The Incredible Shrinking Woman - Blu-ray Review

[Michael Scott]

The Incredible Shrinking Woman

Movie:
Video:
Audio:
Extras:
Final Score: ​

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Movie
Remakes are kind of interesting things. They can be a combination of many different delivery methods, ranging from shot by shot remake (think the 90s re-do of Psycho), or it can just be loosely based off of the works of the original, with only a title as a similarity. The Incredible Shrinking Woman is a sort of remake of the 1957 film The Incredible Shrinking Man, but instead of being a serious look at the nuclear scare of the 50s, it is a comedy vehicle for Lily Tomlin written by her longtime friend Jane Wagner. This go around of the remake wheel has Lily being a suburban house wife with a vendetta against bad marketing of supermarket products, rather than war and energy crisis. It has its ups, and it has its downs, but in the end The Incredible Shrinking Woman is an amusing comedy that is best known for being tied to Joel Schumacher and his early career (before he ruined the Batman franchise in the 90s).

Lily Tomlin is Pat Kramer (and Judith, and the operator, as well as a cut character in the deleted scenes), your every day suburban house wife. Her husband Vance (Midnight Run’s Charles Grodin) works for a major marketing company, and his job is to come up with marketing campaigns for their new products. When he brings home a cocktail of samples from his work, he accidentally exposes his wife to a batch of them, and suddenly Pat finds out that she’s a feeling a bit different. Her clothes are looser. Her rings don’t fit anymore, and before you know it she’s lost a full 2 inches of height. Her slight problem doesn’t stop there, as she continues to shrink, and CONTINUES to shrink until she can’t seem to get any smaller without disappearing!

As you can probably surmise, this puts quite a strain on her and Vance’s relationship (there’s some hilarious references to marital relationships that get a sly wink and a nod for a PG rated film), and turns Pat into a near instant celebrity as everyone wants to claim a connection to the incredible shrinking woman. However, things make a turn for the worst when Vance’s boss (played by Ned Beatty) sells out Pat to the enigmatic and malevolent “World Management” corporation who has nefarious plans for Mrs. Kramer. Kidnapping the young wife, they plan to use her incredible ability to take over the world, leaving Pat desperate to get out and back to her family.

Joel Schumacher is kind of a childhood hero for me. The Lost Boys, Flatliners, Falling Down, The Client, A Time to Kill, all of these fantastic watches, but the man has a bit of a dark side. Everyone knows him for butchering Batman Forever & Batman and Robin, as well as the horrible Jim Carrey movie, The Number 23. But I can kind of forgive him as the man has made some seriously fun movies over the years. The Incredible Shrinking Woman was actually a movie of his that I COMPLETELY forgot about in the last 20 years (ish). I grew up in the 80s watching the film, and loved it to death as a young teen, but it wasn’t until recently that it popped up on my radar and I realized that this was actually the very first feature film that Joel Schumacher had ever made. Putting the pieces together was quite a shot, so when I saw that Shout Factory was making this into a special edition for the “Shout Select” line, I dove in head first with both feet.

The movie attacks and satirizes the world of marketing, and the harsh chemicals that make up many of the products we buy and own. There’s a goofy subtext throughout the film, with Lily Tomlin playing multiple people with her tongue so firmly rammed in her cheek you can pretty much see the cheek bulge. However, the movie does get a little bit boring in the second act, right after Pat becomes a big celebrity. You can tell the schtick has kind of worn out its welcome when the big evil corporation kidnaps her and puts her with the intelligent gorilla, Sidney (the talented Richard A. Baker), which gives me the impression that this would have been a LITTLE bit better as a short film than a feature film.

Despite the script flaws, the movie is entertaining as can be, with the help of a stellar cast. We have Ned Beatty as her husband’s boss. Charles Grodin himself in a pre Midnight Run performance, John Glover (Mr. Luthor from Smallville for the younger generation), Henry Gibson, who actually was an alumni from Rowman and Martin’s Laugh-in sketch comedy show along with Lily herself (I’ll always remember him as the creepy neighbor from The Burbs) and a whole host of other 80s celebrity actors. Their cheeky performances and hammy scenery chewing makes the goofy film entertaining, with Lily stealing the show as her other side characters, and Rich Baker making Sidney one of the best scenes in the film. It’s not always perfect, but definitely fun.




