Boat Trip appears in an aspect ratio of approximately 1.77:1 on this single-sided, double-layered DVD; the image has been enhanced for 16X9 televisions. At times the picture looked quite good, but it suffered from too many flaws to earn a grade above average.
Sharpness mostly seemed solid. At times the movie appeared slightly soft and undefined, but those instances didn’t pop up too frequently. The flick usually came across as acceptably distinctive and detailed. Jagged edges and moiré effects caused no concerns, but a fair amount of edge enhancement popped up through much of the movie. This became rather intrusive at times. In addition, print flaws seemed way too prominent for a brand-new film. Specks, grit, nicks and debris popped up sporadically during the flick, but they were much more frequent than I’d expect. It even betrayed a streak and a scratch or two, which seemed extremely unusual for a modern movie.
The cruise ship setting allows for a bright palette, and the DVD usually reproduced those well. Occasionally the hues came across as somewhat too dense, but those concerns were rare. Mostly the colors looked lively and vibrant. Black levels were dense and deep, and shadow detail generally seemed solid. A few low-light scenes appeared slightly murky, but those issues stayed minor. Again, Boat Trip usually came across as attractive, but the mix of unnecessary flaws knocked down my grade to a “C”.
The Dolby Digital 5.1 soundtrack of Boat Trip also seemed acceptable but generally unimpressive. The soundfield stayed heavily focused toward the front speakers. Elements seemed placed accurately and blended fairly well. Music offered good stereo imaging and effects moved neatly across the channels. The surrounds didn’t add much to the package, though they occasionally presented some unique audio. A scene with a helicopter panned well from front to rear, and scenes with crowds also added a good sense of ambience. However, the movie didn’t make very active use of the rear channels.
Audio quality seemed fine. Speech was natural and distinct, and I noticed no issues connected to intelligibility or edginess. Effects played a small role, but they were accurate and lacked any distortion. They presented reasonably depth and dynamics. Music also was clean and fairly bold. The songs and score showed clear highs and reasonably firm bass response. As a whole, the soundtrack of Boat Trip seemed satisfactory for this kind of flick, but it didn’t do anything more than that.
A mix of extras rounds out the Boat Trip DVD. The movie itself comes in an unrated version with an additional three minutes reinstated into the flick. Since I never saw the movie before I got the DVD, I can’t speculate about the content of these bits, but I wanted to note they’re there.
The disc includes no audio commentary, but it does present a trivia track. This gives us information about the crew and cast members – both the main actors and some bit players – as well as related issues like cruises, stalkers, the songs in the flick, and other topics. The notes pop up somewhat infrequently and don’t add a lot to the package. It’s pretty ballsy of them to flash “Show me the Oscar” repeatedly and mockingly during a heartfelt Gooding monolog toward the end of the flick, though.
More unusual and potentially more interesting, the set offers “live, groundbreaking” interactive menus. What makes these, um, stimulating, is the presence of many Playboy Playmates who sunbathe topless. I suppose the PC thing would be for me to criticize this as a shameless and sleazy attempt to sell DVDs. That’s exactly what it is, but the day I knock the presence of beautiful topless women is the day I die. The menus offer the best part of this DVD despite the models’ insanely inane banter.
For more fun with the Playmates, we head to the Tanning Tips featurette. The five-minute and 33-second program shows the women as they give us advice about safe tanning. They keep on their clothes until the end and their statements are pretty lame, so this one’s skippable except for maybe the last minute.
Up next we find a 14-minute and 56-second Making Of Boat Trip program. It presents the standard mix of movie clips, shots from the set, and soundbites. We get remarks from director Mort Nathan plus actors Cuba Gooding Jr., Vivica A. Fox, Horatio Sanz, Roselyn Sanchez, and Roger Moore. The vast majority of the featurette just shows film snippets, and the comments simply rehash the story and tell us how funny it is. It’s a poor program.
After this we get a collection of deleted scenes. The DVD includes five excised segments that run between 34 seconds and 127 seconds for a total of six minutes, 27 seconds of footage. Considering how bad the final flick is, do you really expect to find any buried treasure here? You won’t.
Nor does anything interesting appear in the series of seven Outtakes. These goofs and wacky bits run between seven seconds and 68 seconds for a total of 150 seconds of footage. To add insult to injury, we don’t get a “Play All” option here or elsewhere. That’s not so annoying for the deleted scenes since they’re mostly longer, but given the extreme brevity of most of the outtakes, it’s a serious nuisance to navigate them this way.
Some ads appear in the Sneak Peeks domain. Here we get trailers for Terminator 2, The Punisher, Havana Nights, Guilty By Association, Loco Love and The Fourth Angel.
A number of Easter eggs appear. From the main menu, click to the right from “Extras”. This highlights a hand on the flick’s title; hit enter to find a 13-second welcome to the DVD from the models. On the “Set Up” menu, go to the left from “Main”. This highlights a hand on a banana; press enter to get possibly the lamest extra ever via a rap song about the movie and the DVD.
Another egg shows up on the “Set Up” menu. Press “right” from “Subtitles” highlight a hand on a life preserver. Select enter and watch one of the models wear Groucho glasses and use a banana as a cigar. We then see outtakes from the main menu sessions. One oddity: apparently Shauna Sand’s top slips a little and reveals a nipple. The clip places a big “Censored” bar over her chest. I assume this was because Sand didn’t want to show any skin, which seems really odd since she was a Playmate and exposed a lot more than one nipple there.
Finally, highlight “Credits” on the “Extras” menu and click to the right. This puts the hand over some stars. When you hit enter we get more outtakes from the menu session.
I might’ve seen a less funny and more repellent movie than Boat Trip, but I can’t think of any candidates right now. The film presents an absurdly crude and crass experience that never threatens to amuse. The DVD features mediocre picture with decent sound and some generally lame extras rescued simply by some nudity. As much I like topless women, even naked Playmates can’t redeem this atrocity.
