Plot: What’s it about?
Yes, it’s been 10 whole years since Pretty Woman came out. I can remember it well, I didn’t see the movie when it first came out, it had already become “the first hit of the 90’s” according to critics. So, word of mouth got to me and I went to my local mall to see this movie that everyone was talking about. Suffice it to say that I loved it, even moreso now that when I originally saw it. So, it’s been 10 years since this little movie made Julia Roberts an international star and now we have a new DVD edition to commerate it…or do we? For those of you who haven’t seen it, I’ll give you the run down on the plot of Pretty Woman. Billionaire (or millionaire, it never really says) Edward Lewis has not had much luck with women, he has always been concentrating on his career rather than his relationships with the opposite sex. Lost, in downtown Los Angeles, he asks a local “professional” for some help with directions. One thing leads to another, and now they’re in the penthouse of the Regent Beverly Wilshire (the only hotel that would have it’s name assocaited with the movie, I might add) togerher cackling at reruns of I Love Lucy. This is a modern day Cinderalla movie, except there’s no wicked stepmother, maybe a pimp named “Chucky” or something, but Edward brings Vivian (Julia Roberts) out of the slums for at least a week and shows her the time of her life. Now, unfortunately the “time of her life” is only a week long and it costs Lewis $3000 (the original title of the movie), but something happens during that week that makes them want to spend the rest of their life together. In an ensamble cast including pre-Seinfeld Jason Alexander as Lewis’ sleazy lawyer, Hector Elizando (a staple in all of Garry Marshall’s movies), Laura San Giacomo as Kit, Robert’s hooker “mentor”, Marshall manages to create a great movie. You can’t help but to get caught up in the emotion and feel what everyone else did 10 years ago…love for the movie! This brings me to my point, a great movie would make an ever better DVD. Right? Yes, it would. And it did, the first time. This DVD is merely the first DVD (which was mainly a rehash of the old “special edition” Laserdisc) with a few other things added. I’ll get to this later…
Video: How does it look?
Pretty Woman is presented in a 1.85:1 widescreen (non-anamorphic) transfer that is the exact same as the first DVD was. Colors are bright and vivid, and looks better than the movie ever has.
Audio: How does it sound?
The same Dolby Surround mix is used here as was with the first Laserdisc and the first DVD. Mainly a movie driven by dialogue, but some of the songs like “King of Wishful Thinking” and “Wild Women Do” sound pretty darn good coming out of your speakers.
Supplements: What are the extras?
Now this is where the review gets a bit confusing…Disney put out a basic Special Edition of this movie about two years ago. The DVD was one of the only ones (by Disney) to feature a commentary track but even when I reviewed that one I mentioned how that this was basically a rehash of the Laserdisc. The commentary even references the laserdisc a few times. Now with this new “10th anniversary edition” coming out, they have added some behind the scenes footage, a music video and a few other things as well. Here’s the good part, if you don’t own this movie, get this version, the commentary is entertaining and you’ll learn a lot about the movie (that’s what commentaries are supposed to be), if you already have the previous DVD version, I see no reason why you should shell out another $30 to get this one. Maybe if Disney had made it dual-layered, given it a new 16:9 transfer, remixed the sound for 5.1 or even done another commentary track, I would have been really excited about it. But, they didn’t, they’re just trying to cash in on the recent success of Runaway Bride and it’s concurrent DVD release. So they added a few things, repackaged it and said “Here, pay another $30 for something you basically have”.
