The Love Guru (2008/Paramount Blu-ray + DVD-Video)
Picture: B/C+ Sound: B/C+ Extras: D Film: D
In one of
the worst comedies of this or any other year, Mike Meyers enters the realm of
the New Age some form of spiritual enlightenment as The Love Guru (2008) and sets back both world cinema and Hinduism
back a century or so in one of the least funny romps ever made. The jokes are like a bad comedy comic book,
performances (if you can call them that) tired and boring, then director Marcus
Schnabel proves he cannot fill 86 minutes of screen time with anything less
than a series of dud moves.
Jessica
Alba plays window dressing, Justin Timberlake proves once again what a joke he
thinks film is, Vern Troyer is wasted and Ben Kingsley picks up another
paycheck in a film so bad, I am continuously yawning as I write this just
thinking about it. Why anyone thought
this would work is a big mystery, but this could have been a TV movie and no
one would have noticed the difference, except they would have changed the
channel. Needless to say he is now
writing a 4th Austin Powers film to recover from this one.
The 1080p
1.85 X 1 digital High Definition image on the Blu-ray is flat, dull and looks
like it was shot in HD, while the anamorphically enhanced DVD is much weaker
and poorer, making this as visually boring as it is generally so. Not even Peter Deming, A.S.C., could save
this dud. The Dolby TrueHD 5.1 on the
Blu-ray is nothing to write home about, but has an advantage of clarity the
Dolby Digital 5.1 foreign choices on both discs and English on the DVD
lack. Don’t expect much soundfield.
Extras
include four featurettes, trailer, outtakes, deleted & extended scenes and
all are in HD on the Blu-ray. Too bad
they are a bore too.
Let’s
hope this mess is never reincarnated!
- Nicholas Sheffo
