I Love You, Man Blu-ray Review

I Love You, Man comes to Blu-ray with a pretty good 1080p High Definition video presentation in the movie's original theatrical aspect ratio of widescreen 1.85:1. Detail is superb, the sharp image betraying no softness, nor any signs of edge enhancement. The rendition is totally devoid of defects, with no digital artefacting. The colour scheme is quite lively, plenty of vivid reds and blues, as well as some sun-drenched LA boardwalk settings. Facial representation is also spot on, the skin tones perfectly accurate. When all is said and done, it really is a very decent image indeed, but the material does limit its potential when it comes to showing off your equipment - there is simply nothing here to fully utilise the High Definition capabilities. Of course, you can't expect any more than this for a standard comedy vehicle, and this is a perfectly good - just not exceptional - presentation.

On the aural front, the disc carries a technically superior Dolby TrueHD track which also fails to realise its true potential. More noticeably mediocre than the video, the high point of the track is that you can clearly and coherently comprehend the dialogue, which really should be the base level standard for the audio accompaniment. However, nothing really gets off the ground here, the effects are extremely limited - not just because of the material, but also because they just do not put a great deal of effort into crafting a dynamic, spatially aware mix. Still, you can't exactly expect much more from this kind of production, and it certainly never detracts from your enjoyment of the movie, it just doesn't enhance it much either, which is what you would really hope a decent mix would do.

First up we get an enjoyable Audio Commentary from the Director, who is joined by his two comedy leads, Paul Rudd and Jason Segel. Hamburg offers up most of the technical info, and a little about the production itself, whereas Rudd and Segel make it a point of simply trying to be entertaining, whether regaling anecdotes about what happened on-set, or expanding on the improvisational moments that brought some of the scenes to life.


The main Making-Of Documentary is little over a quarter of an hour in length, but does not come across as much more than a bit of a promotional Featurette, with interview snippets and a story summary that makes this play like an extended Trailer. There are a few moments of interest, however, including a look at the Paul Rudd's method for creating random nicknames for his counterpart's character.


The majority of the rest of the material on offer within the Extra Features department should really be regarded - in one shape or another - as B-roll footage. We get three Deleted Scenes, six Extended Scenes, a purported Gag Reel and a segment simply entitled 'Extras' which appears to be a mish-mash montage of cut segments and alternate takes. From the overtly improvisational nature of many of the scenes in the movie I can see why there is so much extra footage, but I cannot quite comprehend how it has been put together here. The discernable scenes are worth checking out if you enjoyed the movie, but the Gag Reel plays more like just a montage of random outtakes (few of them are particularly funny) whilst the 'Extras' segment proves to be the most enjoyable as it has all of the alternate dialogue.

Finally we get the more raunchy Red Band Trailer to round off the disc.
I Love You, Man is a pretty mediocre comedy offering, hinging the majority of its laughs on a supposedly novel role-reversal situation where the 'bromance' is blossoming between the boyfriend and his newly-found best man. Perhaps it may find a better audience amongst couples, where the girl may get a glimpse of male bonding on screen, but the reality is that this is as insightful into male friendships as Chuck and Larry was insightful into homosexual prejudices - i.e. heavy on the clichés but lacking any of the wit required to make any poignant commentary. With quality comedies like Superbad and Knocked Up on the market, it is a shame to see so many familiar faces play such insipid, well, frankly boring characters - and fail to provoke even a single laugh-out-loud moment. On Region Free US Blu-ray the video rendition is perfectly acceptable but limited by the material, as is the audio track, which fails to promote the movie in any noticeable fashion. The extras are a little padded out, but are at least funny - although often more so than the main feature itself. I have to restate this - there is nothing wrong with this movie: it is not a bad movie, per se, it is just not a particularly good one either. And I expected more from Paul Rudd. Disappointing.