review: SO I MARRIED AN AXE MURDERER (Blu-ray)

Sony  //  Buy from Amazon.com Poet Charlie Mackenzie (Myers) may find romance in sonnets and odes, but love is nowhere to be found in his real life. Overly-critical and paranoid in all of his relationships, Charlie deems small quirks to be catastrophic flaws and justifies breaking up with his current girlfriend because she "smells like soup." His mother (Fricker), father (Myers) and best friend Tony (LaPaglia) shake their heads, wondering if he will ever find true love with his neurotic tendencies. But when he stumbles upon the love of his life in a butcher shop, Charlie thinks that all his stars have finally aligned. She is perfect, except for the small nagging suspicion Charlie has that his dream girl is actually a serial killer... I'm not sure when I last sat down to watch this film, but I wouldn't be surprised if it's been 7 or 8 years at least. Back then, Mike Myers the zany Canuck from SNL who brought us "Wayne's World"... and now he's "Austin Powers" and the soon-to-debut "Love Guru"... Long before Myers descended into crazy, kooky characters (and I don't mean that entirely disparigingly, as I thought the first "Austin Powers" was brilliant), he was just a clean-cut comedian looking to branch out from the "party on" role into some roles with substance.... enter "So I Married An Axe Murderer". Myers is the straight man in this one (aside from his hilarious role as his own father in the film), and this is a dark comedy along the lines of "Cable Guy" (an unheralded gem, in my opinion.) This is not the slapstick comedy of "Austin Powers" but a bit more intelligent/cerebral comedy, with tinges of darkness to it. I really enjoyed it when sitting down to watch for this review and was surprised at how well it held up. Not sure if my brain was sufficiently developed to appreciate all the comedy that's included in this one, but my brain of 2008 definitely can, so it gets a big thumbs up. Video The film is given a 1.85:1 high def transfer that looks pretty darn good. It's still a low(ish)-budget comedy from the '90s, so don't expect THX-quality here, but it's undoubtedly better than it's evern looked on home video before! Audio The Dolby TrueHD 5.1 surround mix is excellent, perfectly delivering the dialogue and (surprisingly full) soundtrack. Extras Even though it's billed as a "Special Edition" the only extra is a trailer for "Men in Black" on Blu-ray.... (wtf?!) Closing Thoughts Solidly fun comedy (before Myers started going gonzo with characters) + ZERO extras = worth revisiting (if, like me, you hadn't seen this one in several years)