Rating:

Rated PG by the MPAA, Parental Guidance advised




Video:

Shout Factory announced that this would be a new high definition transfer supplied to them by Universal, but I distinctly noticed the lack of a “New 2K restoration!” or other phrases to that effect (Shout is very vocal about when they do a full restoration and scan of a title), so I was prepared for the film not getting a shiny new looking transfer. For those who haven’t seen the film on home video, it was shot with a distinctly hazy look, with soft focus and some heavy grain usage throughout as it tries to emulate the dreamy “suburban” look in its texture. The opening scene is known to have been one of the ugliest looking shots in cinematic history, but overall Shout Factory has given us a solid looking disc. The movie will never EVER look glossy and shiny new, but there are some issues with the disc. The contrast is a bit high (like the other home video iterations of the film), and the movie appears to have been put together from the best elements they could find, meaning you get inconsistent shots from scene to scene. That opening scene that is so famous for being ugly is just as grungy and over grained as it has looked before, but once Pat steps out of the supermarket the movie starts to clean up. Colors are bright and well saturated, with that burnished look that is indicative of the 70s and early 80s. Fine detail is usually quite good, but the soft focus lens used for the film doesn’t allow for a ton of it. There’s some flecks and speckles here and there, and some shots look a bit weaker than others, but this is also PARTIALLY intentional. Schumacher and crew gives the movie a very dreamy and hazy look when we’re dealing with Pat and her home life, but once they get to the World Management lab things get rather sharp and clean, denoting the different looks that were to denote the different lifestyles. Blacks are good, but there is some washed out levels due to the boosted contrast levels. The film has NEVER looked this good, and there doesn’t seem to be any major artifacting, but the distinctly stylistic look of the film, combined with less than perfect shooting conditions make it hard to really be eye candy. Some shots look really really good, and others have their problems, but as a transfer goes, it checks off all the boxes for a faithful replication of the source material.






Audio:

The 2.0 DTS-HD MA Mono track is what you would expect of an 80s comedy. It’s up front, and is all about the dialog. There’s some mild top end buzz to the vocals, and they can sound a bit sharp here and there, but other than that the film’s track performs admirably. Vocals are well placed in the 2 mains, and the small usage of ambient effects create a decent front sound stage to listen to. At the same time the comedy nature of the film, as well as the Monorail audio mix suffers from the limitations of just being a 2 channel track without LFE, surrounds or a heavy sense of immersion. It’s a well done track on all technical accounts, with its only real flaw being the limitation of the recording style used.





Extras:

• NEW A Conversation With Actress Lily Tomlin And Writer/Executive Producer Jane Wagner
• NEW Interview With Director Joel Schumacher
• NEW Interview With Cinematographer And Visual Effects Supervisor Bruce Logan
• NEW Audio Interview With Composer Suzanne Ciani
• NEW On Location: Now And Then Featurette
• "Edith Ann" Deleted Scene
• Theatrical Trailer
• Still Gallery

Final Score: ​

The Incredible Shrinking Woman is one of those 80s hits that made a big splash when it first came out, but faded into obscurity after the hubbub had died down. I remember watching the movie on TV years ago and loved it back then, but have realized that my childhood film has aged just a little bit as I get older. The jaunt is still quite a bit of fun, and has Joel Schumacher’s goofy charm all over it, so it makes for a fun nostalgic watch for those of us who grew up with these awesome movies from the 80s. The technical specs from Shout Factory aren’t perfect, but considering how the movie was shot, and limited source material available, they did a great job assembling this collector’s edition and it looks and sounds the best it has ever been.





Technical Specifications:

Starring: Lily Tomlin, Charles Grodin, Ned Beatty
Directed by: Joel Schumacher
Written by: Richard Mattheson (The Novel), Jane Wagner (Screenplay)
Aspect Ratio: 1.85:1 AVC
Audio: English: DTS-HD MA 2.0 Mono
Studio: Shout Factory
Rated: PG
Runtime: 90 Minutes
Blu-ray Release Date: November 14th, 2017

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• Michael Scott
• May 11, 2017

Recommendation: Nostalgic Watch

 

[tripplej]

Thanks for the review. I hardly remember this one.. Will see it on amazon prime/netflix once available.

 

[Todd Anderson]

Wow. Blast from the past. I remember seeing this as kid.

Ned! First thoughts when it comes to Ned is Lex Luthor's side kick! ;-)

 

[Michael Scott]

lol, everytime I see old Ned Beatty all I can think of is "Sure mr. Luuuuuthor!!"

 

[Todd Anderson]

Me too, Mike. Hysterical!

 

[Michael Scott]

and you have to read it in that voice he did too lol