Customer Reviews

Without a Paddle: Nature's Calling [Blu-ray]

5 star:		(2)
4 star:		(3)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(7)

 

 

this is a ok movie bought this for my Daughter she loves it. there is really not much I can say about this movie its Ether you like it or you don't I would watch it again.

Get this over with right away, this is a bad film. It's not even drive in worthy really. The story line makes no sense after 30 minutes. This is expensive huge production with really bad acting (everyone, including Jerry Rice is awful in this film). The squirrel animation is really pointless. Nothing here to recommend this film.

Oh, excuse me there is a decent point in the first 15 minutes. Zach is the slacker and Ben is the serious hard worker. Zach is super happy working in a retirement home, while Ben is miserable working as a seemingly successful lawyer. Money isn't everything when measuring success. Yeah, film director, stick it to the man!

The soundtrack is actually good, songs by Spin Doctors, Gin Blossoms, and Del Amitri.

I have to gush over blu-ray. It's brutally good. You could see the pimples under Madison Riley's (Heather) heavy makeup. The guys eyes turn red while they are hung upside down, and you can see every blood vessel. The detail is amazing. The sound is another level up. I really didn't imagine Dolby Digital could get better than on DVD. No, Blu-Ray takes it up another notch. There were times during the river scenes where I thought water was running in the house; and crickets had gotten loose. I had to pause the film to be certain.

The video quality is just stellar. Too bad it's wasted on such a stinker.

It confuses me too with the target audience here. It's not really a "guy" film. It's not really PG-13, it's very mild. It's not a date movie. It's not a mystery, or action adventure, or comedy.... it's just sort of there. Dragging on and on until the predictible end.

Extra features on the Blu-Ray disc, deleted scenes (really stupid), making of featurettes (classic, tell the story over again), a gag reel, and some nut thing. Nothing there to stop and watch.

Love this movie, it cracks me up. For people who really read the reviews for consideration. Please do NOT misjudge the reviews the first movie with the second movie "Nature's Calling". The first movie was Great! I bought this movie on DVD, and now I'm purchasing on Blu-ray. At first the movie looked like any old boy hunt movie, but it gets hysterical later in the movie. You will definitely enjoy this movie if you're looking for a good laugh.

Yow!
They obviously used the same script as the first, but threw out all the good bits (what there were). This is just a blow by blow repeat: same number of guys, 3, (instead of a doctor they made one of them a nurse), it also involved a road trip, also on a river, also in the woods, also trying to get a fire started, also needed fish for dinner, also about getting/finding money, also involved 2 tree huggers who also happened to be women and yes, there was also a hermit. And hooray, excrement was also involved! That, and 2 guys with guns trying to kill them. Deja vu, what are the odds? (I don't want to suggest plagiarism but if I wrote the script for the first movie and not the second, I'd sue.) This wasn't a sequel, this was a remake, and not a good one at that.
And why the animated squirrels with knives!? Not to mention an animated humming bird with an attitude.
So not funny.

Without a Paddle is still to this day, one of the best comedies that I have ever seen. This movie however, felt like it went down the American Pie cashcow trail in order to make a bad movie for some quick cash.

Everything about this movie was exactly the same as the first movie but with a few minor differences. The general plot was that of two best friends from highschool go into the middle of the woods in order to find the heiress to a multimillion dollar fortune. It was able to hold your interest, that is until after the 30 minute mark where everything basically fizzles while the plot doesnt know what to do withitself. It even manages to get Jerry Rice to tell us about global warming, a highly controversial topic that had absolutely nothing to do with this movie.

The characters were exactly the same as the previous movie. The busy friend whos social akward around women, the laid back drunk that has women and money falling into his lap, the annoying guy no one likes, the hippies in a tree house, the crazy man in the woods, the list really is endless. With the exception of maybe one character, you could not care at all about these people or what happens to them minutes after they are introduced. They have no depth to them at all aside from what the viewer sees in order to interpret what kind of person they are.

There was nothing funny at all about the jokes or comedy that we see. If you think that seeing men looking dumbfounded while looking at breasts or a guy getting hit below the belt around 10 times is funny, than you might actually like these lame and recycled jokes. Even the insane drunken squirrels were not funny or interesting at all and further made the bad jokes even worse.

On a side note, this movie was also highly unrealistic as well. A womans brother was partially involved in her murder attempt and she acts as if he played a prank on her. And last time I checked, a grenade launcher doesnt fire missles in a perfect straight line that explode 5 or 6 times.

This movie was just bad. It was a shameless ripoff of the first movie which was actually good. In fact, the only reason that this movie has the "Without a Paddle" nametag is because the creators of the movie would probably be sued for making a near exact copy of the first only made bad. The plot sucked, the characters sucked, the humor sucked, everything about this movie just sucked.

I saw this movie when it come out and loved it.
Great movie must have on Blu-Ray
This look's great on Blu-ray

This movie was a good comedy very funny I would recommend it to anyone looking to get a laugh

If you don't read anything else read this... Around the 00:45 minute mark this film gets interesting.

