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| The Lizzie McGuire Movie
DVD Review |
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Order this DVD from Amazon.com
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The
Lizzie McGuire Movie
(Buena Vista Home Entertainment)
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| DVD
Release Date:
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August
12, 2003
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Length:
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94 mins.
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| Rated:
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PG
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| Format:
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Widescreen (2.35:1) Enhanced for 16x9 Televisions, Full Screen (1.33:1)
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Audio:
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English Dolby Digital 5.1 Surround Sound
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| Subtitles:
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Closed-Captioned
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| Extras:
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"In
The Recording Studio With Hilary" Feature, "Off The
Cutting Room Floor" - Deleted Scenes, "Hilary's Roman
Adventure" - Behing-the-Scenes Tour of the Movie, "Why
Not" Music Video, "Roamin' Volare" Video,
Trailers
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Before this year, I had never heard of
Lizzie McGuire. After seeing, The Lizzie McGuire Movie, I found myself
flipping through the channels on the satellite specifically looking
for episodes of her TV show. That says a lot about how much I enjoyed
this movie.
For those of you unfamiliar with the show (and based on the reading
I've done about the subject here online, there aren't many of you out
there) The Lizzie McGuire Movie is based on the hugely popular Disney
Channel television series. It stars teen dynamo Hilary Duff as Lizzie
(of course), an awkward teen who takes a school trip to Rome after her
junior high school graduation. Over the course of the trip, she meets
an Italian rock star, skips out on her school trip, and end up
transforming her shy and awkward self into an international singing
sensation. Not bad. Over the course of the movie, Lizzie naturally
learns a few lessons about love, friendship and most importantly,
about herself. The whole international pop star sounds familiar too,
Hilary herself has pretty much grown up in front of the eyes of her
millions of fans and now has a CD of her own music due out this fall -
which is heavily hyped on this DVD release.
For bonus features, this disc includes a wide variety of extras to
satisfy any Hilary/Lizzie fan. To start with, there is "Hilary's
Roman Adventure", a look at the making of the movie, hosted by
Hilary Duff. This was a good watch, providing just the right mix of
fun, with Hilary in Rome learning about the movie-making process and
seriousness, with a behind-the-scenes look at the actual movie, with
insights from the cast and crew. Besides being an enjoyable watch, I also liked how
they acknowledged the
fact that the TV version of Lizzie is now over, after Duff's
much-publicized split after contract negotiations with
Disney broke down. Also included on the disc are three deleted scenes
(including an alternate ending) each with an optional introduction by
the film's director, Jim Fall. It was nice to see these differences,
but it was easy to understand why they didn't make the final cut of
the film. I enjoyed the alternate ending the best. In the end,
although it would have been a very good addition to the film, the film's actual ending was
just as fitting an end. One final addition related to the film was the
feature entitled "Roamin' Volare", which was a music-video
style look at a scene from the movie. Personally, I didn't see a
difference between this feature and the actual scene. It was really a
useless feature.
Next up in the features department is where the disc really lost me.
We get a look at Hilary Duff's music video for her single "Why
Not". While nice for Hilary fans, there was really
nothing really special for the movie fans. Just a plug for Hilary's
upcoming CD. Finally, there is a feature titled "In The Studio
With Hilary", which is a look at the making of (and another plug)
for Hilary Duff's CD. This seemed to me to be an attempt by Hilary
Duff to separate herself and her singing career from the character of
Lizzie McGuire. In the feature she says "I'm excited for my album
to come out because it's more me and it reflects how I feel" and
"a lot of people know me as Lizzie McGuire and that's okay, but
this singing thing is more about me". While I admire her efforts
to separate herself from her TV alter ego, this wasn't the place to do
it. These two features, for me anyways, really cheapened the quality
of the DVD - from being a good movie to being a blatant advertisement
for her CD.
One feature I would have liked to have had available was a commentary
by the cast and crew. Since this is really the last hurrah for Lizzie
McGuire, it would have been nice to have at lease the cast gather for
one last look at the show and it's characters.
The film is presented in both widescreen (2.35:1) and full screen
(1.33:1) formats with Dolby Digital 5.1 Surround Sound, all of which
played very nicely.
Like I said before, after seeing this movie, I could really see the
appeal of Lizzie McGuire. Girls love her because they can relate to
her. Boys love her because, well, she's Lizzie McGuire. If I were her
age, I'd probably love her too. The movie too was great. It's nice to
see a movie about teens were it isn't all about sex. Sure, I love the
odd teen sex romp, but it's refreshing to see a nice wholesome teen
movie that hits all the right notes and is fun and entertaining
without being too corny, and without looking like an after-school
special. It's the kind of movie you would want your kids to go to
instead of some of the other trash that's out there these days.
| The Movie: |
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7.5/10 |
| The
Extras: |
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4.5/10 |
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The Lizzie McGuire Movie
Liam Cullin -
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