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MOVIE INFO

Director:
James Komack
Cast:
Dan Monahan, Mark Herrier, Wyatt Knight, Tony Ganios, Chuck Mitchell
Writing Credits:
Bob Clark (characters), Ziggy Steinberg

Tagline:
The Final Conflict.

Synopsis:
The students of Angel Beach High again find themselves under attack from their old elephant-sized enemy, Porky, when they start collecting money for the school basketball team. An entertaining story with heart.

Box Office:
Budget
$9 million.
Domestic Gross
$20.518 million.

MPAA:
Rated R

DVD DETAILS
Presentation:
Widescreen 1.85:1/16X9
Audio:
English Dolby Stereo 2.0
English Monaural
Spanish Monaural
Subtitles:
English
Spanish
Closed-captioned
Supplements Subtitles:
None

Runtime: 93 min.
Price: $29.98
Release Date: 5/22/2007
Bonus:
• Trailers

Available Only as Part of “Porky’s: The Ultimate Collection”

PURCHASE @ AMAZON.COM

EQUIPMENT
Sony 36" WEGA KV-36FS12 Monitor; Sony DA333ES Processor/Receiver; Panasonic CV-50 DVD Player using component outputs; Michael Green Revolution Cinema 6i Speakers (all five); Sony SA-WM40 Subwoofer.

RELATED REVIEWS

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Porky's Revenge: The Ultimate Collection (1985)

Reviewed by Colin Jacobson (May 15, 2007)

Some movies inspire memorable trilogies – and then there’s Porky’s. The 1982 teen sex comedy became a big hit despite its lack of cleverness or charm. It then led to two sequels. I thought 1983’s Porky’s II: The Next Day was a total dud, so I didn’t exactly look forward to my screening of 1985’s Porky’s Revenge, the final chapter in the series.

Here we find the guys as they approach high school graduation. They lead their basketball team to the state finals, but their coach (Bill Hindman) has troubles. He lost a bunch of bucks at Porky’s and can’t pay back his debt. Orchestrated by Brian (Scott Colomby), the guys go to Porky’s (Chuck Mitchell) new river-borne operation to get evidence against him, but they run into trouble. Porky catches them and plans to kill them until they offer a bargain: if he lets them live, they’ll throw the championship basketball game.

This doesn’t sit well with many of them, so Brian invents yet another scheme. The boys will win the game and expose Porky’s sliminess, thus making themselves unassailable heroes. The rest of the movie follows these events along with a mix of inevitable complications.

Revenge features one thing you didn’t find in Porky’s II: Porky. The first sequel brought back all of the original’s high school student characters and some school staff but introduced a whole new set of antagonists. These choices made absolutely no sense, as PII really had little to do with its predecessor. It felt like a teen comedy that could take place anywhere and didn’t need to be set in the Porky’s universe.

If nothing else, I have to give Revenge credit for the fact that it manages to reconnect with the original flick. Indeed, I will give this flick credit for nothing else, but at least it made sense as a Porky’s movie. PII manipulated the characters to fit the story, whereas here the story makes sense for the characters.

Not that one should overuse the word “story” in this context. As with the original film, Revenge stands more as a framework for cheap gags and less as a coherent tale. The “plot” exists in a loose manner at best. Those elements create a vague impetus for what we see, but in truth, the flick essentially offers a collection of comedic skits cobbled together without much connection. That’s a lot like the original film, as it provided a similarly general theme to tie up its bits.

Does this mean that folks who liked Porky’s will enjoy Revenge. Maybe – I can’t really say since I most definitely didn’t dig the original. That flick’s gags seemed lame and amateurish, and that trend continues here. Not a single one connects to create humor. If there’s a laugh to be found in this clunker, I couldn’t fine it.

Most of the teen characters from the original and its first sequel return for Revenge. We lose a couple of students – Mickey and Tim – but the others come along for the ride. Is that a good thing? I guess, as at least it maintains continuity with the other movies. I think the actors remain bland at best, though, as they continue to fail to present memorable personalities. And Tony Ganios really let himself go to pot. Whereas Meat looked buff and muscular in earlier efforts, he clearly hit the buffet line before he made Revenge; he looks more like Porky here.

Revenge also brings back the first flick’s main appeal: female nudity. PII showed very little skin of that variety but made the bizarre and unpleasant choice to expose many, many ugly naked men. While the nudity in Revenge doesn’t compete with the glorious full-frontal shower scene in the original, at least Playmate Kim Evenson and some others offer decent flesh.

Not that these occasionally displays are enough to redeem Porky’s Revenge. I couldn’t find anything about the flick to make it entertaining – or even coherent. This is a piece of product that never amuses, charms or even vaguely maintains the viewer’s interest.

Odd footnote: while virtually no one liked the movie, the Revenge soundtrack became a collectible audiophile CD. Released by Mobile Fidelity Sound Labs, for quite some time theirs was the only version in print. Who cares, you might ask. A lot of people since the album included interesting nuggets like an otherwise unreleased tune from George Harrison. The MSFL disc still rakes in pretty big bucks on eBay. Who’d have thunk a bomb like this would manage to bring in a song from a Beatle?


The DVD Grades: Picture C-/ Audio C-/ Bonus D-

Porky’s Revenge appears in an aspect ratio of approximately 1.85:1 on this single-sided, single-layered DVD; the image has been enhanced for 16X9 televisions. Though the movie didn’t look terrible, this transfer earned no points for quality.

Sharpness was lackluster. While much of the flick looked reasonably concise, more than a few scenes came across as soft and fuzzy. This was a problem through quite a lot of the movie and made the end result unimpressive. I noticed no jagged edges or shimmering, though, and edge enhancement was minimal. On the other hand, source flaws caused moderate distractions. Occasional examples of specks, marks, and blotches materialized through the flick. These never became heavy, but they were more obvious than I’d like.

Another erratic element came from colors. Revenge varied from reasonably vivid, dynamic hues to flat, bland tones. My general impression of the colors was that they were decent but sometimes runny and unimpressive. Blacks seemed slightly faded, and shadows tended to be a bit thick. I thought enough of the transfer looked good enough to merit a “C-“, but we don’t get strong visuals here.

Matters fail to improve with the flawed Dolby Stereo 2.0 soundtrack of Porky’s Revenge. The soundfield offered nothing more than broad mono material. If the track ever broadened beyond a vague sense of echoed ambience, I didn’t notice it. I didn’t think this set-up created distractions, but the wide sense of monaural information failed to open up things in a satisfying way.

It didn’t help that the audio quality seemed rather forgettable. Speech tended to be thin and brittle. Lines always sounded intelligible, but they were rather tinny. Effects followed along the same lines, as those elements failed to present much life or vivacity. The score and songs seemed fairly flat, though a little low-end seeped through at times. Some noticeable hiss cropped up along the way. As with the visuals, the sound of Revenge earned a “C-“ that just barely rose above “D+” levels.

Don’t expect many extras here. All we get are trailers for Porky’s, Porky’s II and Porky’s Revenge.

Someday I expect we’ll get a remake of the original Porky’s, but I hope that day never arrives. I prefer to let the franchise remain dead and leave the dull, pointless Porky’s Revenge as its final chapter. The DVD presents sub-mediocre picture and audio along with skimpy extras. This is a flawed release for a bad movie.

Note that this version of Porky’s Revenge comes only as part of the three-disc “Porky’s: The Ultimate Collection”. That set includes a special edition of Porky’s and Porky’s II: The Next Day. The Porky’s SE can be purchased on its own, but the two sequels appear exclusively in this package.

Viewer Film Ratings: 4.1 Stars Number of Votes: 10
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