Nacho Libre (2006) |
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Nacho Libre (2006) |
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| BUY IT |
| General | Extras | ||
| Category | Comedy |
Audio Commentary-by Jack Black, Mike White and Jared Hess Featurette-Detrás de la Camára Featurette-Jack Black Unmasked! Featurette-Lucha Libre Featurette-Hecho en Mexico Featurette-Moviephone Unscripted with Jack Black and Héctor Jiménez Featurette-Jack Black Sings Deleted Scenes TV Spots Gallery-Photo |
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| Rating |
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| Year Of Production | 2006 | ||
| Running Time | 88:21 | ||
| RSDL / Flipper | RSDL (47:42) | Cast & Crew | |
| Start Up | Language Select Then Ads Then Menu | ||
| Region Coding | 4 | Directed By | Jared Hess |
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Studio
Distributor |
Nickelodeon Paramount Home Entertainment |
Starring |
Jack Black Ana de la Reguera Héctor Jiménez Darius Rose Moises Arias Eduardo Gómez Carlos Maycotte Richard Montoya Cesar Gonzalez Rafael Montalvo Julio Sandoval |
| Case | Amaray-Opaque | ||
| RPI | $34.95 | Music | Danny Elfman |
| Video | Audio | ||
| Pan & Scan/Full Frame | None |
English Dolby Digital 5.1 (448Kb/s) English Audio Commentary Dolby Digital 2.0  (192Kb/s)
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| Widescreen Aspect Ratio | 1.78:1 | ||
| 16x9 Enhancement |
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| Video Format | 576i (PAL) | ||
| Original Aspect Ratio | 1.85:1 | Miscellaneous | |
| Jacket Pictures | No | ||
| Subtitles |
English English for the Hearing Impaired English Audio Commentary Danish Finnish Norwegian Swedish |
Smoking | No |
| Annoying Product Placement | No | ||
| Action In or After Credits | No | ||
Since his early days growing up at an orphanage run by monks, Ignacio (Jack Black) had always dreamed of becoming a wrestler. Alas, he was guided into a life as a monk, looking after children at the same orphanage where he grew up. His job is to cook for the children, but all he can make with the stale ingredients at hand appears to be mud with stale corn chips. This all changes after he is mugged. He has an epiphany: upon seeing an ad for a local wrestling show, recruits his mugger as a tag team partner and starts a secret double life as Nacho – monk by day, luchador (that's Mexican wrestler to you and I) by night!
His disapproving peers, including the beautiful nun Sister Encarnación (Ana de la Reguera), can never know how Nacho is able to afford the quality ingredients that have started appearing in their meals. None of his wrestling peers – including the satanic furry midgets – readily accept this new challenger until he has proven himself. With only his trusty tag team partner at his side, Nacho is ready to take on the world!
Nacho Libre is a very silly movie, but a silly movie with a distinct (though awkward) style. Then again, you probably wouldn't expect anything different to come out of a creative partnership between the minds that created School of Rock, Jack Black and Mike White, and the minds that created Napoleon Dynamite, Jared and Jerusha Hess. For the most part, this collaboration works well, but it never reaches the heights of the aforementioned classics. There are some great laughs to be had in Nacho Libre, but most of them come from the quirky style of the movie rather than jokes, and occasionally it tries a little too hard to be quirky.
Nacho Libre is a solid effort that will mostly appeal to existing Jack Black fans and late-primary to early-teen kids. It's unusual style will put some viewers off, particularly those expecting a traditional comedy. Everyone else is in for a good night in.
The video is presented in a 1.78:1 aspect ratio, slightly less wide than it's theatrical 1.85:1, and is 16x9 enhanced.
The image is quite sharp and even throughout. There is no noticeable grain or low level noise at any point. Blacks are somewhat oversaturated and consequently the shadow detail is not great, though this only really detracts from a handful of shots in the movie, such as a landscape at dusk at 67:13.
The colour palette used in the film has a distinct golden tint, which helps conjure a dusty rural Mexican mood and makes the paler characters, particularly Jack Black, look a bit more Central American.
There are no noticeable MPEG compression artefacts or film artefacts throughout the transfer.
There are basic English subtitles (including subtitles for the audio commentary) and English subtitles for the hearing impaired. All three English subtitle tracks are quite clear and appear well timed.
This is an RSDL disc. The layer change occurs mid scene at 47:42 but is not particularly noticeable.
