Blu-ray Review: Mrs. Doubtfire

THE MOVIE: 4 1/2 stars out of 5
Mrs. Doubtfire is a wonderful, original and engaging film and presents Robin Williams at his best, doing what he does better than anyone. Robin Williams stars as Daniel Hilliard a voice over actor who has trouble keeping a job and being a responsible parent. His wife, played by Sally Field, gets tired of his antics and seeks a divorce. As an extremely hard working professional woman, she finds that she requires the assistance of a housekeeper to be at home when the three children arrive home from school, cook dinners and clean the house. Daniel volunteers for the job but is turned down. He then decides to seek the job in drag and seeks the assistance of his brother played by Harvey Fierstein who helps turn him into Mrs. Doubtfire, a sweet old English housekeeper and Nanny who sweeps the children and his ex-wife off their feet with her wit and charm, creating a whole new life with his family. Mrs. Doubtfire boasts a wonderful performance by Robin Williams and is a treat for the entire family. Highly recommended.

THE VIDEO: 4 2/5 stars out of 5
Mrs. Doubtfire is encoded with AVC and is presented in its original aspect ratio of 2:35:1 on a dual layer 50GB disc. I must say that I was somewhat disappointed with the video presentation here. I found the colors to be a bit muted and washed out with skin tones looking rather pale. Not surprisingly, I found the black level here to be a bit lacking. Overall detail was just average, giving the film a rater soft look which does vary from scene to scene. Some scenes are noticeably softer than others with some looking quite good. However, the issues I had with the color reproduction was consistent throughout the film. Is this is bad looking film? Far from it. It just did not have the vibrant color, clarity and depth that I had been expecting and what one comes to expect from high definition in general.

THE AUDIO: 4 stars out of 5
As is the case with all Fox releases, the high rez audio track here is presented with DTS HD Master Audio. Unfortunately, the audio presentation here is a real mixed bag. On the plus side, the dialogue is clear and distinct and well placed in the mix. Fortunately, all the witty dialogue is easily followed. As one would expect from a comedy, the sound emanates mostly from the front three speakers with spare use of the surrounds. My main complaint with this sound mix is what I would describe as thin sounding audio. The sound here lacks the rich, smooth and full sounding audio found on the better sounding releases. This symptom is really most prominent on the music which sounds rather hard and shrill at times with poor bass response. As a result, I was left cringing during the periods of the film when music was a prominent part of the sound mix. Considering how wonderful the film is, this is a rather minor complaint overall but one I found rather surprising nonetheless.

IN CONCLUSION
While I was a bit disappointed with the video and audio quality of this release, it is nonetheless superior in all respects to the prior release of this film on DVD and well worth a hearty recommendation as a very enjoyable film.

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