40-YEAR-OLD VIRGIN, THE - HD DVD review

Steve Carell's comedy about a forty year old virgin who is faced with peer pressure driven urges to engage in sexual activity has made the star of television's "The Office" a box office star. The film does not break any great ground and is reminiscent of so many previous comedies where an unlikely underdog tries desperately to get into the pants of a woman that will ultimately fall in love with him. It is complete with the misfit band of friends and sexual humor that has been present in successful comedies such as "Office Space," "The Wedding Singer" and the overlooked "Grandma's Boy." Fortunately, it is far better than Dane Cook's horrible "Employee of the Month." These comedies are populous on store shelves and theatrical screens for a reason – they sell tickets to males between the age of eighteen and thirty eight.

In "The 40 Year Old Virgin," Steve Carell is the quiet and nerdy Andy Stitzer. He works as a stock supervisor for a Circuit City like electronics retail store and is ridiculed and ignored by his peers. They see him as a quiet outsider who may or may not be a serial killer. When they are one man short for a game of cards, Andy is invited to join David (Paul Rudd), Jay (Romany Malco), Cal (Seth Rogen) and Mooj (Gerry Bednob). When Stitzer sharks them on the card table, the conversation turns to sex and everybody boasts about their dirty exploits. Andy tries to take part in the explicit conversation, but badly fumbles when he states that a tit feels like a bag of sand. His secret quickly becomes the story of the century as his coworkers quickly learn that Andy is a forty year old virgin.

Against his wishes and desires, his newfound friends try to do everything to get him in the pants of any girl willing or drunk enough to sleep with Andy. His awkward social skills and unfamiliarity with women, relationships and sex prove to be an almost insurmountable wall and Andy remains a stoic virgin. Eventually, he meets a single mother that works across the street, Trish (Catherine Keener). They form a friendship and begin to date, but make a pact to not engage in sexual activity for twenty dates. This allows Andy to hide his sexual inexperience and brings Andy and Trish's feelings to a deeper state, but puts Andy in a situation that will become quite sticky when it comes to finally doing the deed.

There is a lot of bedroom humor in "The 40 Year Old Virgin" that is adult enough to warrant the ‘Unrated' badge of honor worn by the HD-DVD release. There are more than a couple big and beautiful breasts to torment Andy and his fear of having sex. Plenty of jokes about genitalia and sexual techniques fly throughout the film. At more than a few points in the film, "The 40 Year Old Virgin" becomes far dirtier and filthier in content then most other genre entries. The language is quite rough and anything from the F-bomb to the feared N-word are used freely. The always necessary drug jokes and references are sparsely placed in the film and there are of course some rather funny bits of drunken humor. Whether you label the type of humor found in "The 40 Year Old Virgin" as juvenile or potty humor, it is damn funny film.

Besides the tits, curse words and puke, there is a very good story to "The 40 Year Old Virgin." Andy is a geek who fears sex and has been grossly unsuccessful with the ladies. He doesn't want to remain a virgin, but he is frightened beyond belief at the prospect of having sex. He is a good person, who is kind, intelligent and personable, but a woman's vagina is his kryptonite. Catherine Keener is a lovely lady of nearly fifty years and she is not the typical object of affection in these films. She is older, an A-cup and her character is a grandmother. "The 40 Year Old Virgin" has main characters that are ‘real' people who can easily exist in society. Their relationship builds on friendship and understanding, not driven entirely by hormones. Their love story is believable and genuine and the humor of the film is a way to manage a true fear of the main character and the situations help him finally overcome these fears and, as we say, lay some pipe.

This is a very funny film that I greatly enjoyed. I place it alongside perennial classics "Office Space" and "Grandma's Boy" in this genre of comedy. I don't necessarily like "The Office" and have not experienced much of Carell, but he is perfectly suited for this film. Carell and his co-stars have me laughing my ass off. I know some people that are not far off of Carell's character and have his same fears, profession and general attitude. I also know somebody that has a massive action figure classic, but they married my sister. I still see some of Andy's mannerisms in him. It is rare when one of these comedies that relies on sex jokes and foul language to generate laugher actually has a nice and meaningful plot. "The 40 Year Old Virgin" is one of these rare films and an absolute blast for anybody that isn't afraid of some off-color humor.

