Heartbreak Kid, The

Forty-year-old Eddie Cantrow (Stiller) realizes it is time to start thinking about settling down when he is seated at a singles' table full of kids at an ex-fiancee's wedding. When Eddie meets beautiful, smart, and funny Lila (Akerman), he feels as though he will be able to mend his non-committal ways. Lila soon finds that her company is planning to transfer her to a position in Germany, a move that she would not be asked to make if she were married instead of single. Eddie decides to take a leap of faith and marry his beautiful, blonde girlfriend. From the moment Eddie slips the wedding band on Lila's finger, he begins to notice annoying habits in his new bride. Things only get worse for Eddie, when on his honeymoon, he meets a beautiful girl named Miranda (Monaghan), who makes him wish that he had waited a bit longer before tying the knot. Will Eddie stay committed to Lila or will he become The Heartbreak Kid and abandon his new wife on their honeymoon? Based on the screenplay by Neil Simon and the short story by Bruce Jay Friedman. (Stacey Pendry)

Special features include up-front previews, commentary from the Farrelly brothers, and the following featurettes: The Farrelly Brothers In The French Tradition (16 minutes), Ben & Jerry (five minutes), Heartbreak Halloween (three minutes), The Egg Toss (eight minutes), a four-minute gag reel, six deleted scenes, and additional previews.

The anamorphically enhanced 2.40:1 DVD exhibits a harsh, digitized image at times, but it can look nicely detailed and natural. Color balance and contrast are both rendered nicely, and while black levels are adequately deep, relatively poor shadow delineation can make the image look flat. Fleshtones have a natural hue for the most part, but there are times when they have a greenish tint. While the colors can look bold, they generally have an undersaturated look. Edge enhancement is noticeable throughout the presentation and can be distracting and pixilation and compression artifacts can be noticed from time to time. The H.264 AVC-encoded HD DVD shows good resolution, but colors are not as bold and vibrant as the best high-definition releases. The entire picture looks somewhat washed out. Fine details are somewhat soft, but the picture looks fairly dimensional and lifelike. (Danny Richelieu)

The Dolby® Digital 5.1-channel soundtrack can be limited, with little surround envelopment, but there are times when it is fully engaging. Fidelity is fairly pristine, although dialogue can have a slightly thin character. The front stage doesn't have much width to it, and when the surround channels are ignored, the soundtrack can sound very dimensionless and uninvolving. Music is mixed well using each of the available channels, although the center is really only used as a lock for the phantom-imaged audio from the front left and right channels. A shuffling distortion can be heard throughout the presentation, but is only distracting during the most quiescent scenes. The HD DVD's Dolby Digital Plus encoding has slightly improved fidelity over the DVD, but dialogue still sounds thin. The lossless Dolby TrueHD encoding that is also included on the disc further improves fidelity, with a smoother, more realistic sound. Dynamic range is improved as well, with the quieter portions of the soundtrack more easily discernable. (Danny Richelieu)