Search - Bicentennial Man on DVD

MPAA Rating: PG Content Advisory: Adult Language, Sexual Situations Movie Release: 1999 DVD Release: 06/13/2000 Format: DVD - Enhanced Wide Screen Letterbox for 16x9 TV Audio Tracks: English, French Subtitles: English SwapaDVD Credits: 1 Number of Discs: 1 Run Time: 2 hrs 11 mins Studio: Walt Disney Video Members Wishing: 1 Genres: Comedy, Science Fiction, Sci-Fi Comedy, Domestic Comedy

If a robot spends enough time around humans, can he learn to become one of them? The Martin family purchases a domestic android as a servant and names him Andrew (Robin Williams). Andrew comes to know the man of the house as Sir (Sam Neill), his wife as Ma'am Wendy Crewson, and their daughter as Portia (Embeth Davidtz); before long, the Martins suspect that they do not have an ordinary robot on their hands. Andrew seems capable of expressing emotion and generating original thoughts, and the longer he stays with the Martins, the more strongly these human traits manifest themselves. Over the next 200 years, Andrew becomes less a machine and more a member of the family, until a mechanic (Oliver Platt) tells Andrew that he might be able to turn him into a human being. Based on a short story by renowned science fiction author Isaac Asimov (surprisingly, it's only the second Asimov story to be brought to the screen), Bicentennial Man was directed by Chris Columbus, who previously worked with Robin Williams on Mrs. Doubtfire. ~ Mark Deming, All Movie Guide

Robin Williams - Andrew
Sam Neill - Sir
Wendy Crewson - Ma'am
Embeth Davidtz - Little Miss / Portia
Oliver Platt - Rupert Burns

A sweet, but superficial film with a straightforwardly superficial release, Bicentennial Man offers DVD viewers little in the way of interest, with its only extras being its trailer and promotional featurette (the latter essentially consisting of the trailer cut around very brief cast interview snippets) and a trailer for Music of the Heart. The trailers are drawn from good masters, and the featurette looks good but offers nothing.

The video on the main feature is good, with no sign of compression artifacts, bleed, or shimmer, and the anamorphic image (letterboxed at 1.85:1) is reasonably sharp and clear, with accurate colors, though the overall feature seems somewhat on the muted side after the very colorful (and clever) main titles. The general image quality is high enough, however, that the larger part of the CGI visual effects, which occur as background elements throughout, are quite striking and blend well.

As a curiosity, the single-sided, dual-layer disc includes a complete French-language version of the film, complete with main and end titles in French. This transfer is darker and more muted than the English edition, and displays a number of scratches and blemishes.

The English Dolby 5.1 soundtrack is fairly clear, though extremely muted, with some odd level changes throughout that required constant adjustments to gain. Separation is good, but the surrounds are rarely given anything other than a little ambience, and the bass channel rarely is called upon. James Horner's score is blended effectively enough to be barely noticeable, aside from the main title music, which has a jarring resemblance to the work of Philip Glass, and thus rather stands out. The French Dolby 2.0 track has a good voice cast, but also suffers with the music being at a much higher level in the mix. ~ Steven E. McDonald, All Movie Guide