Sonny Koufax (Sandler) is a lawyer, a very good lawyer in fact. He has managed to score himself a hefty payout after a taxi ran over his foot. He now enjoys the good life of not working partying and basically having a good time on the money he was awarded from the accident. Sonny is starting to feel some pressure however with his dad pushing him to complete his bar exam and his girlfriend Vanessa (Kristy Swanson) pushing him to grow up and be an adult for a change he’s looking for a way to impress everyone. (Especially Vanessa) The perfect opportunity comes along when Julian is deposited on his doorstep. The son of his flatmate who he agrees to look after while Kevin is away in China on business. This is where he starts to get himself in trouble.

Sonny decides it would be nice to keep Julian as his son to impress Vanessa and get their relationship back on track. However not everything goes to plan. Vanessa dumps him anyway and some of his fatherhood teachings get him in even more trouble. Even the home delivery guy makes a big impact.

So How Does This Transfer Hold Up?

VIDEO
Superb is about the only way to describe this 1.78:1 Anamorphic Widescreen transfer. Columbia Tristar are certainly going out of their way to be superior in transfer quality. Unless I was extremely picky I could find almost no fault with this transfer. The only thing I would consider criticising is that the film seemed to be relatively dark. Especially when compared with the trailers and featurette images. The Full Screen Pan and Scan version on the other side of the disk is a little lighter but not noticeable.

In all the transfer is sharp and clear throughout, with only very minimal instances of ailiasing and shimmering which the novice viewer would not even notice.

Colours are beautifully saturated, as one would expect with such a recent film. This is a virtually flawless transfer, which is very impressive indeed.

AUDIO
The Dolby 5.1 audio track didn’t quite live up to the qualities of the Video transfer however. As a 5.1 track on very recent film I was expecting a lot more use of the surrounds and bass than I got. The surround channels seemed to only be used on small scale for some effects and musical ambience. The bass channel was occasionally used to back them up but nothing exciting at all.

Dialogue was clear at all times and the score from Teddy Castelluci was moderately entertaining. There seemed to be a lot of use of the singalong ditties you hear in every second film. Then there is the absolute sacrificial copy of the Guns and Roses classic sweet child of mine, sung by Cheryl Crow. Don’t get me wrong I quite like Cheryl Crow, but she should live Guns and Roses material to them. It’s almost as annoying as Madonna copying Don Maclean.

Extras

Not a bad selection of extras for a change.
To start the ball rolling we have a nicely animated menu with some sound effects.
The Dolby City Trailer is always a pleasure. Although I’d like to see more of the others sometimes.
Standard and relatively lifeless Cast and Crew biographies.
2 theatrical trailers which are quite good, and presented in Dolby 5.1.
Featurette, the making of Big Daddy, hmmm not really a making of at all. Just an extended trailer for a bit of a gimmick, with a few personal tid bits from the cast and crew.
Then last but not least are the music videos. Please don’t watch the Cheryl crow version of Sweet child of Mine, but feel free to enjoy When I grow Up from Garbage.

Overall