Friday is presented in the 1.85:1 aspect ratio and is 16:9 enhanced. Image quality is
good throughout but by no means great. The image does suffer from some minor pixelization,
this is often noticed as many surfaces are not ‘solid’, made up of continuously
moving pixels. Given the budget of the film it would probably be unreasonable to expect a
5.1 channel soundtrack, and Friday is presented with a Dolby Digital 2.0 Pro-Logic track.
For a movie that really isn’t an audio challenge the Pro-Logic track is more than
sufficient. Extras for Friday are limited to a music video by Ice Cube.
Next Friday, Craig moves out to the suburbs with his cousin Day-Day (Mike Epps) and
uncle Elroy (Don Curry), in an attempt to escape the problems throughout his
neighbourhood. But once again this turns out to be no ordinary Friday.
Next Friday is presented in the 1.85:1 aspect ratio and is 16:9 enhanced. Image quality
is better than the first film, but still not perfect. The same pixelization is apparent
but nowhere near as noticeable as in Friday. Otherwise, the image is generally very good.
Given the bigger budget of the movie we are this time presented with a well designed Dolby
Digital 5.1 soundtrack, which makes good use of all the channels available including the
rears for ambience. The only problem I could pick up is some occasional distortion in the
dialogue.
The commentary track consists of two separate recordings one by director Steve Carr and
the other by Ice Cube. It is only Carr’s comments however that specifically relates
to the action on screen. The commentary from Cube appears to be exerpts from an interview,
where he generally speaks about how the story and characters were developed. It’s a
pity the two of them couldn’t be in the same room together as I’m sure it would
have made for a more interesting and entertaining commentary. The alternate ending
included on the disc makes a few slightly different cuts but makes no real difference to
the end of the movie.
Both movies have a very distinct brand of humour; Ice Cube describes it as "ghetto
humour" during the commentary. He explains some jokes in particular will only really
make sense if you come from a neighbourhood like South Central, Los Angeles. In the end I
feel that other than a few universally funny gags, the humour seems to be lost in our
cultural differences, in the same way it would be if you were to screen The Castle in Los
Angeles for instance. The DVD however, like the ‘El Mariachi/Desperado’ package
before it, makes the best possible use of a double-sided DVD."
Ben Hooft
Published March 1, 2001
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