Perhaps the most shameless and unrepentant chick flick ever to grace the silver screen (and now the silver disc), Down With Love is director Peyton Reed's shrill but gorgeous follow-up to the giddily energetic teen flick Bring It On. For his sophomore effort, Reed has "matured" into the realm of the adult sex comedy, but unfortunately he seems to have paid too much attention to the look of his film and not enough attention to the stuff inside it.

Down With Love is a painfully obsequious homage to the featherweight Rock Hudson/Doris Day sex comedies of the 1960s. Yes, this is an overt exercise in kitsch, and all involved seem to be way in on the joke. (Imagine David Hyde Pierce doing his most fervent and headache-inducing Niles Crane, and you'll have some idea of this film's personality.) Take one look at the supplements on this DVD, and you'll see a cast and crew that's just absolutely aflutter with titmouse excitement about the movie they've created. At least two members of the crew gush, "I was BORN to make this movie!" And that's so nice that Down With Love has plumped their souls in such a way, because as much as I appreciated the meticulous attention to every single tiny microscopic detail of the film's sets and costumes and choreography, this pretty, silly, yakkety-yak-yakking thing just never ceases to annoy.

Yeah, okay, I get it. It's supposed to be pretty and silly and even annoying. See, that's all part of the subgenre Reed and company are satirizing! Of course! No, I don't buy it. Down With Love tries desperately to be ribald and hilarious, but right from the start, that desperation freezes any potential humor into ice spikes that stab at your gray matter and cause you to squint at the screen through helplessly bloodshot eyes and cry out, "For the love of God, stop talking like that!"

Barbara Novak (Renee Zellweger) is an insufferable lemon tart who is the unlikely author of a soon-to-be-bestselling nonfiction book called Down With Love. In her pink tome, she informs women around the world that they don't need love. Sex is okay, but love and marriage? No dice--those are the shackles of enslavement. As Novak and her book gradually begin changing a male-dominated world, the James Bondian womanizing journalist Catcher Block (Ewan McGregor) sets his sights on Novak, with the sole intention of proving her a fraud. He knows that deep down, Novak craves love, just like any other woman. But as Block works through the machinations of his involved setup, is he the one falling in love?

Without exception, the performances are ratcheted into the dizzy stratosphere of Mile High Club scenery chewing. The least offensive acting here is by McGregor (even though he never quite rings true as Catcher), but every moment that Zellweger was onscreen, I felt like my tongue was digging its way through the soft palette at the roof of my mouth and worming its way into my brain. David Hyde Pierce and Sarah Paulson are also abuzz with helium energy.

Which is all to say that it breaks my heart how gorgeous this film looks. Set in a perfect, film-lover's New York, Down With Love is a menagerie of spectacular 60s sets and impossible digital mattes and goofy fashion. The film's frequent split-screen episodes are masterfully shot—even though the stuff going on inside them is typically the most infantile of sexual double entendres. What we have here is a living, breathing (though wackily exaggerated) museum of 60s bedroom-movie culture. Too bad the movie is too loud and hyperactive to fits its clothes.

Fox presents Down With Love in a wildly colorful anamorphic-widescreen transfer of the film's original 2.35:1 theatrical presentation. I was impressed by the level of fine detail here, but the biggest challenge of this transfer is the way it handles the film's saturated color palette—it does so with verve. Perhaps a little too much verve. The deep, vivid colors—which have been digitally color-timed—have created something of an artificial monster.

In some places, the image itself seems so saturated with itself that it's muddy. Blacks are a bit too deep, giving the film a too-dark look at times. And watch those opening credits, which are all primary colors and snazzy, dancing titles. The expanses of color are alive with compression artifacts. However, as the film went on, I noticed no artifacting, and only the slightest traces of edge enhancement.

The disc's Dolby Digital 5.1 track is quite immersive. The soundfield is as alive as the image, offering fluid ambience, particularly with the score. Surround channels are quite active with music. The front soundstage is also wide, providing good directional dialog with character movement. And the dialog itself is clear and free of distortion.

Fox has put together a pretty thorough special edition for Down With Love. The extras span the supplement spectrum, offering an extensive but curiously fluffy behind-the-scenes peek at the making of this unusual film.

First up is an Audio Commentary by Director Peyton Reed. This guy gives good commentary, as he did for Bring It On. I enjoyed this commentary more than I enjoyed the film. He has an infectious exuberance as he talks nonstop about his lofty goals for making the film. He talks about how intensely he studies those 60s sex comedies, and he scores points with DVD geeks by saying that he purposefully shot wide 2.35:1 compositions, not caring about any eventual pan-n-scan hackjob.

The "Here's to Love" Original Network TV Performance is a full-frame presentation of the likeable musical number that McGregor and Zellweger perform over the end credits.

The "Down With Love" Deleted Scenes are 5 scenes, totaling 5 minutes, and they add up to very little. You can choose to view them with commentary by Reed.

"Guess My Game" Featuring Celebrity Mystery Guest Barbara Novak – Original Network Broadcast is exactly what you think it might be—the full-frame presentation of the television talk show that Novak appears on in the film

"Down With Love" Hair and Wardrobe Tests is a 90-second look at David Hyde Pierce, Ewan McGregor, and Renee Zellweger trying on costumes. This materially is essentially repeated in the later HBO Special, so you can skip this one with no regrets.

"Down With Love" Blooper Reel is actually an entertaining collection of flub and goofs involving the principal actors. It's surprisingly lengthy and will make you laugh. You can definitely tell that they had fun on this set.

Next is a section called the "Down With Love" Documentaries, a collection of six tiny featurettes. (To call these little trifles "documentaries" is something of a joke, but they are educational.) First, On "Location" With "Down With Love" (3 minutes) talks about the film's impressive digital-matte work. Second, Creating the World of "Down With Love" (3 minutes) covers the 60s style that's been re-imagined as though through a movie of the time period. Third, The Costumes of "Down With Love" (2 minutes) talks about the film's outrageous attention to costume detail. Fourth, The Swingin' Sounds of "Down With Love" (2 minutes) covers the scoring by Marc Shaiman. Fifth, "Down With Love," Up With Tony Randall (2 minutes) talks about how much of a 60s icon Tony Randall was and how honored the cast and crew are to have him in this film. Sixth, "Down With Love"—Split Decisions (2 minutes) is a look at the split-screen techniques used to comic effect in the film.

The 12-minute HBO Special is a fluffy, ADD-paced promotional piece.

The "Down With Love" Testimonial is a 30-second fake advertisement for Barbara Novak's magazine Now.

Finally, the Music Promo Spot is a soundtrack advertisement.

I recommend renting this film and playing it on Mute, so that you can at least enjoy the wonderful recreations of an era that never was. Fox has produced a fairly strong DVD, with above-average image and sound quality, but supplements that value quantity over quality. If you're a fan of this sugary concoction, you'll love this DVD. Just be careful of diabetic shock.