With the success of the “Girls Gone Wild” series, everyone’s getting into the act with footage of amateurs getting nutty on vacation. Does Playboy’s entry Jamaica’n Me Wild fall truly into that category? I’m not sure, as a lot of the women featured seem like pros, but we’ll give them the benefit of the doubt.

Shot at the Hedonism III resort and sponsored by Playboy to search for a new Cyber Girl, Wild concentrates on a number of competitions. We start with a bikini contest and then proceed through some weird attraction in which the women dance provocatively and simulate sexual acts with clothed dudes on stages. After that we head to a wet T-shirt contest, and its victors go on to a funky demonstration in which more dudes from the audience eat and drink various substances off of their semi-clothed bodies.

The next competition heads indoors, as we see the women strut down the runway in identical lingerie outfits. As the program heads down the stretch, we get another bikini contest before the final part of the competition, a “strip-off”. Here the women walk the runway and make sure they end up fully nude at some point.

In addition to the amateurs, Wild features some Playboy models. The main attraction comes from popular Special Editions model Amy Miller. We see her during some photo shoots as she cavorts for the camera. Frankly, Miller does little for me. With her ridiculously large fake breasts and bleached blonde hair, she looks more like a plastic fantasy than a real woman. If you like that, you’ll love Miller, but I prefer to see women who actually look at least remotely like actual females and not artificial creations.

We also meet a few other models who do their own nude photo shoots captured on video. We see them mingle with the crowd as well, and not a lot of skin shows up in these segments. The models in question act as judges for the various competitions. A few other non-contest moments include a sequence in which one competitor tries on various outfits for the camera.

Frankly, much of Wild was a bit of a bore. The first few contests seemed pretty tame and didn’t go much of anywhere. The bikini competition was largely uninteresting, and only a few moderately daring models helped spice up the wet T-shirt affair. Those would be the ones who donned transparent bottoms, which added some provocative elements.

In general, the first 50 minutes or so seemed painfully free from nudity. Other than the professionals like Miller, only sporadic shots of skin appeared, and these weren’t terribly interesting since they flew past so quickly. Since most guys watch Playboy videos to see naked women, 50 minutes without substantial nudity becomes a real problem.

Matters become a bit more interesting during the part in which guys eat off of the models. That’s primarily due to one of those aforementioned more daring models, one who wore a thin sheet around her waist instead of a bikini bottom. While the others have the guys eat off their upper bodies, she puts food in her nethers and lets the dude go to town on her. It’s a surprising moment that adds some spice to the show.

After the pretty good segment with the model who tries on outfits, the show goes cold again during the fairly dull lingerie display and the bikini strut. Wild only finally kicks into gear with the strip-off, the sole competition that delivers anything really provocative. Some of the models live up to the DVD’s title and indeed get pretty wild.

Unfortunately, it’s a bit too late to redeem the whole program. It takes a long time to get to this good footage, and some annoying production values interfere with the show. For reasons unknown, many of the segments feature footage altered to look jerky and not in real time. Why? I have no clue, and it makes the strip-off less enjoyable to watch since it looked off-putting and weird. In another bizarre touch, the program ends but never declares a winner to the contests.

I don’t think Jamaica’n Me Wild offers one of the worst Playboy videos I’ve seen, but it also falls short of that list’s peak. Only its final segment lives up to its billing, as most of the prior 68 minutes seems fairly dull. I enjoyed that end piece despite an unappealing production choice, but this remains a lackluster product.

Jamaica’n Me Wild appears in an aspect ratio of 1.33:1 on this single-sided, single-layered DVD; due to those dimensions, the image has not been enhanced for 16X9 televisions. Shot on video, the production varied from pretty good to weak.

Sharpness seemed erratic. A lot of the shots were reasonably concise and well-defined, but more than a few exceptions occurred. The program appeared acceptably crisp for the most part, but this failed to become a rule. Some blurriness happened because of the loose nature of the shoot; a number of poor focus choices occurred. The worst images appeared during the interior contests, as they often looked fuzzy. A lot of distractions popped up via jagged edges, which abounded during wider shots. They showed up at other times but caused the biggest issues when the camera was farther away from its subject. Shimmering was less of a concern, and I noticed only a bit of edge enhancement. Source flaws seemed absent, though video artifacting popped up during interior shots.

Outside of a little stylization during some of the photo shoot montages, colors stayed natural and depicted what occurred during the competitions. The hues looked about the way I’d expect from a videotaped program: reasonably distinctive but not especially lively. The colors rarely faltered, but they also didn’t often seem terribly vivid. Blacks also were erratic, as some shots showed pretty deep dark tones but others were inkier. Shadow detail depended entirely on the shooting conditions and usually was moderately weak. Given that they filmed the contests on the fly and didn’t allow for any special lighting, so occasionally the models became tough to see. Overall, the program suffered from the flaws inherent in its source material, and I thought it looked mostly average for this sort of piece.

As for the stereo soundtrack of Jamaica’n Me Wild, it offered a mix of good and bad. In the latter category, all the effects and speech came from the source recordings. This left them resolutely low-fi and often quite distorted. Both elements played a minor role, but the lack of definition became annoying when emcees spoke; in a few segments, it was almost impossible to understand what they said due to the distortion.

On the other hand, the music was added in post-production, and it sounded quite good. With nice clarity and dynamics, the score seemed clear and rich. Bass response was firm and provided solid oomph. The quality of the music helped compensate for the poor sound heard the rest of the time, especially since the score dominated the mix and ensured the other elements stayed in the backseat.

Not surprisingly, the soundfield offered a low-key affair. As far as I could tell, all speech and effects remained monaural. The music showed nice stereo definition, though, and spread smoothly to the side speakers. Ultimately, there wasn’t much to this soundtrack. That didn’t come as a surprise, though, and I felt it merited a “C”.

A couple of minor supplements show up on the DVD. We get a Photo Gallery that presents 20 nude stills of Amy Miller and the other professional models from the program. We can watch these via the usual stillframe access or a running filmed gallery that lasts two minutes, 22 seconds.

The set also offers some trailers. This includes promos for Naughty in Nature, Sexy Housekeepers, Girls Only Club, Tour Bus Hotties and Hot Hook-Ups.

Though Jamaica’n Me Wild has its moments, overall the program seems somewhat dull. Its best parts work pretty well, but we suffer through too much tedium to get to those. The DVD presents mediocre picture and sound with only a few minor extras. Since Wild comes with a low list price of about 15 bucks, it might be worth a look if just for the hot strip-off sequence, but don’t buy it unless you can find it on the cheap.