Nacho Libre was released on HD-DVD last week. Nacho Libre stars Jack Black and is directed by the Jared Hess (Napoleon Dynamite and School of Rock). The premise of the movie is not bad but is quickly destroyed by bad jokes, rotten acting and a lack of “flow”. Jack Black plays a Mexican monastery cook named Ignacio who decides to wrestle in the pro league of Mexico to earn money to buy “good” food for the children of the monastery. His intentions are nice, which makes you feel a good about the movie and makes you think this movie may have a little depth to go along with its vein attempts at humor (but I was wrong). The film has a chance in the beginning but it quickly fades (and I mean quickly) to nothingness. From Ignacio’s quirky mannerisms to the stupid motorized bike he rides, the movie is beyond silly (and is BORING) and only becomes funny during the slapstick wrestling matches that he and is partner become involved in. Unfortunately these wrestling matches are not a good enough reason to see this movie.
From the HD side of things, this movie is “HORRIBLE”. This is the absolute worst HD-DVD I have SEEN (resembles some of the Blu-Ray crap I have seen, such as Ultraviolet)! The color saturation is off which results in colors bleeding (no separation of colors) during indoor scenes. Outdoor scenes are a bit better but NOT much. A large part of the movie has a strange warm tone to it (very orange) and there is NO HD detail present (well hardly). No pores on the face, No detail in textures, No EYE CANDY AT ALL. At times the movie is even pixilated during fast motion action and the movie actually looks better on the 360 HD-DVD Player then the Toshiba HD-DVD Player using HDMI. I get the feeling that Paramount reduced the quality of this movie to match its Blu-Ray counterpart (damn pathetic).
The Audio is nothing special what SO ever. Average 5.1 audio. Not bad but NOTHING to brag about either. In fact, I really cannot think of anything to say about the audio of this movie (which tells you a lot).
Paramount should be ashamed, especially after Mission Impossible III (their best HD-DVD release to date – Review Coming Soon). I cannot believe I paid $29.99 for this movie. I should mail this crap back to Paramount and demand a refund as I have been thoroughly insulted and cheated out of my hard earned CASH! If you see this movie in the store, RUN from it as fast as you can (something Jack Black should have done after reading the script).