The Love Guru (Marco Schnabel, 2008)

Region 1 Paramount (USA)
NTSC, 2.35:1 16x9 enhanced
86 minutes
Audio: DD 5.1 English, DD 5.1 French, DD 5.1 Spanish
Subtitles: Optional English, French, Spanish
Extras: Mike Myers and The Love Guru; One Helleva Elephant; Hockey Training for Actors; deleted and extended scenes; Back in the Booth With Trent and Jay; outtakes; bloopers; theatrical trailer; digital copy

Released: 16 September 2008
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Once upon a time, Mike Myers was actually funny. The first Austin Powers movie was an inspired send-up of spy movies from the 1960s and 1970s filled with clever physical gags and jokes about cross-cultural/cross-temporal misunderstandings. However, at some point, Mike Myers became obsessed with jokes about defecation, urination, and body parts. There is nothing inherently wrong with those kinds of jokes, but how many times can you laugh about feces, urine, penises, vaginas, and breasts? If you really find it funny to see feces, urine, penises, vaginas, and breasts, then go bathe or relieve yourself. You’d be getting laughs without paying money to Mike Myers, and you’d be cleansing your body in the process.

The Love Guru is a stunningly awful movie. It is so flat and unfunny that it’s worse than an “it’s-so-bad-it’s good” movie. Myers is so limited in his ability to conjure new tricks that his titular guru frequently sounds like Shrek and not a new persona. This is at least his fourth movie with Verne Troyer and at least his second with Justin Timberlake, and no one brings anything new to the table.

The best thing about this DVD is the inclusion of a trailer for Iron Man. I’m no fan of Jessica Alba’s usually awkward line deliveries, but she’s actually okay in this movie. Alas, Alba picked the wrong movie to start showing a glimmer of acting ability.

Video:
The 2.35:1 anamorphic widescreen image is bursting with bright, sunny colors. The best word to describe the general visual style is “cheery”--plenty of medium yellows, reds, blues, and whites that aren’t oppressively bleached or saturated. This is a sharp, clean transfer that is free of compression artifacts.

One can probably expect more of the same from the Blu-ray with even greater clarity and detail.

Audio:
The primary DD 5.1 English track is understandably front-heavy since this is not an action movie, though the surround channels add to the immersive feel during scenes set in noisy hockey rinks. Once or twice, when the main character hears a disembodied voice, the sound mix was able to project the disembodied voice from the ceiling even though I don’t have speakers pointed downwards over my listening position. The audio is generally breezy and bouncy but lightweight.

The Blu-ray will have a lossless Dolby TrueHD 5.1 track, but given the nature of the sound design, I don’t expect it to sound much different from the DVD’s standard DD encode.

You can also watch the movie with DD 5.1 French and DD 5.1 Spanish dubs. Optional English, French, and Spanish subtitles as well as optional English closed captions support the audio.

Extras:
Upon loading, the disc plays previews for other movies (which can also be accessed from the Special Features Sub-menu).

“Mike Myers and The Love Guru” is an entirely useless “making of” featurette. “One Helleva Elephant” and “Hockey Training for Actors” are self-explanatory.

There are deleted and extended scenes, more footage featuring hockey play-by-play announcers in “Back in the Booth With Trent and Jay”, outtakes, and bloopers.

You also get the movie’s theatrical trailer.

The second disc in the set only has a digital copy of the movie that you transfer to a computer or a portable video device. Frankly, I don’t see the point of charging extra for this kind of feature because tech-savvy consumers have been ripping movies from their DVDs for years.

--Miscellaneous--
Paramount is also releasing a single-disc DVD edition (no digital copy) and a Blu-ray plus digital copy edition.