KID, THE (2000) - DVD review

Seldom does one find a film that meets expectations so thoroughly. "The Kid" is exactly the kind of movie we foresee it's going to be--a cutesy-poo, feel-good fantasy. It doesn't let us down. The film is technically titled "Disney's The Kid" to differentiate it from the 1921 Charlie Chaplin-Jackie Coogan silent movie, a motion picture it has nothing to do with. This 2000 "The Kid," except in sheer heartwarming sentimentality, is an entirely different vehicle. It's solid family entertainment, to be sure, but it's predictable from the word "go."

"The Kid" is all about the personality changes we go through from childhood to maturity and suggests that often these changes are not for the best. Bruce Willis stars as Russ Duritz, a rude, high-powered, hard-driven man, ironically working as an image consultant who can't manage his own life or image. For Russ, time is money, and he has no time for anything but business. He certainly has no time for friends or family. He's forty years old and single, for obvious reasons; he's a thoroughly dislikable fellow. Willis is typically polished and professional in the part, but his role doesn't give him much more than a single dimension to expand upon until late in the story, and then it's still not much.

Lily Tomlin plays his secretary, Janet, the only person who has dared to stand up to him or who has ever undertaken the task of trying to understand him. She's one of the best things in the film, but, unfortunately, little is made of her character and before long she disappears entirely. Emily Mortimer plays Amy, Russ's put-upon, on-again/off-again friend and assistant.

It's after one of Russ's more stress-filled days that he hears a noise in the night. What he finds downstairs is a cute, pudgy little kid of eight, played by cute, pudgy little Spenser Breslin. The kid is him. It's Russ's younger self, Rusty, his forgotten childhood self. At first, both Russ and Rusty think they're hallucinating. How Rusty got there or why he's there at all are for a long while open to question for both of them. Turns out, naturally, that Rusty was time warped to the future to teach his older counterpart something about himself, to help the older Russ get in touch with his more innocent, inner feelings.

The trouble with the film is that you can read every plot move about seventy script pages in advance, and you know exactly how the whole thing's going to end from page one. I don't suppose that will make it any the less enjoyable for viewers interested in PG-rated fun; I mean, after all, like most people I, too, enjoy watching favorite films over and over again, even when I know exactly what's going to happen. Nevertheless, I was hoping for a few surprises along the way, which never materialized. There's not too much character refinement, either. Russ, always a sharp go-getter, tells us he graduated the head of his class in high school and college, yet it takes him most of the film to figure out that the kid has time-traveled to the future just to teach him to be a better person. Russ thinks all along maybe he's supposed to help the kid out in some way. He's rather a dim go-getter, after all.

The kid has the funniest lines, incidentally. When Russ can't tell him why the moon sometimes looks orange, Rusty responds, "I knew it. I grow up to be a guy who doesn't know anything!" Then as Rusty is flipping through the buttons on Russ's digital-cable remote, he says, "Ninety-nine channels and there's nothing on." Yeah, times haven't changed much in thirty-two years.

Video:
The audiovisual aspects of the film are up to par for a modern theatrical entry. The colors in this 1.74:1 ratio anamorphic widescreen picture are lucent and showy and accompanied by a minimum of grain or moiré effects. Definition seems a tad smeared overall, but I doubt it would be noticeable on anything but the widest or biggest-screen TVs.

Audio:
The Dolby Digital 5.1 audio is very dynamic and very bright, just the thing to wear a guy down after a hard day, and the musical soundtrack doesn't help the situation much by being loud and brash. I'm happy to report, however, that there are no helicopters flying overhead in any of the five channels, although there is a small red airplane that zooms in and out of the scene occasionally. Beyond that, there is surprisingly little action from the rear speakers. Some good low-end noises come through at times from the subwoofer, though, which should at least satisfy the bass enthusiasts in the audience.

Extras:
As for bonus items, there's a full-feature audio commentary with director Jon Turteltaub and young star Spencer Breslin; a fifteen-minute featurette, "A Kid Becomes 'The Kid,'" all about casting Breslin in the part; and a few minutes of conversation with director Turteltaub. There are also twenty-four scene selections, a brief biography of Turteltaub, a pan-and-scan trailer, and four sneak peeks at other Disney DVD titles: "Dinosaur," "Lady and the Tramp II," "Toy Story 2," and "Fantasia 2000." Spoken languages come in three flavors: English, French, and Spanish; but subtitles are only available in Spanish.

Parting Shots:
"The Kid" is a hard film not to like; yet at the same time it's so mawkish, drippy, and manipulative, its' hard to recommend it, either. It is what it is, I guess--a sweet, harmless, family picture with an uplifting moral. I'm sure it's what a lot of folks are looking for.