Here on Earth is the sort of movie that had a soundtrack set in stone long before it had a finished screenplay. The actors are puppeteered by pop song after pop song, frolicking when the music is fast, surfboard still during power ballads, their emotions dancing to committee-chosen beats. I refused to be taken for the same soulless ride.

What's wrong with Here on Earth, besides? The establishing scenes have been assembled in the manner of your CD player's "shuffle" function; TV director Mark Piznarski is barely decisive enough to qualify as a hack. His strictly functional shot selections further make for lousy editing: the picture seldom achieves the necessary intimacy to yank our heartstrings, due to tentative compositional choices that distance the viewer--we get medium angles when the moment calls for extreme close-ups, that sort of thing.

A shallow refashioning of Picnic targeted to viewers of "Dawson's Creek", the film has only the crudest story instincts, including the ever-reliable cancer subplot, which rather insultingly lets each and every character off the hook of their romantic obligations. Any curveballs thrown our way (and no, the terminal diagnosis doesn't count) prove unsatisfying deviations from cliché (bad writing wears many faces), such as Kelley's unending resistance to his new Rockwellian digs; because our hero remains uncharmed by the cottage country life throughout, so do we.

Then again, perhaps that's inevitable when the Podunk is populated by the likes of Henry: Portrait of a Serial Killer's Michael Rooker, who sneers his way through another bread-job. Chris Klein, he of the angelic face, is less laughable, but his performance here would better suit a high school auditorium than a medium-budget teen feature. Leelee Sobieski outshines both Klein and predictably bed-headed co-star Hartnett in a nuanced turn that woefully amounts to a misplacement of energy.

Any shortcomings Fox's 1.85:1, 16x9-enhanced DVD release of Here on Earth has are the responsibility of uncreative visualists and inept sound-designers, as opposed to the disc's authoring team. Michael D. O'Shea, evidently one of the few Irish cinematographers with no affinity for the art of lighting, delivers by-rote backwoods scenery whose occasional soft quality inhibits the transfer's clarity. Flesh tones and shadow detail, however, are well above average. The Dolby Digital 5.1 mix is clear, if imbalanced--a number of dialogue exchanges oblige a boost in centre channel volume. Surround usage is too subtle to generate any ambient effect; the forest passages call for stronger attention to atmosphere.

Here on this disc you'll find, in supplement to the feature, trailers for Here on Earth, Anna and the King, Anywhere But Here, Romeo + Juliet, Drive Me Crazy, Ever After, and Simply Irresistable, plus five Here on Earth television spots, the obligatory soundtrack promo, and a video for Jessica Simpson's "Where You Are". The publicly abstinent Simpson has to be the most annoying of the bubblegum divas, say I.-Bill Chambers