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Like most of you, I was attracted to this title because of the previous film "Without a Paddle."

I first saw "Without a Paddle" when I was about 16. I felt pretty high on life at the end of that movie. But then fast forward about 6 years, when I saw "without a Paddle" again and this time the three guys in the movie seemed like a bunch of dorks. I was like "C'mon, these guys are like 30 and still can't talk to girls or their lives are filled with crap you'd expect to read about in "Maxim magazine." (i.e. Jerry can't commit to his fiance and Tom just drinks, gambles, and chases women.) Lame.

But with this sequel, you get two guys who've have been friends since high school and have kept in loose touch. Kind of like the "friendship" theme in the first movie, except this movie doesn't get as mushy about closing the cap and takes a more practical and intelligent way of bridging the gap that's been created between the two main characters. (You'll see at the end of the movie...)

Also, the third character, sort of a supporting character in the beginning of the film that helps get the plot of the movie rolling, Nigel, has a purpose in this film and just isn't there because there were three guys in the original. His purpose in the film becomes more clear as time goes on. The actor that played Nigel did a great job.

As for the rest of the characters, the tree huggers in the film are beautiful and feminine and the baddies are believable for the threat they pose in the film. Great job casting director!!!

NOTE: You aren't going to find the dialogue from "Arty Lange's Beer League," "Half-Baked," or "Deuce Bigelow in this movie. This movie's dialogue isn't just a bunch of guys busting on each other for an hour and a half like the first movie. I was a little let down, but the dialogue gets the job done and is fine without comparing it to other movies.

To bring it home, the story itself stands on it's own and isn't just a bunch of loose sub-plots pieced together. (As other reviews, have said online.) The story does entertain that's for sure and this film does have some memorable, and well known, songs thrown in throughout the film. It goes together rather well.

I gave this film four stars because there were some scenes in the film that could've been better. The case, some of the scenes in the film were pieced together using snapshot pictures of the characters doing things in place of actual filmed scenes. (I know they were on a budget, but it seemed kind of like I was watching something on Sesame Street versus a movie.)

Also, the ending was too abrupt. The whole culmination of the journey is spelled out in ...photographs. (...let down...)



Overall, this was a decent movie to see and does provide some pretty practical life advice at the end of the movie. You see the characters grow and move on, which is what good movies need, closure for the characters.

Buy or Rent? You'd be cheating yourself to not watch this film at least once. I'd completely recommend renting it and then waiting for it to end up in the Blockbuster bargain bin. That doesn't mean it's a bad movie, a lot of great movies end up in that bin for a cheap price. [...]


Watch this and you'll be happy. This is a movie you don't watch once and say to yourself,"Okay, I got it out of the way. I got around to watching that...now it can go back on the shelf forever." Best wishes for 2009!

Nuttier than the original!

Truly an accurate description of the film "WITHOUT A PADDLE: NATURE'S CALLING", the second film based on the original 2004 movie "WITHOUT A PADDLE". This time around, featuring a new story and a new cast starring Oliver James (What A Girl Wants) and Kristopher Turner (Instant Star).

The film is also the first comedy for director Ellory Elkayem (known for a few horror films which include the 2005 "Return of the Living Dead" films) and a screenplay by Stephen Mazur ("Liar Liar", "Little Rascals").

The story begins with a young Ben and Zach, freshman in high school. Ben is somewhat a good, clean cut, nerdy teen. While his friend Zach is more cool and mischievous. At the first day of school, Ben instantly falls for the school activist Heather who is a vegan and against the cruelty of animals. After signing a petition to join her cause, for Ben, it's love at first sight.

While trying to impress her the following day sporting a "Meat is Murder" t-shirt, Ben is ambushed by two bullies but thankfully for Zach, the two get into a fistfight with the bullies. While recuperating in the nurse's office, Ben sees Heather and she blows a kiss to him and from that point, Ben falls in love. Despite Heather being expelled from high school for trying to free the lab animals.

Fast forward nearly a decade later and Zach is working at a nursing home and Ben is now a busy lawyer. Ben and Zach have not really spoken with each other. Zach continues to be a cool, playboy but cares about the people in his life, while Ben is more into working as a lawyer and never has time for anything. Zach has always tried to get in contact with Ben but Ben is too busy to talk.

One day, one of the women that Zach takes care of is dying and she has one last wish, to see her granddaughter one last time. She begs Zach to find her in Oregon. Of course, Zach is a bit reluctant but when he sees the picture of the granddaughter, he realizes it's Heather, the girl that Ben was obsessed with in high school.

Zachary finds a way to get Ben to leave his workplace when he shows him the picture of Heather and Ben figures maybe this time, as an adult, he will have the guts to tell Heather how he feels after all these years.

So, Ben, Zachary and Nigel (the grandson of the woman looking for Heather) go on a trip to Oregon and learn that Heather is a hippie named Earthchild and went to the wilderness with her friend Thunderstorm. But they never came back and have not been seen since. Thus are assumed as dead by the locals.

