Without a Paddle: Nature's Calling Blu-ray offers solid video and mediocre audio, but overall it's a poor Blu-ray release
What do you get when you mix a lawyer, a slacker and a British Guy with the great outdoors?
The wettest, wildest, and most outrageous road trip since Lewis & Clark! As a last wish for a
little old lady, Ben the lawyer (Oliver James), his best friend Zach (Kristopher Turner), and a
wacky Brit, Nigel (Rik Young), team up to find her missing granddaughter. But there's one little
problem...She's somewhere deep in the wilderness getting in touch with nature. See what
happens when three guys without a plan, without a chance and without a clue fall out of the
pan and into the fire! Let the adventure begin!
As Without a Paddle: Nature's Calling begins, a high school student named Heather is seen
roaming the halls, asking anyone and everyone to sign her petition that supports the right of rats
not to be dissected. Given the choice between dissection and a screening of Without a Paddle:
Nature's Calling, the rat just might choose the former. This direct-to-video offering is a comedy
without the laughs, playing as more of a tedious chore than even lighthearted entertainment. The
movie is mostly inoffensive to the sensibilities but also completely forgettable. The inane
shenanigans are stale, the characters bland, the story forced, and the pacing unforgiving.
Without a Paddle: Nature's Calling is one of those movies that might have played better in
the imagination; one can imagine a perusal of the script might have garnered a few laughs here and
there, but the material just doesn't translate all that well to the screen. As noted earlier, there is
nothing inherently bad about the movie, considering it is merely a low-budget, direct-to-video
comedy -- it just never clicks or gets into a rhythm.
Perhaps the film should have been titled, 'With Two Paddles: Nature's Calling.'
Ben (Oliver James) and Zach (Kristopher Turner) are longtime friends who don't seem to have
much time for one another. Ben slaves away day and night as an attorney, while Zach lives a
more carefree life as a nurse at a retirement home. When one of Zach's patients asks him to
find her long-lost granddaughter, Heather (Madison Riley), Zach agrees to help. It turns out she
is the same Heather that Ben longed for in high school. The two set out on a journey to find her,
accompanied by her British brother-in-law Nigel (Rik Young). She was last seen in a small Oregon
town, and legend has it that she (known around town as "Earthchild") and her friend
"Thunderstorm" (Amber McDonald) disappeared into a wooded area, never returned, and are
presumed dead. The trio bumble their way through the brush, watched from afar by a
mysterious individual, and tracked by a pair out to locate the girls before Zach and Ben find them.
Without a Paddle: Nature's Calling is a most boring movie from the get-go. Even as the
plot develops, as the adventure begins, nothing manages to grab the audience and keep them
even
mildly amused, let alone enthralled. Clearly the latter is asking far too much of a movie such as
this,
but the former is clearly the film's goal, and in that regard, it fails to achieve its end. The rafting
adventure scenes, the male bonding moments, and the sensual overtones of the film's third act
all
fall flat, lacking charm and barely finding a semblance of humor. To the film's credit, it does try to
be decent, and offers a few good ideas. For example, while the film's two primary "bad guys"
might
very well fall into the "bumbling comedy antagonist" category, they do hold their own, and bring
to
the game a rather fine selection of firearms, and the know-how to use them, if not all that
accurately. The plot is sufficient to move the picture along, with a decent twist to it, though by
the
time the twist comes along, most audiences will be in a holding pattern of sorts, not really
involved
in the story but just maybe willing to stay with it through to the end.
Perhaps the two most memorable sequences in the film involve a wide receiver and an army of
squirrels. Former San Francisco 49ers wide receiver Jerry Rice makes a cameo appearance in the
film as a long-bearded mountain man who has spent his years studying global warming. Rice is
the best actor in the film, though his part feels mostly forced into the script. Still, it's a nice treat
for football fans, but hardly a reason to watch the movie. And what would a nature comedy be
without small woodland creatures terrorizing the city folk? An extended, and mostly dull,
sequence featuring badly-rendered CGI squirrels is one of those scenes alluded to above that
probably played better on paper than on film. All in all, Without a Paddle: Nature's
Calling isn't all that bad of a watch, but the material is better suited as something that is
tuned in for a minute here and there, maybe something that momentarily catches viewer
interest during a commercial break from the latest episode of The Sarah Connor
Chronicles, should it ever play on television.
