Big Daddy - Collector's Edition

He's been a Waterboy, he's been a Wedding Singer and now it's time for Adam Sandler to become a Big Daddy to a little kid. His recent movies have taken on bigger chunks of plot and a more serious tone and this one is no exception. Bring on the laughs.

Sonny Koufax (Adam Sandler) is your typical bum. No life, No job, No hassles. Just when he thinks he's got it all, little Julian (Cole and Dylan Sprouse) arrives on his doorstep. Julian is actually the son of Sonny's best friend Kevin Gerrity (Jon Stewart). Kevin is on his way to China so Sonny offers to look after Julian until he gets back.

Sonny takes this opportunity to prove both to his girlfriend that he's matured and is on the way up and to his father that he can raise a child better than he was raised. The problem here is that a little kid needs more attention than Sonny realises and he soon finds himself in a very sensitive position.

The social service office soon catches on and decides to take Julian into their custody so now it's up to Sonny to go one step further and take the child as his own. Things don't always turn out the way you'd expect though.

I like my black levels to be just right and ever since dvd allowed our televisions to strut their stuff, I've been craving for it more and more. It's amazing what good black level can do to enhance the dynamic impact of the image. Good black levels give depth to the image whilst bad black levels make them look bland and flat.

Color saturation is rich given the young age of the film. Sometimes it gets richer but nothing to force any color bleed. Sharpness is exemplary and detail is abundant as almost all sets exhibit some sort of complicated structure that wouldn't fair too well with anything other than dvd.

This disc is presented as a dual sided disc with a full frame version on one and a 1.85:1 16x9 enhanced version on the other. Obviously, I reviewed the full frame version. NOT. This is NOT termed a flipper. The widescreen version has considerable more effort put into the transfer with the full frame version exhibiting a less sharp image.

Adam Sandlers movies of late feature the usual standard dialogue sequences with partial effects and a rock soundtrack to help the company sell CD's. This is no exception with a little more effort put into the surround department and channel separation.

As usual, dialogue is clear and concise from all participants and ADR work becomes obvious at times when you'd sound you hear seems out of place in its current environment. Its a little hard to explain, but I did notice this during the movie. Ever noticed when someone is outside and speaking sounds like they are indoors in a closed room. :)

As for the pop soundtrack, this flick is filled with some great songs and a bad remake of a Guns and Roses classic "Sweet Child O' mine". Fortunately, a somewhat alternate Gunners version appears in the end credits.

I noticed no audio synch problems and everything seemed well balanced from dialogue to bass.

A Collector's Edition this movie is not. I'm sorry but a small featurette, music video and original trailers are borderline standard features. Collector's edition can only be considered as a title when you can get something that standard VHS cannot offer like a commentary track and an abundance of cutting room floor material.

So what does this disc offer?

• Dual Ratio formats - As mentioned earlier, we get both full screen and widescreen versions. A nice touch for those that don't understand the advantages of widescreen.
• Cast/Crew Biographies - Standard fare on almost all discs.
• Original movie trailers - 2 trailers here both presented in Dolby Digital 5.1 sound. I like that, but it sounds contrived with most of the content restricted to the front other than swooping title logos. One trailer is also classed as International and dubbed. I didn't notice anything dubbed.
• 2 Music Videos - The first is by Sheryl Crow singing the remake to "Sweet Child O' Mine". If you could only delete stuff off the disc. Blasphemy. Second we have Garbage with their hit "When I grow Up". A great song suited to the movie littered with clips from the movie.
• Behind the scenes featurette - Take the trailer, stretch it to 6 minutes and throw in some quick edits from some longer interviews.

I wouldn't call myself a huge Adam Sandler fan and from what I've seen, this wouldn't rate as any of his best, just his more mature, which is probably a detriment given that his immaturity in his earlier movies had more appeal.

I wonder if this maturity will go the road of Jim Carrey and the big flop Man on the Moon was for him. It may win him an academy award and most likely, deservadly so but that still doesn't change the fact that people want to see a lunatic, not a dramatic actor.