Plaything (Vivid Wave) Review

The Sex: Scene one is Nikki Tyler and Nina Hartley playing strip gin. Yeah, I was expecting poker, too. Anyhow, Nikki loses and has to wear a dog collar and do whatever Nina tells her to. I like this game! Nikki has a very expressive face, and she has a sly look about her when the collar goes on that looks great. Nina and Nikki make a pretty good team, playing with each other with what looks like a genuine amount of fun. They’re supposed to be playing a game, and they are actually playful at it. High marks for this scene, it does really well. The director gets some credit for originality, too. There is a scene with a mirrored coffee table that works well, and the editing is just about right. Overall, this is a good example of two women horsing around with a dog collar and a dildo. When I come up with a bad example, I’ll let you know.

Our next scene is Marc Wallice, Patricia Kennedy and Christopher Sharp. I already mentioned the acting, but it deserves another cheap shot: I haven’t seen acting this bad since Plan 9 From Outer Space. Okay, it wasn’t that bad, but lord it wasn’t good. Anyhow, Patricia does quite well with these two guys, giving both of them what they want at one time or another. The moans & groans are pretty consistent throughout the whole scene, and after a while it gets a little annoying. There is one brief but good penetration shot, but the DP just sort of fades in. To be honest, the best part while she was being screwed by Marc and sucking on Chris. Patricia just doesn’t quite come across as enjoying herself. She does take a couple of loads on the face, and Marc lets fly with a pretty good load. Overall, this was an average scene. Even a double penetration can’t pull this one out of mediocrity.

Now it’s time to see what Nina has up her sleeve. Nina dresses up like a nurse, and she examines her patient, Brad (Tom Byron). Nina puts in a hilarious performance, with dialog that sounds like it was written by… well, like two people trying to act out a fantasy. Er… not that I’ve ever had a fantasy about being examined by a busty nurse… not at all… especially blonde nurses with long legs and tight… uh, right. Anyhow, Nina does an excellent job at playing with her patient. Her moans and gasps are quite natural, and there is a beautifully slow penetration shot that does great things for the libido. Nina also is quite the talker, encouraging him on with all sorts of instructions, compliments and directions. She also has a real screamer of an orgasm that looks quite good. This scene contains something that I haven’t seen in an adult film: Nina puts on a glove and reams out Tom’s ass while giving him a blowjob. Well, that’s different… Not content with just the glove, she lubes up a dildo and bangs him with it until he spurts. He does a pretty good job, too. The stuff goes everywhere. I give high points for pushing the envelope in adult films, and more high points for some great images and energetic sex. Great job, guys. Could it have been better? Sure, I can think of lots of ways. But it would only be slightly better.

Taking the job of facilitating a surrogate session for a young, inhibited couple, Nikki has a long session with Tony Tedeschi and Jessica James. I mean long. 16 minutes of sucking & fucking. Nikki doesn’t actually get dick in this scene (drat!) but she’s not a bystander by any means. Nikki convinces the two of them to try hypnotherapy to get their inhibitions down. I actually got a chuckle when she soothes their fears of doing something bad under hypnosis. She looks them straight in the eye and says “Hypnosis doesn’t make anyone do anything that is against their basic nature.” Her tone of voice is almost exactly the same tone of voice I had back in high school when I was trying to convince the cheerleaders that sperm was good for their hair. This is actually quite a good scene, and I’m impressed with the way they set it out. Tony and Jessica are theoretically a couple interested in having sex in front of someone else, but can’t seem to get it to work. Instead of doing the typical porno thing where all three of them latch onto each other like sexual Velcro, they take turns. Tony watches the ladies for while, Jessica watches Tony get blown, and then Nikki watches the two of them get it on. Somebody was paying attention.

Well, enough about editing nuances, what about the sex? Nikki gives fantastic looking blowjobs! Holy bat-dick, this woman can suck cock! She doesn’t do too badly on girls, either. This is why I could never be in a porn movie. I’d get someone like Nikki latched onto me and I would last about two minutes. Tony wisely shuts up for most of the scene, but Jessica throws out the gasps & groans like a porn star. There are some really great images in this scene, several of them quite artistic, if not downright acrobatic. There was also a minimum of Vagicam shots in this scene, with several long shots that contained all three actors. A very good scene all around.

