"HERBIE FULLY LOADED"
DVD Review
by Kevin Carr
| MOVIE: *** (out of 5 stars)
DVD EXPERIENCE: ***1/2 (out of 5 stars) STARRING Lindsay Lohan as MAGGIE PEYTON Michael Keaton as RAY PEYTON, SR. Matt Dillon as TRIP MURPHY Breckin Meyer as RAY PEYTON, JR. Justin Long as KEVIN Cheryl Hines as SALLY Rated G Studio: Disney Directed by: Angela Robinson Back to DVD Review Home |  |
After my theatrical review of “Herbie Fully Loaded” was published, a friend of mine gave me grief for granting the film more stars than George Romero’s new zombie film “Land of the Dead.” Being such a fan of horror movies, I did feel a bit of regret. After all, I respect the heck out of George Romero, and to be honest, it does pain me that Lindsay Lohan turned out a better movie this year than he did.
However, my friend did take solace in the fact that I was hard on Miss Lohan. This is one place where I feel no regret.
After watching the film again on DVD and revisiting my original review, I have to say that I agree with everything I had previously said. It’s sad that this film spent more time on the hot young co-star than on the title character. If only this film had been strictly about Herbie and not Lohan’s character, I would have really enjoyed it.
However, there’s one thing you have with DVD that you don’t have in the theatre – a fast-forward button.
Now, don’t get me wrong. Lindsay Lohan isn’t that bad. She turns in a decent performance. And actually in this film, I don’t have a problem with her per se. Rather, I have a problem with how others (including the studio and the director) sought fit to focus on her. Hopefully her Disney contract has run out and she can join the ranks of insane celebrities without making family films.
This Herbie story finds the poor little bug after his heyday, stuck in a junkyard in California. A young street racer named Maggie (Lohan) finds him and begins to fix him up. She’s not interested in returning to street racing, but with a little coaxing from Herbie – and a long-time rivalry with Nascar champion Trip Murphy (Matt Dillon) – she gets dragged back into that world. After showing their stuff on the street racing circuit, Maggie and Herbie take their stab at Nascar.
This movie is actually a pretty good little family film. Herbie is definitely lively enough to capture the attention of even little kids. My four-year-old really liked the car, and the movie has a well deserved, wholesome G rating without being forced. In other words, it doesn’t feel like they went into production demanding a G rating, but instead just got it.
The DVD comes with a very nice selection of special features. There is a blooper reel and deleted scenes with optional commentary. Included in the deleted scenes is an alternate opening sequence, which I somewhat prefer to the actual version. Director Angela Robinson also delivers a commentary track, and I commend her for not being afraid to talk about her film. She provides nice insight into the story, characters and all-around movie-making experience.
Three featurettes are also included, each running about ten minutes. One of them examines the stunts of the film – more from the car’s perspective than the actors. There’s also a featurette that details how the filmmakers brought the ornery little bug to life. Here’s where I gained a lot of respect for Angela Robinson as a director. While there are digital effects in this film, she resisted the urge to use too much of a CGI Herbie. The only time I saw the digital bug was during an effect that would have been impossible to achieve on a practical level.
The final featurette has interviews with Lindsay Lohan and female Nascar driver Deborah Renshaw. Renshaw does a decent job as pseudo host of the short doco, but it would have been more interesting to see her interact with Lohan. Of course, I’m sure Lohan had a busy partying schedule that kept her from doing this.
Finally, you’ll find a Lindsay Lohan music video for “First” from the soundtrack. It’s your standard teenage rock song, but it does offer an interesting snapshot of the too-thin Lindsay Lohan, a look she managed to squeeze in between the shooting of the film and its DVD release.
Shoot. And I thought I could make it through the whole review without ripping on her again.
Specifications: Dolby Digital 5.1 Surround Sound. Widescreen (1.85:1) – Enhanced for 16x9 televisions. French and Spanish language tracks. French subtitles. English language subtitles for the hearing impaired.
