The Borrowers 

Starring:

John Goodman

87min

Jim Broadbent

Mark Williams

1997

 

Screenplay:

Gavin Scott &

Family

 

John Kamps

Comedy

 

Director:

Peter Hewitt

Colour

 

DVD Details

Region

2

Studio:

Polygram

 

Format

Double Sided, Single Layer

Subtitles

English Closed Captioned

 

German Closed Captioned

Aspect ratio

16:9 or 4:3

Dutch

 

Anamorphic

Yes

 

Soundtracks

Dolby Digital 5.1

Extra Features

German Dolby Digital 5.1

Dutch Dolby Digital 5.1

Case type

Jewel

 

MovieUK.com review by Guy Rowland

The DVD * * 1/2

The Movie * * *

Now this is a new one - from the telecine of Lucifer himself, the first 50 minutes of The Borrowers are, quite inexplicably, red. At first you could forgive it as a house style, but suspicions that something has gone horribly wrong are confirmed when, in the story, Goodman's face is supposed to turn red, and... he looks exactly the same as he did before. Hugh Laurie is so perturbed he buys Goodman some face cream, which he must have passed round the whole cast since (eventually) normality is restored to everyone. This is all a great pity, since the image quality otherwise is excellent and entirely artifactless.

Once again, Polygram have done DVD proud with a dual sided choice of widescreen or pan & scan - if only all DVDs were made this way. The sound is a little lacklustre though, lacking the big budget whizz-bang oomph that the Yanks churn out so effortlessly. The surrounds only seem to fire into life very sporadically, and the bass won't have the neighbours calling the police.

Menus are attractive and in keeping with the design of the marketing, but it's a pity that there are no production notes or other extras, since it cries out for a bit of "making of" magic. But even allowing for that, a shame that this otherwise perfectly decent title is blighted by that rather strange picture...

File this Home Alonification of the small-people-who-live-under-the floorboards BBC miniseries under "fun if unmemorable". The fine cast have brief moments in which they are allowed to shine and plenty in which they aren't, while cameos by Ruby Wax and Hugh Laurie liven things up a tad. A few dodgy matte paintings aside, at least the design and effects are simply wonderful throughout..