InsidePulse DVD Review – Undiscovered

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Image Courtesy of Amazon.com

Director :

Meiert Avis

Cast :

Steven Strait……….Luke Falcon
Pell James……….Brier Tucket
Kip Pardue……….Euan Falcon
Carrie Fisher……….Carrie
Ashlee Simpson……….Clea

The Movie

Ninety-eight minutes is a lot of time to do something. You can get a good workout in, you can do a load of laundry or you can watch about four episodes of a television show without the commercials on it. Heck, you can tell at least 60 Ashlee Simpson jokes in almost 100 minutes. That might be more entertaining than sitting through Undiscovered.

Studio audiences agreed as the film made a little over $1 million at the box office in both weeks it was in cinemas across the country. Considering that most studios make about 55% of the total gross of a film, the $9 million spent to make this received an approximate $500,000 return for a film originally whose name was changed to capitalize on a song of the same name from the younger Simpson sister.

And it was easy to see how it failed to draw an audience; it was a film devoid of substance, intelligence or even any semblance of originality. Coupled with the star power of Simpson, whose substantial album sales are a testament to the power of studio magic, and Undiscovered seems to have been meant as Simpson’s big starring vehicle to compliment her sister’s involvement in The Dukes of Hazzard. While Jessica got top-billing alongside Sean William Scott and Johnny Knoxville, Simpson settles for a supporting role in this underdog story involving a musician and a model.

Steven Strait stars as Luke Falcon, an aspiring musician who crosses paths with Brier Tucket (Pell James). Tucket is a model who wants to become famous and its love at first sight for these two. Both are headed to Los Angeles to seek success; Brier wants to act and Falcon wants a record contract.

Brier meets Clea (Ashlee Simpson) in an acting class and she quickly becomes her wise sidekick. It’s amazing to see an actress whose sole claim to fame is being the younger, less attractive and considerably lesser talented of a moderately, big-boobed blonde try and chomp scenery without her father there.

When Falcon’s career doesn’t take off as effectively as he wants it to Brier and Clea team up; they give a jumpstart to his career using the internet and their attractive friends to build him an audience. When it actually works and Falcon begins to grow from an art-house singer into a famous musician, Brier and Luke discover that being in love and being famous is a much more difficult proposition than previously thought.

Insert the usual plot machinations, wash and rinse with an uneasy attempt at turning Strait into a leading man and take away any chance at chemistry between the principles of the cast and you have all the ingredients of a second rate romantic comedy meshed with a heaping dose of the woman for whom engineers salivate for tunes from.

Sitting through this film is more of a trial of endurance than it is anything else. It has some good moments from Strait, who showed quite an amount of talent in Sky High and is a legitimately talented musician called upon to single-handedly carry a mostly-bad supporting cast, terrible dialogue, an intellectually insulting plot and some mind-numbing schlock Strait has all the tools to be a great leading man, but trying to carry this film is something near impossible. With a solid complimentary performance from Kip Pardue as Luke’s brother amongst the other sole highlights of this film, Undiscovered is just the sort of film to watch when you have 98 minutes of time and about a couple hundred thousand brain cells sorely in need of death.

Score : 3.5 / 10

The Video

Presented in a widescreen format with a 1.85 aspect ratio, Undiscovered looks great at least. There are a lot of colorful moments and scenes in the film that look fantastic; the transfer is a good one.

The Audio

Presented in a Dolby Digital format, the film sounds good at least. With a sort of Indy-rock sound, it’s good enough to make the engineers who inject their magic into Ashlee Simpson look like the kings of sound they are.

The Extras

Behind the Scenes is an eleven minute featurette about the film and how it was wonderful, etc. It’s amazing how much the feature focuses on Simpson, a minor character, as opposed to its two main stars. While Simpson arguably is more popular, it’s fascinating to see the main stars were shafted for the marketing concept that is Ashlee Simpson.

Music Videos are a compilation of music videos from the film’s star, Steven Strait, of songs featured in the movie. Coupled with an “exclusive” video from Simpson (“That’s why I love you”), Strait’s songs for the film (“Boomerang,” “Smart in a stupid way,” “This is living,” and “House Lights”) and it’s probably the best part of the entire DVD as Strait has a lot of talent as a singer.

Deleted Scenes are a collection of scenes deleted from the film for obvious reasons. While it’s pretty clear why each was taken out, it’s amusing to see just how much awful was left out of the film.

Photo Gallery is a collection of 28 photos of scenes from the film.

Score : 5 / 10