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Released by: HBO
Released on: January 15, 2013.
Director: Ricky Gervais
Cast: Warwick Davis, Ricky Gervais, Stephan Merchant
Year: 2012
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The Movie:
If you've paid even the slightest bit of attention to movies in the last few decades, you know who Warwick Davis is, even if you don't really know who Warwick Davis is. After all, he was Wicket, the world's most popular Ewok. Oh and he was Willow. He also appeared in a bunch of Harry Potter movies, and of course, he was 'the' Leprechaun in that series of low budget horror movies. So yeah, even if it's often been under a lot of make up or in costume, he's appeared in a lot of movies and TV shows over the years. He's also a dwarf, and one with a great sense of humor at that. Which brings us to Life's Too Short, a TV series in which Davis more or less plays himself.
Made as a 'faux documentary' style series, the show sees Davis followed around by a documentary crew who attempt to capture the in's and out's of his life. As such, we're supposed to learn about his love life (he gets divorced from his wife Sue played by Jo Enright and quickly falls in love with internet hook up Amy played by Kiruna Stamell), his professional life and his personal life - all the criteria that would make for an interesting 'biography' style show. We see him have to deal with increasingly dicey finances, and we see him having to deal with different roles and projects that come his way. Instead, things inevitably go wrong and Davis winds up coming off as egotistical or crazy, maybe even mean spirited. Of course, this is all part of the joke; the series was written and developed by Ricky Gervais and Stephen Merchant so it basically goes without saying that it's comedic. They play themselves in the series and serve as Davis' connection to show biz, agents of a sort.
If you've seen the BBC version of The Office or if you've seen Extras, you'll have a pretty good idea of what to expect here as Life's Too Short follows that same sort of formula, mixing up elements from those two series (the faux documentary approach of The Office and the celebrity woes aspects of Extras) with fairly mixed results. It's not that the series isn't funny, as often times it is, it's that we get the impression that we've been down this road before and only have the novelty casting of Davis to keep things different from what we've seen from Gervais and Merchant prior.
Thankfully, often times Davis is enough. Not always, but more often than not. He's got a great sense of humor about himself and takes the role just seriously enough to convince us. As the situations around his 'character' start to take shape, they have an increasingly bizarre effect on him and as the series progresses we watch him transform from a sometimes surly rough around the edges type into a full blown tyrant of pint sized proportions. Now if you know Davis at all through interviews and what not you know that in reality he never comes across that way and he has quite a reputation as a genuinely nice, level headed guy, so it's interesting to see him play sort of an opposite of himself here, particularly as in the series he's playing 'Warwick Davis' and not some completely fictionalized character. This is part of the series' success and part of its problem at the same time. We want to like Davis, but the series turns him into such a curmudgeon that as it goes on, we don't. It also doesn't induce as much 'sweetness' into the storylines as Gervais and Merchant were able to bring to their more successful aforementioned series.
In the end though, it's an amusing enough series. It's not a classic but Davis is interesting enough and quirky enough and lastly committed enough to the part that he generally does make it worth watching. Fans of what Gervais and Merchant have been able to bring to television in the past might have wanted more out of this but it succeeds enough on Davis' performance that it's still a bit of fun. Throw in some bizarre celebrity cameos from Sting, Johnny Depp, Liam Neeson and Steve Carrell and you can see how this could go in some interesting directions even if it feels like more of the same from Gervais himself.
Video/Audio/Extras:
The series looks just fine here in 1.78.1 anamorphic widescreen. Shot on digital video, there are no issues with print damage to note and the well encoded disc shows decent detail and strong color reproduction, particularly when it comes to reds. Black levels are strong, if not reference quality and there are no serious compression issues even if a couple of artifacts pop up here and there. Aside from a little bit of line shimmer, this is otherwise a very fine looking effort as far as the picture quality goes, just keep in mind that it's all shot 'documentary style' so it doesn't have the same sort of polish as some other modern TV shows do.
The English language Dolby Digital 5.1 Surround Sound mix (which comes with optional subtitles in English SDH, Spanish and French) gets the job done nicely. Even if it doesn't use the rear channels quite as often as you might want, there are some very clever directional effects used throughout the show that help to keep you in the moment. Levels are well balanced, dialogue is crisp and clear and there are no issues with hiss or distortion to note. All in all, the series sounds very good on DVD.
The Making Of Life's Too Short is a half hour long featurette made up of cast interviews and behind the scenes footage that offers a bit of insight into the series' production history but which tends to lean towards being a bit too promotional at times. Davis is completely likeable, however, which makes this worth watching. Additionally we get twenty-seven minutes of Behind The Scenes clips that also include some interviews and sound bites to give them a bit of context. Four minutes of outtakes are also included. Ten minutes of deleted scenes are also included and each disc includes menus and episode selection.
The Final Word:
Gervais and Merchant aren't really trying anything new here and so it's up to Davis to make the series interesting. He doesn't always pull it off but the show has enough going for it to make it worth a watch. When it succeeds, it can be very funny. HBO's presentation is fine for DVD and includes some moderately amusing extras as well. Not the TV release of the year by any stretch, but amusing enough in its own right.
