The Good

A solid film that seems to have been sadly overlooked.

The Bad

Paltry deleted scenes.Edward (Bill Milner) is a young lad who is living the life of a boy many years his age. He stays in his family run retirement home and due to his life circumstances (his mom struggling to keep the business going and his father dealing with personal problems) spends a lot of time alone. Things change when Edward crosses paths with Clarence (Michael Caine). He is an aging magician who dearly misses his ex-wife. However, Clarence still has a lot of feistiness left in him and these two people become fast friends. What ensues is a story of a younger man helping an older boy, and an older boy helping a younger man in this well told tale of friendship.

Set against a backdrop of of magic, youth and age Is Anybody There? ort of movie that typifies the movie business today. Due to the glut of product, coupled with the fact that everybody wants comic book, easy to sell, four quadrant films... this movie sadly falls through the cracks.

Features

Deleted Scenes

These scenes are well put together on this Blu-ray disc but with a 94 minute run time it is apparent that this movie was meant to be the length that it is. There isn't much left to the imagination with this film and because of that things play pretty much like somebody would expect. These scenes mainly underscore what we have already watched and due to that there isn't much to be said that makes them stand out or special.

Video

1080p High Definition - 16x9 (2.35:1). This film looked solid on Blu-ray disc. Director John Crowley and his cinematographer Rob Hardy shot a lot of this movie outdoors. It seems like they were faced with a variety of lighting conditions and because of that they had to account for certain things. I didn't see any point on this disc where things looked like they were overly compressed in anyone area. Is Anybody There? seems like it has a lot of room to breath on this disc and that is a good thing.

Audio

Language: English 5.1, DTS-HD Master Audio. Subtitles: English SDH, Spanish. The audio on this movie was good but I couldn't help wondering, as I watched it, why in the world was it on Blu-ray? It isn't like this movie has audio or video that is so amazing that it's going to benefit from being on this format? Furthermore, the audio that is here is good but I wouldn't by this disc and expect to show it to a friend so that they can see the best that the next gen format has to offer. Make no mistake, this is a good movie but I think the medium of it's presentation is a little much.

Package

Michael Caine and Bill Milner are shown on this front cover with a large body of water behind them. The back contains 4 images from this movie, a well written description, a Special Features listing, a cast list and technical specs.

Final Word

I was pretty excited with how much I enjoyed this movie. As a story, Is Anybody There? has been told before, but there is something about John Crowley's retelling that makes this movie have a youthful exuberance.