Every year tons of comedies get released and sure, every one of them has someone who is a fan. But it isn’t often that any of them have much staying power. The parody films age quickly due to too heavy of a reliance on pop culture references. Most romantic comedies are mirror images of each other with the same events happening in each. Teen comedies only serve to get raunchier and raunchier and often leave out anything actually funny on an intelligent level. Of course, every sub-genre has classics in them, but even those tend to exclusively stay in that particular style. Airplane, National Lampoon’s Animal House and Sleepless in Seattle come to mind. Not far removed from those is Groundhog Day, one of those clever films that is much more than a simple romantic comedy.

How does it achieve this classic status? First is its singularly unique premise. Groundhog Day takes a fantastic idea first shown in a rather nihilistic short sci-fi film called 12:01 P.M. about one man trapped in an hour-long time loop (and being the sole person cognitive to this fact) and stretches that idea into a full-length film and a comedy at that. This change actually makes the material and ideas that such a situation would present infinitely more intriguing. An hour didn’t give the unfortunate lead in the short much time to do anything or go anywhere but the day-long set-up allows for enough time that development and self-exploration can occur for Groundhog Day’s Phil Connors (Bill Murray, Ghostbusters). Caught in a timeloop while covering the Groundhog Day festivities of a sleepy little backwoods Pennsylvania town, Phil has been blessed/cursed with infinite opportunity to continuously live the same day over and over, further educate himself, get to know the townspeople on a one-by-one basis and ultimately find out what really makes him happy and what he can do to attain it. However, he doesn’t recognize it this way at first.

Phil is a sarcastic and selfish career-minded person who, if he cares for anyone else, it’s only for what he can get out of it. No actor does cynicism better than Bill Murray. Every smarmy character that he’s every played has a completely loveable side to him, and Phil Connors is no different. Much like the morality discovering producer he played in Scrooged, Murray misses no opportunity to greet any and every situation with a smart ass remark, even when he’s doing something nice. The dialog that the script awards him, and which he further improvised upon, is immeasurably quotable. No one can forget the ever increasing insanity that Murray conveys or the things he goes out of his way to learn for the exclusive reason to use them to his benefit the next day. I think my favorite gag is when he starts chatting with a girl in a very one-sided way so that the next day he can pretend they were classmates together and bed her by nightfall. It’s these creative ways that help Phil play with the cards fate dealt him.

This existential morality film is a definite Murray vehicle but the largest supporting role goes to Andie MacDowell’s (Hudson Hawk!) as Rita, a television producer that Phil is attracted to and eventually after years of living out the same day with her, he falls in love with. Unlike the other women in town that Phil is able to bed in a single day, Rita is an intelligent and people-loving woman who sees right through Phil’s façade. Phil makes it his goal though to ultimately make that connection and it’s the one way that time is definitely in his favor. The rest of the cast is underused in both screentime and importance. Chris Elliot (TV’s Get a Life) plays Phil’s cameraman, but has almost nothing to do in the whole film and his part could have been played by nearly anyone. But the Murray/MacDowell combination is one of the more interesting in romantic comedy history and even believable in execution. The script tones down the romance and keeps it the appropriate level that two people, one of whom thinks they just met the day before, could actually experience. It actually can be heartwarming at times since Rita is a wonderful character, easy to fall in love with, and Phil is in such an inescapable situation.

It’s difficult to critique a film that works so well, particularly since it amounts to little more than nitpicking. Harold Ramis (National Lampoon’s Vacation) has some great films on his resume as a writer, actor and director, but none is quite as universal in its appeal as Groundhog Day. This is a shame, because for the most part, this isn’t really a demanding film visually and it doesn’t show off what Ramis is capable of. But even so, he does a fine job for what the film is, and great shots like the dooming look at an alarm clock changing to the magical 6:00 A.M. trickle in here and there. I would say the score could probably been a bit better too. Then again, I love Groundhog Day as it is and I certainly wouldn’t want to change it.