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There is one English Dolby Digital 5.1 (448 Kbps) audio track available. Aside from the dialogue levels, there is nothing to complain about with the track.
Dialogue is fairly soft in the mix compared to the music and effects, but not unbearably so. The accents, particularly Jack Black's dodgy Mexican accent, occasionally make it difficult to hear what is being said, but generally they aren't too bad. The dialogue seems to be in good sync throughout.
Music is put to good effect throughout the movie and is crystal clear. Fans of Jack Black's other career as half of Tenacious D will enjoy the couple of rather ridiculous songs he sings. The score does a good job of capturing the rural Mexican feel of the movie.
The surround speakers are put to decent use for music and environmental effects. The subwoofer sees a modest amount of use during the bone-crunching wrestling scenes.
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There are a fair number of extras provided on the disc, although in some cases it appears to be quantity over quality.
Trailers for Over the Hedge and Airbender: The Last Avatar play before the main menu.
Three of the film-makers get together over dinner (as witnessed by the occasional munching of what sounds like potato chips in the background!) to commentate on the movie. Given the talent doing the commentating, I was a tad disappointed by this commentary track. Though there are the occasional amusing anecdotes about the production, much of the commentary unintentionally comes across as negative (although some of this appears to be poorly transmitted sarcasm) and there isn't much insight given into the production. Mike White in particular seems to spend half his time pointing out continuity errors and asking if certain bits are going to be in the deleted scenes.
This is a "making of" featurette that follows the "dump of a whole lot of behind the scenes footage and the odd interview together and hope it makes something of itself" formula. There are some great bits in here, and funny too, but a lot of filler as well. The lack of narration makes this featurette seem to amble rather aimlessly.
A more coherent (not to mention narrated) and straight to the point "making of" cum marketing featurette that was originally produced for the Nickelodeon channel. This is a good making-of featurette, but it spends a fair bit of time explaining the story and selling the movie rather – something that probably doesn't need to be done to people that have already bought it! This featurette also explains a little about the whole "Lucha Libre"/Mexican wrestling world. It shares a lot of content with Detras de la Camara, but puts it to better use.
A short featurette about the Mexican wrestling industry.
A short featurette about how the movie was made in Mexico and with a largely Mexican crew.
Jack Black and Héctor Jiménez interview each other in a featurette made for the AOL Moviephone website. There are a series of questions from fans and the stars themselves. There are some funny parts in this interview, but you are unlikely to want to watch it more than once.
Behind the scenes footage of Jack Black, Jared Hess and some Mexican musicians developing and singing two of the songs from the movie. This is pretty entertaining – largely unintentionally because it's basically two pretty funny guys trying to figure out how to be funny while keeping a straight face. There are some rather different versions in this featurette than what made it into the movie.
Three fairly substantial deleted scenes, including a subplot featuring Peter Stormare that was largely removed. These are pretty funny bits, particularly those with Peter Stormare. The transfer of these scenes is fairly poor, however, the sound isn't great and the video is very soft.
Three TV promo spots for the movie. Each is very different and quite funny, without giving too much about the movie away.
Three fairly standard photo galleries are presented, On Set, Luhadores (shots of wrestlers form the movie) and Nacho Especial (promotional stills).
NOTE: To view non-R4 releases, your equipment needs to be multi-zone compatible and usually also NTSC compatible.
The Region 4 version is nearly identical to Region 1, but is missing the Nacho Libre Comic Book Creator DVD-ROM feature (a drag and drop comic book creator featuring clip-art from the movie). Region 1 misses nothing. The feature is likely to appeal to kids much more than adults. This puts Region 1 ahead by a nose.
A very oddball comedy that is fit for the family, though what else would you expect from the creators of School of Rock and Napoleon Dynamite. It's not as good as either of those two movies, but solid nonetheless.
Video quality is good, although occasionally too dark.
Audio quality is good.
There are a good number of extras, but it's a bit of a case of quantity over quality.
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| Review Equipment | |
| DVD | LG V8824W, using S-Video output |
| Display | LG 80cm 4x3 CRT. Calibrated with THX Optimizer. This display device is 16x9 capable. |
| Audio Decoder | Pioneer VSX-D512. Calibrated with Video Essentials/Digital Video Essentials. |
| Amplification | Pioneer VSX-D512 |
| Speakers | 150W DTX front speakers, and a 100W centre and 2 surrounds, 12 inch PSB Image 6i powered sub |