Without a Paddle: Nature's Calling ventures onto Blu-ray with a generally nice looking
1080p transfer, framed inside a 1.78:1 window. The image is clear and clean, with a colorful,
natural palette. Grain can be seen here and there, though it is never intrusive and barely
noticeable over the mostly bright, pleasing outdoor imagery. Detail is solid, though not always
exceptional. There are many varied locations to be seen outside of the film's primary natural
setting, particularly early on, including several locales in and around a high school and a small
Oregon town, and each shares their own unique features with a better-than-expected amount of
detail. Background images even remain fairly clear; in the small town as seen in chapter four, for
example, signs in windows in the background can clearly be read. Detail in the woods, too, is nice;
moss on trees, leaves, and various plants all appear fairly realistic. Flesh tones are never
problematic, but black backgrounds often appear as a dark shade of gray. All in all, though,
Without a Paddle: Nature's Calling looks good on Blu-ray, and this video presentation is the
highlight of the disc.
Without a Paddle: Nature's Calling floats onto Blu-ray with a Dolby TrueHD 5.1 lossless
soundtrack that is as forgettable as the movie it accompanies. Front heavy and bland, the track is
suitable for a goofy comedy, but not much more. The music emanates nicely across the front with
a mostly warm, natural presence, with a bit of support from the subwoofer. Environmental
ambience is handled by the front speakers; many of the scenes on the river feature a nice presence
across the front, as the water seems to flow around, but the rear speakers are used sparingly, if at
all, leaving the experience one-sided and not at all immersive. A few gunshots heard near the end
of the movie, along with several crashes and thuds,
sound good enough, but again, lacking that sense of real-time immersion thanks to a completely
front-heavy presentation. Dialogue is presented with no problems. Without a Paddle: Nature's
Calling sounds about as one might expect of a direct-to-video comedy.
Without a Paddle: Nature's Calling sinks on Blu-ray with minimal supplements. Up the
Creek: The Making of 'Without a Paddle: Nature's Calling' (1080i, 10:30) is a very basic piece
featuring cast and crew recounting the plot and sharing their thoughts on what makes the film
work. The piece also looks at how the film connects with the first film in the Without a
Paddle series and how this entry expands into its
own film. Furious Nuts (1080i, 7:00) is a comical look at the "original" concepts for the
squirrels seen in the film. Treehouse Tales (1080i, 3:18) more closely examines the
tree house sets used in the film. Concluding the disc-based supplements is a gag reel (480p, 5:28)
and four deleted scenes (480p, 1:16). Without a Paddle: Nature's Calling also includes a
digital copy of the film which must be
downloaded from a website provided on an enclosed flyer,
though it states up front that it is neither Mac nor iPod compatible.
Hollywood has produced far, far worse than Without a Paddle: Nature's Calling, but this film
might just make a short list of "most forgettable films," even if only considering it among its fellow
direct-to-video brethren. The film is horribly paced, dragging mostly due to the unfunny situations,
lame dialogue, forgettable characters, and stale direction. Paramount's Blu-ray release of this
direct-to-video snoozer is sufficient, with an above average video presentation, an average
soundtrack, and a below average helping of bonus materials. Without a Paddle: Nature's
Calling is best suited as a space-filler on the DVR whenever it may be on television, but it
doesn't
make the cut as a recommended addition to a Blu-ray collection.
Paramount Home Entertainment has announced the technical specs and special features for the upcoming Blu-ray release of the direct-to-video sequel 'Without A Paddle: Nature's Calling', which is due to hit store shelves on January 13th, day-and-date with the DVD ...
In an early announcement to retailers, Paramount Home Entertainment has announced that they will bring the direct-to-video sequel 'Without a Paddle: Nature's Calling' to Blu-ray on January 13th, day-and-date with the DVD release. As this is not an official announcement, ...
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