Without a Paddle Nature’s Calling DVD Review

Without a Paddle Nature’s Calling

DVD Review
Paramount
Released: January 13, 2009

Without a Paddle Nature’s Calling has received a release on the DVD format courtesy of Paramount Home Entertainment, and is a direct-to-DVD movie sequel that attempts to stir up some laughs, but has some issues along the way.

The basis of the story plot here revolves around a group of young actors who try their best to work with the material and make it as funny as possible.

Zach (Kristopher Turner) is a nurse who sets out to try to find the missing granddaughter of Mrs. Bessler before she passes away.    This granddaughter is actually the high school sweetheart of none other than Zach’s best friend Ben (Oliver James) who joins him on this rescue mission, as well as Nigel her step-brother (Rik Young).

The three of them head out into the wilderness, a place where they lack experience, to try and track her down.  Their information tells them she was last in Oregon, but the trek is not an easy one.

The issue here is that this girl Heather is now known as Earth Child, and has not been seen for a long time.

The film attempts to be creative and funny, but ends up being pretty bland and boring in the end.  The turn of events are largely unbelievable and the cast clearly has a rough go with what they have to do on-screen.  Overall, a disappointing direct-to-DVD film.

The video transfer is presented in 1.78:1 aspect ratio and is a very clear transfer with some great colors, details, etc.

The audio is presented in Dolby Digital 5.1 and is actually pretty engrossing with goose use of both the front and rear channels to create a nice atmosphere.

As for the extras, we get a few decent things here, but nothing over the top.  Things start out with the 10-minute making-of featurette with the young cast talking about how the film was made.

Up next are two short featurettes called Furious Nuts, as well as Treehouse Tales.  These focus on some of the funnier aspects of the film, such as the squirrel cast, and the treehouses.

On top of that, we get some deleted scenes, as well as a gag reel and a digital copy of the film.

Without a Paddle Nature’s Calling ultimately fails to spark much laughter in the end, and with the lacking extras, it does not carry much value.  If you are the type who enjoys stupid comedies though, I could see this as a rental.

Film: 6.0 Not very funny at all unfortunately, a pretty bland comedy.

Video: 9.0 A very clear and crisp transfer, great colors and detail.

Audio: 8.8 Same as the video, a great atmosphere!

Extras: 7.0 Lacking overall, the digital copy is a nice bonus though!

Final Score: 6.8

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