Video:
"The 40 Year Old Virgin" is delivered on HD-DVD with a VC-1 encoded 1.85:1 widescreen presentation. The packaging actually lists "Encoded VC-1" on the rear of the box, the first time I can remember seeing the advanced codec used as a potential selling point. The transfer is nicely detailed and incredibly colored. There are a lot of very nice sights in this picture and I can happily report that they come across clear and clean during each and every scene. There are one or two minor moments when a little film grain pops up, but these instances were so few and far between that they were easily forgotten. Fleshtones are accurate and the textures and defects of each actors face are on full display on this 1080p mastered title. I won't state that "The 40 Year Old Virgin" is one of the best titles I've seen on HD-DVD. It is a comedy and doesn't contain a lot of mind-blowing imagery (although many guys will argue with me on that point). There was some edge enhancement, which is not all that common on HD-DVD. However, it is still an above average title that nicely exhibits the three dimensional looking picture that makes owning a player capable of playing these titles worthwhile.

Sound:
English and French Dolby Digital Plus 5.1 soundtracks are housed on this HD-DVD release. The mix is very lively and does as much as it can with the provided source materials. Rear surrounds are used when something is available to populate them. The .1 LFE channel thumps nicely during musical selections that contain bass, or a few other sound effects contained in the film. I remember one particular scene where Carell's character kicks a toe sucking vixen in the face and the deep thud that resulted in her hitting the floor. This film is filled with familiar tunes that range from James Brown to Salt ‘n Peppa. Being a comedy, the rear surrounds aren't given many moments to shine, but there are moments in the film when there usage is easily noticed. Dialogue is always important in a comedy and there was never a moment when I struggled in the slightest to understand what was being said on-screen.

Extras:
The HD-DVD release of "The 40 Year Old Virgin" is an incarnation of the "Unrated" standard definition DVD release. This was the first Universal title that came packaged with a cardboard slipcover. The slip cover featured a Velcro fastener that changed the picture of Steve Carell when opened. His happy chest hair quickly came into full view. Universal is certainly hedging a few bets that this title is going to sell well and have gone to new heights in presenting an HD-DVD release. The slipcase is visually interesting and brightly colored. The familiar Elite Red HD-DVD banner is a bright red on the HD-DVD's cardboard facing. The HD-DVD contained under the slipcover is a standard Elite Red case with Universal's shiny foil bordering on the face of the cover art. Shiny.

This is not an exact port of the standard definition DVD release. First and foremost, Universal's U-Control makes an appearance on the release. Picture-in-Picture is the only supported features of this U-Control incarnation and features a nice number of pop-up windows with behind-the-scenes footage and interviews. When the feature is activated from the remote, the main window shrinks and a little window appears on either side of the bottom. I still wish there was an option to turn U-Control on and have it automatically pop-up the windows, as you must keep full focus on the film to catch them all. This isn't Pokemon. It is a movie and I don't want to fumble with a remote for a two hour and twelve minute film. Still, the pop-ups are entertaining and contains a few rather nice supplements. I thought the discussion of the dog sex scene was a funny bit.

Aside from the U-Control, most of the supplements from the standard definition release have been ported over to the HD-30 release. A healthy twenty four Deleted Scenes (38:01) are contained on the disc. Many of them feature Commentary by Director / Co-Writer Judd Apatow and Actor / Co-Producer Seth Rogen. They may be played separately from three menu screens, or by selecting the "Play All" menu choice. This is simply a massive collection of deleted scenes and many of them are incredibly funny and would have been nice scenes in the film, but it was already 133 minutes long. Unfortunately, they are presented in 4:3 framed widescreen. A few feature that was not part of the former release is the Knocked Up Trailer (3:06) for the upcoming Universal comedy. This is a ‘Red' card trailer, complete with language and sexual references that are not found on the typical ‘Green' card PG trailers.

