Free DVD from Canadian Pizza Hut - Weekend at Bernies review (1 Viewer)

[Jonathan Dagmar]

You may or may not be aware that Pizza huts in Canada (or in BC at least?) are offering one of three DVDs with two medium pizzas. Choices are Weekend at Bernies, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, or Lost in Space. The movies are published by Alliance Atlantis

I do not know if these are identical transfers as the retail versions, but if they are then the retail version of Weekend at Bernies transfer must really suck.....

The film comes in a paper sleeve, which features both the Alliance Atlantis and Pizza Hut logos. Ditto for the disc itself, some really ugly silk screening here.

The movie is presetned in Foolscreen, which is certainly not a surprise considering that they are being given away free to any moron who orders a pizza. I am sure Pizza Hut doesn't want to deal with the anti-balck bars crowd. The picture quality is pretty terrible. It definitely is higher resolution that VHS, but nowhere near what DVD should be. I would say it looks like a mediocre laser disc on a crappy player. The real problems however are the washed out colours and the fact that the picture bounces up and down constantly throughout the entire film (I didn't watch it, but I viewed the first bit from every chapter.) There is a forced trailer for the Mask 2 at the beginging of the disc (which doesn't look too great, IMO) that can only be skipped by FF.

The audio is in DD 2.0 only. There are unsurprisingly no special features.

This is worth the price I paid, but even so I am happy to have it, because I like the movie just slightly less than enough to actually buy it.

 

[Tin-Lun Lau]

is this offer in Toronto as well?
i wanna go check pizza hut if they're doing this as well. i have the retail version of Ninja Turtles to compare it to.

 

[Lou Sytsma]

Tin - I've seen the commercials here in the GTA so the promotion is most likely here as well.

 

[Jeremy Allin]

Ah crap, I didn't realize that Weekend at Bernie's was MAR. The same goes for Ninja Turtles and Lost in Space as well I'd imagine?

I was going to go for these, but not now.

 

[Paul_Stachniak]

My friend picked up Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. The quality of the video source was horrible. Dirt everywhere. Had the print been cleaner, and fixed up it might be something to cry home about. Otherwise its just a free movie, with a pizza.

 

[Jeff Jacobson]

So it sounds as if you should just use them as pizza cutters.

They had a similar thing here in the US a while ago, but with different movies. My brother got Bill & Ted's Bogus Journey, which had "black bars" on the top and bottom, so I assume it was OAR.

 

[Jonathan Dagmar]

I wouldn't assume that Lost on Space and Turtles are MAR, but I would say it's a good bet given the target audience...

Weekend at Bernies was a terrible print, if I didn't make that clear, but the real porblem was the picture bobbing up and down constantly.

My feeling is that if you want pizza anyway, get the movies, but don't go out of your way for them.

Would be very curious to know how they compare to retail versions.

 

[Tin-Lun Lau]

heh...my retail version of Ninja turtles was also fullscreen as well as OAR. guess i'll pick that up tomorrow

 

[Jesse Skeen]

Did they cut out the Domino's product-placement in Ninja Turtles?

 

[Frank Grimes]

I was wondering the same thing, but wasn't 100% certain that it wasn't Pizza Hut or some faux place that they had delivered.

 

[Stephen_J_H]

This sounds like the same sort of deal AA had with Kellogg's a few months back. I got an MAR and edited version of The Mask in 2.0 in that one. Makes a nice coaster.

 

[DavidPla]

Well, I was tempted to order those 2 medium pizzas for the TMNT DVD... but if it is only in foolscreen, no deal. Is it for sure in FS, or maybe double sided (doubt it!)

 

[Zachary Cohen]

Papa John's is also now doing this promotion with "Weekend at Bernie's", "Don Juan De Marco", and "Trial and Error".

The DVDs are in full screen but - get this - the commercial (including the shots of the pizza) for the promotion is in widescreen. (Looks to be around 2:35:1)

 

[Jeremy Allin]

I've seen the Pizza Hut TMNT DVD. It is fullscreen only/2.0 sound and poor quality. Same washed out look as Weekend at Bernie's and much of it looked overly dark.

Oh and the Domino's product placement is still there!