras monotonous, burdensome, and
boring.
There are other extras as well, including the original theatrical trailer (high definition; 16:9),
alternate takes, outtakes, a cast and crew audio commentary and the Expanded Telestrator
Commentary with Writer/Director Rob McKittrick and John J. Anderson, where they actually draw
on the screen with a telestrator during the movie playback and even pause the playback at
certain points and comment on every bit of minutiae concerning the film they can think of.
There are still more extras on the disc, none of them worth even one viewing, much less
repeated viewings.
Waiting… leaves me "waiting" for someone to refund me the 94 minutes of my life that it
took for me to sit through this awful movie, and that's not even counting the completely pointless
extras I had to watch. Unless you are a masochist, I suggest leaving this release on the store shelf
where it belongs, because neither the movie nor the picture or sound quality is good enough to
recommend a purchase or even a rental for this one.
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