Having come this far, Ben and Zachary decide to not heed the warnings from the locals to not go into the wilderness and eventually get caught up in an adventure that takes them through beautiful lush terrain, with the immense trees in the wilderness, riding a raft through the rapids with nothing but two kegs, matches and Nigel's darts and not packing any food or anything else, it's definitely, an adventure that the three will not forget.

Adding some chaos to their adventure are killer squirrels, Hal Gore (football legend, Jerry Rice) and mysterious guys who have their eyes on the Ben, Zach and Nigel. Who are they? Despite their obstacles of trying to survive in the wilderness, will they find Heather in time?

VIDEO & AUDIO:

"WITHOUT A PADDLE: NATURE'S CALLING" is presented in 1080P Hi-Definition. Definitely one of the major positives of the film is that this movie was shot in location in the wilderness. The vibrant colors of the blue sky, the green and fall colors of the trees really look quite beautiful. So, watching this film on Blu-ray was quite nice because the majority of the film is shot outdoors. With that being said, there is quite a bit of grain present (which is expected since this is a film afterall). But not too distracting.

As for the audio, the audio features an English 5.1 Dolby TrueHD track. Although the film is primarily dialogue driven, there are some instances where the music and the action scenes does utilize your rear surround speakers. Although recorded outdoors, I don't recall hearing the wilderness ambiance but when the music comes on, it's well presented. During the gunfire scenes, you hear that clearly and quite pronounced as well. But otherwise, the film is primarily dialogue-driven.

SPECIAL FEATURES:

Another plus is that the majority of the featurettes are presented in HD. The special features on Blu-ray are as follows:

* Featurette: Up The Creek: The Making of Without A Paddle: Nature's Calling HD - Interviews with the cast, producers and the director. A fun featurette and it's interesting to hear Oliver James speaking with his British accent and even talks about how he is able to shut it off (courtesy of watching many American cartoons, TV shows and films in the UK).
* Featurette: Furious Nuts HD - An interesting featurette that plays on the squirrels. More of a humor-based featurette for viewers who want to know how the squirrels were cast for the film and how the squirrels were so demanding.
* Featurette: Treehouse Tales HD - During the film, the treehouse becomes a major part of the film and you get to see how the treehouse was created.
* Bloopers - A gag reel of several bloopers throughout the film. If anything, this gag reel gives an idea of how Jerry Rice was in his first major speaking role in a film.
* Deleted Scenes - Featuring four additional scenes that didn't make it to the final cut: How'd He Do That?, Attack the River, Let It Go and Treehouse Fight

As most direct-to-video films that are based on major Hollywood films, "WITHOUT A PADDLE: NATURE'S CALLING" is one of those films that will appeal to fans of the original film or the actors that are on it.

I found "WITHOUT A PADDLE: NATURE'S CALLING" definitely much more nuttier than the first. Reason being, is that with the first, I had more higher expectations (given the talent on that film) but with this film, all I was expecting was to be entertained for 90 minutes.

And I had a few laughs during the film, especially during the scenes that stars legendary wide-receiver, Jerry Rice who plays the part as Hal Gore.

Jerry Rice has his first major speaking role in this film and as a beginning actor, because of that, I think the delivery of his lines made things a bit more humorous. His character has lived in the wilderness for so many years studying how squirrel farts have damaged the atmosphere, wearing nothing but squirrel fur and a bit long black beard, of course it's campy and his delivery of his lines are just awful but somehow it worked and made me laugh.

And of course, quite a bit of adult humor, especially when the guys reunite with Heather (Earthchild) and her friend Thunderstorm. Good playoff of humor between Ben, Zack and the two women.

Again, a major plus was that the film was shot outdoors, so seeing the lush surroundings of the wilderness and the group having to ride their raft through the river was fun to watch and it looked good on Blu-ray. And it was also good to see that the featurettes were also featured in HD.

On the negative side, there were a few plot holes in the actual screenplay, some of the acting was so-so and the squirrels, they looked a bit too CGI for a film like this but nevertheless, it worked OK.

But in the end of the day, if I was asked the question, "were you entertained?" and the answer would be yes, I was entertained. Did I love the movie, not really. But I was entertained and definitely had a few laughs.

So, if you were a fan of the original "WITHOUT A PADDLE", a fan of any of the talents of the film or just want to check out a comedy that takes place in the outdoors, then definitely give "WITHOUT A PADDLE: NATURE'S CALLING" a try.

The only good thing about this movie was Oliver James. He's hot and a good actor, thats the only way I made it through the whole movie. Although his use of an American accent was well done, I prefer his cockney-english accent (His natural accent). The movie left so many questions unanswered the scenes seemed scattered and unfinished. Most of the acting was awful (Except Oliver James, he was good)and the lines were poorly delivered. It sounded like they were reading lines directly from the script in a monotone voice. I can see why it went directly to DVD. The only thing I recommend watching this movie for is "Man Candy" Oliver James; other than that it may make a good coffee coaster