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An early Tom Hanks vehicle, Neal Israel's Bachelor Party is a not-disagreeable complete waste of time--its biggest crime is that it's pretty unmemorable even as far as dirty eighties comedies go. (I only watched it three weeks back and could already use a refresher course.) A clothesline plot finds unlikely friends to Hanks' Rick turning their frowns upside-down at his engagement when they remember the ritualistic opportunity it presents for an evening of debauchery. Hanks is almost too winning in a precursor role to his man-boy from Big (as foreplay, he chases his fiancée (Tawny Kitean) with an egg-beater), outclassing 'til it's sorta pathetic minor league co-stars like Adrian Zmed and Michael "American Ninja" Dudikoff. Still, the movie does make one yearn for Reagan-era depravity: I believe I'm a better person for having heard the line, "Gentlemen, ladies, for your viewing pleasure, meet Max, the Magical Sexual Mule!"

Fox's DVD transfer is unjustifiably good--the 1.85:1 anamorphic video presentation has a three-dimensional appearance that endures through the odd shot profuse with film grain. A new Dolby Digital 4.0 surround track is loud and crisp if artificial-sounding. Extras: the original theatrical trailer (matted, for reasons unknown, to 2.35:1, and 16x9-enhanced), plus four vintage 1984 making-of clips organized by Bachelor Party's 'themes.' In the last of them, Hanks' comments from the first three are compiled into one sequential interview.-Bill Chambers