Our final tryst is Nikki and her boyfriend (Joey Silvera) getting back together again with a bang. Nikki shows up to do the old “Bad cop – Horny Cop” routine and inject some spice back into her relationship. I think she overdid it, because that was a spicy outfit! She has on a leather set of underwear, knee-high boots, a police cap and mirrorshades that look fabulous. I’m jealous, because the last time I got strip-searched, the cop didn’t look a tenth as good as Nikki, and the outfit was nowhere near as attractive. Anyhow, she throws him up against the fountain in the foyer of his house (is this how all Califorians live?) and then pins him to it by sucking his brains out. Once again, this woman would pass any oral test that you could throw at her. Later, they get down to other business, and here is where Nikki earns her reputation. She’s wonderful to watch! She squirms, she moans, she writhes… She looks like she is having a great time, and enjoying the moment instead of just screwing for the camera. There is a good penetration shot, and once the camera pans back, the two of them really start to get into it. While Nikki looks like she could make a rock cum, Joey’s style is pretty basic. I wasn’t impressed with him, but Nikki more than made up for it.

Not bad at all, ladies and gents. Not bad at all.

The Audio / Image: The audio is a mixed blessing. The dialog is hard to hear, and the actor’s enunciation doesn’t help things. In general, the dialog is a bit low, but a generous dose of amplifier wattage will make it palatable. The background music is remarkably unobtrusive, and really is pretty good. The opening song is almost up to the quality I would expect during the credits of a mainstream film. I definitely appreciate the effort that someone went to pick out the background music. There is a good blues riff in scene #2 that I wouldn’t mind playing in the background while I write these reviews.

The image is universally fair. The sharpness is good, although there is a slight evidence of grain throughout the movie. It’s nowhere near distracting, but it’s there. The color levels are inconsistent, being dead on in some scenes and warm in others. The last scene in particular is pretty warm. It’s not bad at all, and a notch above some of Vivid’s previous releases. No real complaints with the image at all.

The Extras: Oh, decisions… decisions… decisions… do I tell you the cool part first, or save for last? Screw it: This disc has BLOOPERS!! After the credits roll, you get outtakes and bloopers from the movie. Some of them are a little strange, some a pretty hilarious. Watching Tony try to keep his dick warm was pretty funny. And I had no idea that FIP was an industry term. 

Alas, the rest of the extras aren’t nearly as good. There is the Vivid Palm Tree menu, which makes navigation a PITA, some bios of women who weren’t in the film, and the “Intel. Sex Game” which is basically a picture of a beach scene with hotspots. The hotspots take you to various and sundry sex scenes from another movie. Apparently the theme for this disc was “sex by the pool.” I couldn’t tell you which movies, who the people were, or whether or not it was any good, because Vivid has decided that you just need two minutes of sex, and not the whole scene. Bleh. There is a link to the web site, and four previews. To cap it all off, the navigation is inconsistent, frustrating, and counter-intuitive. I had to stop and eject the disc to get out of the fucking Intel Sex Game menu. Leaving the preview menu led me nowhere but a black screen.

The flip side of the disc is that goddamn dungeon VR interface, with more previews, a whole gamut of bloopers hosted by Nikki Tyler (from different movies) and Kobe Tai’s little interactive room where she does some 1st person stuff depending on which little object you click on, and a “bonus” section with clips of various ladies and some scenes from their movies. I actually appreciate this last one, as they make it a point to tell you who is being highlighted instead of assuming you know these people by sight.

The Good: Nikki Tyer! And bloopers with Nikki Tyler! Throw in some humor, and a couple of pretty good scenes and life is good.

The Bad: Some of the worst acting this side of an Arnold Swartzenegger movie. 

Overall: I’ve come to expect a lot from Vivid, most of it bad. This was a pleasant surprise. It is worth checking out.