On HD-DVD Trading Places

Directed by John Landis

Starring Eddie Murphy, Dan Aykroyd

There was a magical era in the late 70's and 80's when director John Landis and actors Eddie Murphy and Dan Aykroyd could do almost no wrong, together or separate.  One of the best films from that era is Trading Places in which all of the aforementioned work on together.  Now this was 20 years ago, so as I cracked open the HD-DVD I had to wonder if the film would still hold up today.

The Movie

In the film Aykroyd plays Louis Winthrope, a wealthy, snobby, self absorbed stock broker.  Murphy plays Billy, a hustler who has an unfortunate encounter with Winthrope. The encounter gets Winthrope's conniving bosses the Duke brothers considering what would happen were Louis and Billy to suddenly "trade places".  The brothers make a wager and then make the switch happen.  Suddenly Louis is broke, drunk, living with a prostitute (Jamie Lee Curtis) and committing petty crime, and Billy is running a multimillion dollar business.

Eventually after some trials Billy and Louis discover the bet that the Duke brothers have made and they decide to hatch their own plan to get back at the Duke brothers.  When this movie came out it featured both a smart social commentary and near slapstick humor.  Now, twenty years later it's absolutely just as funny.  Seeing just how funny Murphy and Aykroyd are in this film made me yearn for them to return to greatness.  Neither man has done a truly funny and smart film in at least ten years and Landis has also not done anything great in as many years.  Maybe it's time for the three of them to pair up and do something together again, not a sequel because that would be dumb, but something new and fresh.

Much of trading Places is improvised and done with just the right amount of silliness to be hilarious but not irritating.  Also interesting is that the social commentary is just as relevant today as it was then.  The commentary focuses on issues of class in America and watching this film shows just how little has changed in the last twenty years.  Fans of good comedy or fans of 80's films must own a copy of this film.  It's one of the few true classics of the era.

9/10

The Video

Now this surprised me.  The 1.85:1 transfer is very nice looking with the print clean as a whistle.  The overall look is still a bit soft but colors are more vibrant than they've ever been.  The film looks pretty basic in its presentation so there aren't any stunning vistas or any innovative cinematography to make the film demo material for your killer HDTV but fans of the film who have owned it in previous versions will be delighted in this truly remastered presentation. 

8.5/10

The Audio

OK, so this film was made in the early 80's so the soundtrack is pretty basic by today's standards.  It is in fact just a mono presentation.  So, for this release Paramount does manage to squeeze out a Dolby Digital-Plus 5.1 presentation but as you might expect it still sounds basic.  The true failing of the audio is that there are a few times where the dialogue is hard to understand when it occurs at lower volumes.  I understand the immersion is limited due to the source material but whatever they did they should have made sure the dialogue came through always clean and loud.  It's still watchable but it just doesn't feel like a next generation redo the way the video does.

6/10

The Packaging and Bonus Features

The single disc release comes in a standard amaray case with artwork based on some of the original poster art.  It's effective at hinting to the story and selling the stars without giving us the "floating heads" of msot modern releases.

The Making of Trading Places is your typical featurette with scenes from the film mixed into interviews with cast and crew.  I was happy to see that not only does Landis provide an interview but so does Jamie Lee Curtis and Dan Aykroyd.  There are comments from Murphy but they are taken from an old interview.  Other crew members such as the costume designer supply many interesting anecdotes along with the really tiring backslapping.  This featureete runs only 18 minutes....

There are two other very short featurettes, one on the costumes and one with stock brokers discussing the climax of the film.  OK, the costumes are mostly uninteresting and the stock broker discussion feels like filler.  I felt like these bits of information could have just been woven into the main featurette.

There's a group of clips that include a deleted scene, a promo reel for for the film and a bit of a European press conference held to promote the European release of the film.

Finally there's a "pop up video" subtitle track that offers bits of information about the film, the cast and crew, and some information about stock trading.  These kinds of bonus features just feel gimmicky to me.  I wasn't really enthralled with it.

OK, so where is the theatrical trailer?  WTF, no audio commentary?  If Landis wouldn't do a commentary then why not Curtis or Aykroyd?  Here's the other thing, all of this bonus material is also available on the new standard definition release.  I'd think there should at least be something done all new and exclusive for hi-def, but alas no.

There's some good information in the featurettes but they jsut feel slight.  It seems to me that this movie deserves a deeper look in the bonus material.  Why not have a discussion with the screenwriter about the social commentary?  With that said, this is the definitive version of the film available as far as quality of the transfer.

5/10

Trading Places is just as good now as it was twenty years ago and it'll probably still be just as good in another twenty years.  I do wish the bonus features were worked harder on though.

Overall ( Not an Average) 8/10

Stephen Lackey

The Movie 9/10

The Video 8.5/10

The Audio 6/10

The Packaging and Bonus Features 5/10

Overall ( Not an Average) 8/10