Review of Alice

Introduction

Alice is a movie that might only attract die-hard Woody Allen film fans to view. It covers much of the same themes and characters seen in the director`s previous works. Films like The Purple Rose Of Cairo (1985) and Another Women (1988) comes into my mind when I view this film. This could be one of the reason why it falls so short in places. The screenplay offers no new insights into the issues and themes the film covers. The emptiness within the plot can be seen in the dream like sequences and supernatural elements. The film even has some very stereotyped Chinese characters, which displays some light undercurrent of racism on screen.

Yet Alice still remains quite an interesting film with its simplicity and some witty dialogues. Performances from the cast are quite good, while productions values look quite rich since the film is set in the wealthy environment of Manhattan. But this film is not one of Allen`s best work, and as such is not one worth visiting unless your a real fan of his pervious films.

Video

The picture is presented in its original widescreen aspect ratio of 1.85:1, which is anamorphic. The overall look of the film seemed too soft. Some motion artefacts was detected when the movement on screen was fast. Also small signs of film grain and dirt was seen in places. Luckily the film showed no signs of compression artefacts, while colour saturation was quite warm and well handled.

Audio

The sound is presented in English 2.0 Dolby Digital, but the mix sounded mono. This is quite conventional on many of Woody Allen films on cinema and on the DVD format. The soundtrack is clear and concise and dialogues heard was well-recorded.

The same can be said of the French, German & Spanish Dolby Digital 2Ch mono audio tracks included on this disc.

Features

Menus are lifeless and dull, but does allow users easy navigation. The supplement on this disc includes just one theatrical trailer of the film, and subtitles tracks in different languages (Danish, Dutch, English, French, Norwegian, Spanish & Swedish).

Conclusion

The disc is quite the usual Woody Allen type DVD release I expected, bare bones. The picture quality is average and could have done with some more improvements. Since I doubt MGM will re-release this film on DVD in the future I would recommended this version for either fans of the film or die hard fans of Woody Allen`s filmography.