You Know How I Know You Are Gay (5:31) has an optional commentary with the same participants as the deleted scenes. This is an alternate version of a scene contained in the film. It is much longer and far funnier than the "I Know You Are Gay" scene contained in the film. Date-A-Palooza (9:18) is additional footage from the Data-a-Palooza scene and amps up the language and humor. This was downright crude and downright funny. Line-O-Rama (6:19) is more alternate takes of footage from the film, where crudeness is again pumped up. Funny stuff. Judd's Video Diaries (20:44) is a collection of twelve days worth of video diaries from the director that begins on a Pre-Shoot Day and ends on Day 52. These may be played individually or collectively. This was a nice collection of behind-the-scenes footage that shows the humor of the film's director. It isn't meant to be taken seriously.

Auditions (7:33) is another collection of vignettes. This time they are focused on seven supporting actors' auditions and may again be lumped together with a "Play All" option. Raw Footage (19:22) is a collection of outtakes, goofs, alternate takes and other scenes lumped together that was not contained in any of the previous collections. These were funny, but the sheer amount of footage not used in the film is beginning to get tedious. Rehearsals (5:12) is a collection of rehearsal scenes where the actors curse and work their way through the scenes in front of a whiteboard and in street clothes. The crudeness meter soars. More funny stuff.

The menu then scrolls to reveal a full screen of more features. First up is the Reel Comedy Roundtable (21:06). This finds the film's director, producer and stars sitting around a table and discussing the film and their experiences. This was interesting, but the pure amount of supplements are beginning to become mind numbing. Another television feature is the Cinemax Final Cut: The 40 Year Old Virgin (12:43). This is one of those little promotional bumpers you see on Cinemax between films. It is a decent EPK feature. A 1970's Sex-Ed Film (5:26) must have been thrown in because the filmmakers didn't feel they had enough bonus materials, or they wanted to see how hard it is to fill up one of these amazing HD-30 discs. My Dinner With Stormy (2:08) is the shortest supplement on the disc and looks at Seth Rogan sitting down with the incredibly sexy porn star Stormy. This could have been longer. The Gag Reel (4:35) has me hoping for an end to this amazing amount of extras. If the previous outtakes and alternate versions weren't enough; these are additional humorous bits. Waxing Doc (3:31) is behinds the scenes footage showing what Carell went through for the waxing scene. Scary.

Finally, there is only one more menu selection. Of course, the producers of the HD-DVD decided to leave the Unrated Feature Commentary with Director / Co-Writer Judd Apatow, Actor / Co-Writer Steve Carell and Cast at the very end of the incredibly long list of bonus materials. This wasn't listed on the packaging and completely surprised me. Corell and everybody else of this motley crew that features many members of the cast is extremely entertaining and this is a great commentary that earns its ‘Unrated' billing, but never fails to entertain. I had intended to only spot review the commentary track, but found myself listening to the entire film. I am simply in awe at the supplements on this single HD-DVD disc. It took an entire evening to watch the film and sit through the supplements. This commentary was just icing on the cake.

Closing Thoughts:
"The 40 Year Old Virgin" is a damn funny film. It is filled with sex jokes, harsh language and bare breasts. However, the finished film is nowhere near as crude and humorous as the supplements, which is really saying something. I fully enjoyed this film and felt that "The 40 Year Old Virgin" is one of the better comedies of the sex-comedy genre that has come around in many years. The video presentation and sound of the HD-DVD are both very good, but the true star of the HD-30 HD-DVD disc is the mind shattering wealth of supplements that makes this cardboard slip-covered release one of the most impressive HD-DVD titles yet to hit store shelves. I honestly cannot figure out how all of this fits onto one little disc. This is a funny film, but I honestly felt the bonus materials were just as entertaining as the feature presentation. I hope this crew sticks together and throws out another film in the feature. Maybe Carell, Apatow and company will do what Adam Sandler has done for years in keeping with the same crew. This is just a very good disc.