A Lot Like Love Blu Ray Review (Sony Pictures)

A Lot Like Love is a 2005 romantic comedy directed by Nigel Cole (Saving Grace, Calendar Girls, The Wedding Video, All in Good Time, $5 a Day, and Doc Martin). It was written by Colin Patrick Lynch (On the Lot). It was produced by Armyan Bernstein (Dawn of the Dead, Castle, Horizon, Bring It On franchise, Children of Men, Spy Game, Disturbing Behavior, and Sugar Hill) and Kevin J. Messick (Succession, Vice, Surviving the Game, Batman Forever, Truth or Consequences N.M., Jack Reacher franchise, and The Babysitter). The estimated budget was $30,000,000 and it grossed $42,886,719 worldwide at the box office. A young man and woman meet on a cross-country flight. Oliver Martin (played by: Ashton Kutcher from Two and a Half Men, That ’70s Show, Just Married, The Ranch, No Strings Attached, The Butterfly Effect, What Happens in Vegas, and Guess Who) is a brand new college graduate with an airtight timeline for attaining his dreams of both business success and finding true love. Emily Friehl (played by: Amanda Peet from Your Friends and Neighbors, The Whole Nine Yards, Identity, The Whole Ten Yards, Saving Silverman, Something’s Gotta Give, The X Files: I Want to Believe, and What Doesn’t Kill You) is a bold, free spirit drawn to spontaneity and wild extremes. Two different choices, two incompatible views on life. They may have hooked up for a brief moment, but Oliver and Emily clearly don’t belong together. Or do they? Though they both move on, Oliver and Emily nevertheless can’t quite seem to completely let go!!!! A Lot Like Love is much better than most of it’s competition in the room com sub-genre. Stars Ashton Kutcher and Amanda Peet have done their fair share of them over the years but this is both of their best efforts. It’s all about chemistry, these two definitely have that to drive this feature. It goes for the When Harry Met Sally approach, just friends because it’s always the wrong place at the wrong time for them. Director Nigel Cole tackles all of the cliches and more for this temptation of a possible relationship between the leads. Ashton Kutcher gives one of his better performances as Oliver Martin. He has his own business and he’s betting on himself no matter what. He isn’t looking for anything but something feels right with this new person. He’s been pushed into this same type of movie so many times but A Lot Like Love actually works unlike most of those. Amanda Peet is the feisty Emily Friehl. She doesn’t have much luck when it comes to love so she’s not expecting anything different. She has the potential to be so much more but she lives in the moment. These two unexpected companions don’t realize how much they need each other so it all builds up to something special before they explore as friends. The rest of the supporting cast includes Taryn Manning (Sons of Anarchy), Jeremy Sisto (Clueless), Kal Penn (House), Ali Larter (Final Destination franchise), Kathryn Hahn (Agatha All Along), Gabriel Mann (Bourne franchise), Tyrone Giordano (The Family Stone), Aimee Garcia (Lucifer), Moon Bloodgood (Terminator Salvation), Holmes Osborne (Donnie Darko), Meghan Markle (Suits), Norman Reedus (The Walking Dead), Melissa Van Der Schyff (The Loft), James Read (Charmed), Molly Cheek (American Pie franchise), Robert Peters (Lincoln), Josh Stamberg (Parenthood), Amy Aquino (Moonstruck), Sarah Shahi (Black Adam), Herschel Bleefeld (Significant Others), and Conrad Bluth (Mercy). Lots of familiar faces show up in A Lot Like Love. I appreciate that it lets everything organically develop instead of forcing stuff way too early like most of these films do. So it’s a little slower at first. Both main roles have to go on their own journey to find the correct path. It highlights that sometimes friendships become more than that but never rush into anything. They always find a way to reunite somehow and it makes that anticipation even more enticing in the their 7 year dance. It’s a very mature look into getting your life together before other steps are made. It proves that nothing is guaranteed and life can be a surprise. The ending is predictable but the audience wants it to happen after It’s constant teasing maybe or not. It’s all about timing, A Lot Like Love has a smooth flow to it. It’s packed with heart, comedy, drama, and romance. This still holds up great, RECOMMENDED!!!! Let’s discuss this high definition presentation and special features from Sony Pictures! This 1080p (1.85:1) transfer looks much better than it’s previous DVD home video release. It was originally announced and cancelled for Blu Ray in 2013 so I’m not exactly sure how new this restoration is but it’s a nice improvement compared to the past. It has an English: DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1 track on the disc. Just a heads up, all of the older versions with the conversations between the Martin brothers using sign language had forced subtitles but they are not here anymore. The viewer still gets the idea and feeling of the scenes but it just doesn’t translate it anymore. It has a popular and mainstream soundtrack that pops the most when it comes to the audio. All of the dialogue is crisp, the laughs are elevated, and the music has a killer boost to it. It has English, English SDH, and Spanish subtitles. It has the archive “Audio Commentary” with Nigel Cole, Armyan Bernstein, and Kevin J. Messick. They chat about the story, cast, characters, locations, music, and the overall production. It’s mainly a scene by scene type of track. They enjoy themselves while revisiting their room com film, it’s loaded with plenty of inside information and personal stories from it. It has an almost 4 minute “Blooper Reel” with some silly goofs from the set. It has a little over 7 minutes of 6 different “Deleted Scenes”. There’s some interesting stuff from the cutting room floor in this but I’m not surprised that none of this ended up in the completed feature. It has the Aqualung “Brighter Than Sunshine” music video. Sony carried over all of the older extras from the DVD home video release here. It’s available everywhere right now including Moviezyng.com, CHECK IT OUT!!!!