Presentation
The transfer and audio on this seem to be pulled directly from the last DVD. The picture quality is perfectly acceptable. It’s anamorphically enhanced and I didn’t notice any edge enhancement or compression artifacts. The 5.1 surround mix isn’t particularly an active one. Directional effects like the film’s one chase sequence and the score offers the rear speakers their only major uses. In addition to the English track, there are also surround mixes available in French and Portuguese with subtitles in the same languages. (Spanish, Chinese, Korean and Thai subtitles are gone from the previous release) Chance of a necessary upgrade; 0%

Extras
Audio Commentary with Director Harold Ramis –
Ramis has grown as a commentator with each commentary being more involving. That said, this commentary was recorded quite a bit ago for the 2002 “Special Edition” DVD. There is no shortage of great info, but there is quite a bit of dead air and unnecessary explaining of events going on onscreen. Fans of Groundhog Day should give it a listen, but then again you probably already did when you bought the last DVD.

A Different Day: An Interview with Harold Ramis – (9:58)
I really enjoyed this short chat with Ramis. Here he goes into depth about the reaction that Groundhog Day has received over the years, particularly in various religious communities that despite being entirely different all embraced the film into their own spirituality. In addition to this, Ramis also talks about how close he was to casting Tom Hanks, and how both he and Hanks are glad they didn’t go that route and he talks about what the film now means to him. It’s almost as intimate as interviews can get.

The Weight of Time – (24:42)
This is a holdover from 2002’s Special Edition and presented in full-screen. It’s a decent featurette on the making of Groundhog Day. It successfully covers almost all aspect of production from the script’s origins and what it was like on set, etc., etc. What I found particularly interesting in this though is how the participants (and sadly Murray isn’t involved) are more inclined to talk about their feelings towards the movie in general. There are better “making ofs” out there, but fans won’t be disappointed with this one.

The Study of Groundhogs: A Real Life Look at Marmots – (6:25)
One of the most unimportant things about Groundhog Day is the day that it falls on. Groundhog Day could have been set on just about any day of the year. So this educational feature about groundhogs and other marmots doesn’t really serve any purpose than to be a cute little DVD addition. Only for those interested in the animal, and I imagine for those interested there are other better resources.

Deleted Scenes – (5:51)
Far and away, as a fan of this film, these deleted scenes were what I as most looking forward to viewing. As I’ve come to expect though, deleted scenes are often a mixed bag and Groundhog Day’s are no different. Of the six deleted scenes included here, only three are interesting. A pool hall scene has Phil pulling off incredible shots, while placing bets on every score to every basketball game happening that day. There’s a bowling scene showing Phil bowl a perfect 300 – unenthusiastically and one with him saving a girl from walking out in front of a truck. The pool hall scene is particularly dark in tone and humor, which is probably why it was removed. The bowling scene was just more of the same, and there was really no point in showing the girl and the truck when the film showing Phil saving a boy falling from a tree does essentially the same thing. Still, it’s nice to finally see these. Though it should be noted that Ramis mentions a deleted scene with Murray chasing after the groundhog that was shot, but still isn’t included.

Previews –
There are DVD/Blu-ray trailers (not theatrical trailers) for Close Encounters of the Third Kind: 30th Anniversary Ultimate Edition, Meatballs: Special Edition and Damages – Season 1. Yay for Sony Promos!

As far as Special Editions go, this is probably the version we should have got at the start. Although it isn’t spectacular, it’s really about as much as a film like Groundhog Day needs. The only thing that would be an improvement was some participation from Bill Murray in the extras. Unfortunately, we do lose the film’s theatrical trailer which was on the original release. This is a shame, because it was a great trailer too. As a minor complaint, the cover art on this new release eats my ass.

The Bottom Line
This is definitely the best release of Groundhog Day to date. But the transfer appears identical to the last one so really it’s only the extras that are going to be a draw. While these are fairly decent, it isn’t really enough for a full sell as an upgrade, and sadly there is no Blu-ray announcement to go along with it. But 15 years after its release, this film still has incredible fandom and even sits in a comfortable position on the IMDB Top 250. I share the popular opinion. I think that Groundhog Day is an excellent film and one of Murray and Ramis’ best works. If you don’t own it, you should definitely pick up this release, but if you already do own it, there are better things to drop a twenty on.