Casper Meets Wendy

A sequel to a sequel? Yes, it has happened. Kids shout “yahoo!� Parents shout “phew!� DVD reviewers run for the hills! Not another bad Casper rip-off? Do you know what’s even worse? Two in one day - eeeek!

But anyway, it’s not that bad... especially after a little bit of wine. The CG artwork is still disappointing, with very rigid movement – similar to the AI in older games such as Quake II. In the two years since Casper: A Spirited Beginning, the technology has improved, and this film is proof with a greater interaction between CG work and real life action. The two blend nearly seamlessly, and add extra transparency effects that increase the realism on-screen.

There are a few cameo appearances, such as Casper Van Dien (from Starship Troopers) who gets hit on by the three witch sisters. His comeback is “Uh, I gotta go kill some bugs.� Hehe, get it? Anyway, some of us thought it was funny...

The story is centred around Wendy, a little witch who is looked after by her three witch relatives, the lead being Cathy Moriarty – Carrigan from the original 1995 film. Desmond Spellman is the most evilly wicked warlock on Earth, who discovers that Wendy is his greatest threat from his great mirror on the wall, played superbly by Pauly Shore – no one could have pulled this role off as well as he did. So the witches go into hiding to get away from Spellman and Wendy bumps into Casper. But witches are terrified of ghosts, and vice versa, so eventually they become friends – because Casper is the friendly ghost. Anyway, they come up with a plan to get the witches and ghosts together so that they can see that they aren’t all bad. But then Desmond finds their whereabouts and comes running. Its now up to the witches and the ghosts together to defend Wendy from the evil warlock’s wrath.

Like Casper: A Spirited Beginning, this sequel-to-a-sequel is presented in the full frame aspect of 1.33:1, and believe it or not, is not 16x9 enhanced.

Again, similar to this film’s prequel, the video has nothing obviously wrong with it. There are one or two slight problems with different aspects of the transfer, one being a post-production problem rather than a mastering one. This occurs at 18:40, and is an example of a really poor job of mixing the CG with the live action. This results in the background shimmering up and down, like fast-forwarding an old VHS tape (VHS – "what’s that?" I hear you say). This is brief, yet mildly distracting as it is in the top centre of the frame.

The second problem is the layer change. Now, describing this is showing how picky things are getting – there is nothing wrong with the layer change, especially compared to other discs... but anyway. It occurs at 44:44, it's during a camera angle change, and it is incredibly fast. However, it does create a slight stutter with the audio which makes it noticeable and very slightly distracting.

Colours are bright and rich, yet suffer from the same NTSC-looking-PAL-transfer problem shared with Casper: A Spirited Beginning. But still, the reds are bright and solid, yet at times seem to be lacking some definition. The blues are bright and vibrant with the greens being hideously green. Blacks are solid and deep, with a good level of shadow detail. The picture is consistently sharp and is great to watch. There is no sign of grain, nor film or MPEG artefacts.

Six subtitle tracks exist for this disc – Dutch, English, German, Italian, Spanish and French. All are coloured with a pale grey, making them discrete over the image on screen, rather than a sharp gacky white that detracts from the film.

Casper Meets Wendy has been given the same audio treatment as Casper: A Spirited Beginning. Five languages are placed on the disc – French, English, German, Italian and Spanish. All are Dolby Digital 2.0 Surround-encoded tracks. Being an English film, this was the prime listening option for this review.

Dialogue is crisp, clear and audible throughout the film, with no sign of any audio synch problems. The front end of the soundstage gets a heavy workout with plenty of discrete left and right effects. The surround speakers get a heavy work out, especially during music, but also for subtle effects such as a witch flying over.

The score is by Udi Harpaz and compliments the action on screen. But one touching cue took my breath away – this is at 83:27, and just sounds so good that it stands out from the rest of the score. Apart from this great cue, the rest of the music is quite corny and stupid. But then again, it is a film for the kiddies.

Someone must have forgotten to include extras, or didn’t know DVD can handle things called “Extra Features.� A menu doesn’t count, sorry.

The video transfer is very nice, though lacking widescreen with 16x9 enhancement. The audio is accurately suitable and the extras are... they must be on the cutting room floor. The film is reasonably OK, with some quirky lines – but generally it should be left for the little ones. This is definitely entertaining for kids under ten years... or adults after a bottle of wine.