Essentially a romantic comedy, 1996’s Jerry Maguire doesn’t seem like the sort of movie that’d rake in massive money. However, Maguire resonated with audiences and ended up as the fourth biggest hit of a competitive year.

When Jerry Maguire (Cruise) becomes disenchanted with his superficial life as a hotshot sports agent, he expresses his business-related dreams via a “mission statement”. Unfortunately, this action places him in the unemployment line since his superiors don’t care for his vision.

In the face of this, Maguire strikes out on his own. Armed with one employee – fellow “revolutionary” Dorothy Boyd (Renee Zellweger) – and one client – egotistical wide receiver Rod Tidwell (Cuba Gooding Jr.) – Maguire seeks to find personal and professional satisfaction.

This inevitably leads Jerry toward romance with Dorothy, a factor that could make the movie cloying and treacly. This seems especially true due to the presence of Dorothy’s adorable young son Ray (Jonathan Lipnicki), a bespectacled tyke who intends to humanize Jerry.

Even when I was a youngster myself, I always had a low tolerance level for precocious movie kids, and Lipnicki should’ve become intolerable. Instead, he manages to remain cute and charming, a minor miracle.

And that goes for the rest of Maguire, a movie that could – and probably should – veer into sappy romantic melodrama but doesn’t. Whenever the film threatens to go down Gooey Lane, it steers its course toward enough freshness and comedy to keep it on the right path.

As writer and director, Cameron Crowe undoubtedly deserves the most credit for this. Crowe seems to have lost his mojo in recent years, but he enjoyed a nice run from 1989’s Say Anything through 2000’s Almost Famous.

I’ll probably always view the semi-autobiographical Famous as Crowe’s filmmaking peak, but Maguire certainly works well on its own. Crowe handled romantic comedy well, and Maguire reminds us of his easy facility with the genre.

Maguire’s biggest problem stems from its length, as it fills a whopping 138 minutes. That running time works for something like a historical drama, but a fairly light relationship piece like this seems better suited for 105 minutes or so.

And the viewer does tend to feel that length. While the film holds together fine, it boasts more than a few scenes that could’ve gotten the boot and made this a tighter experience.

Still, Maguire does keep us engaged, and the actors help. With Maguire and Mission: Impossible on his plate, 1996 arguably became Cruise’s most dominant year at the box office. He seemed a little flat in the first Impossible, but he holds his own as the lead here.

Granted, Jerry feels like a role tailor-made for Cruise. The part allows him to demonstrate his ample natural charm, and it’s easy to view Jerry as an older version of Joel from Risky Business. In fact, given some of the character’s fashion choices, I think the filmmakers consciously strove to connect those two parts.

Whether or not that’s the case, Cruise handles the part well. On occasion, he threatens to go a little too “big”, but he usually gives us a nice take on the character.

Maguire made the essentially unknown Zellweger a star, and it’s easy to see why. The film doesn’t give Dorothy a lot to do – she remains the manifestation of Jerry’s conscience more than a person in her own right – but Zellweger shows easy-going charm. We understand why Jerry falls for her.

Via Boyz N The Hood, audiences already knew Gooding, but he’d not done a lot to set Hollywood on fire otherwise. Maguire certainly boosted his profile – especially when he took home an Oscar – and he also deserves credit. Rod is a bit of a cartoon but Gooding manages to give him zest.

Really, outside of the bloated running time, I can’t find much to fault in Maguire. The film may sputter at times due to its length, but it offers enough comedy and romance to succeed.

Jerry Maguire appears in an aspect ratio of approximately 1.85:1 on this 4K UHD disc. Despite the lackluster nature of many 1990s film stocks, the image held up fairly well.

For the most part, sharpness worked fine, as much of the movie showed nice clarity and accuracy. Interiors could be a little fuzzy but not to a substantial degree.

No issues with jagged edges or shimmering occurred, and source flaws were absent. With a strong layer of grain, I suspected no digital noise reduction issues.

Colors seemed good. Maguire went with a natural palette that came across as warm and robust, and the disc’s HDR added range and impact to the tones.

Blacks were dark and tight, while shadows delivered smooth material. HDR brought nice power to whites and contrast. Though it showed its age at times, the image appeared positive.

Downconverted to Dolby TrueHD 7.1, the film’s Dolby Atmos soundfield generally provided a forward emphasis and those elements were accentuated with a moderate amount of general ambience. The soundscape came to life a little during football games or at airports, but they didn’t go crazy.

This meant the surrounds failed to add a lot. Again, occasional sequences delivered moderate use of the back channels, but this remained a chatty flick without many chances for sonic fireworks.

Audio quality seemed good. Speech was clear and concise, with no edginess or other issues. Effects appeared clean and accurate, and they packed a good punch when appropriate.

Music showed nice clarity and range. The songs sounded good, as they demonstrated clean highs and punchy bass response. This wasn’t a particularly ambitious track, but it worked fine given the movie’s scope.

How did the 4K UHD compare to the 20th Anniversary Blu-ray? The Atmos soundtrack seemed a bit more involving, but it didn’t add much compared to the prior 5.1 mix, mainly due to the nature of the story.

Visuals fared better, as the 4K offered superior definition, colors and texture. The 4K turned into a nice upgrade over the already-satisfying Blu-ray.

On the 4K disc itself, we get one extra: an episode of Here’s the Thing With Alec Baldwin. A podcast, this runs 41 minutes, 20 seconds and brings a conversation between Baldwin and writer/director Cameron Crowe.

We find a discussion of Crowe’s life and career, with an emphasis on his time in movies. Baldwin acts as a good interviewer, and he and Crowe mesh well to make this a solid chat.

Baldwin’s own obvious connections to Hollywood mean this is a peer-to-peer piece, and that POV seems fun. By the way, the Maguire-specific content starts around 22 minutes and lasts about three and a half minutes.

The included Blu-ray copy comes packed with extras, and we open with a picture-in-picture commentary from writer/director Cameron Crowe and actors Tom Cruise, Cuba Gooding Jr., and Renee Zellweger. All four sit together for this running, screen-specific discussion of story and characters, cast and performances, deleted scenes, music and connected areas.

With three major stars and a famous filmmaker in tow, this has to be a great commentary, right? Wrong.

Instead, we get one of the least interesting chats I've heard - and one of the biggest disappointments I've screened ever. The presence of so much notable talent escalates expectations - and the end result crushes those hopes.

Every once in a while, we get a tiny nugget of value. However, the vast majority of the track offers nothing more than praise for the movie and all involved as well as laughter at what the participants see. This becomes a genuinely bad commentary that ends up as a terrible letdown.

What does the “visual” aspect of the commentary bring to the table? Not much, as it just shows the participants as they watch and talk. Cruise does wear a bizarre hat, though.

Behind the Scenes at the Visual Commentary lasts five minutes, 40 seconds. It shows the four participants as they fool around pre-commentary. Other than more footage of Cruise’s ridiculous hat, this doesn’t offer much.

We Meet Again runs 38 minutes, 54 seconds and offers info from Crowe, Gooding, Cruise, Zellweger, and actors Jay Mohr, Regina King, Kelly Preston, and Bonnie Hunt. “Meet” looks at the film’s origins, influences and development, story and characters, cast and performances, cinematography and general thoughts.

Though not a comprehensive look at the film’s production, “Again” manages to offer good information. It includes a lot of fine footage from the shoot, and the comments add reflections that would’ve been appropriate for the commentary. “Again” turns into the most useful discussion on the disc.

Split into two areas, Deleted/Extended/Alternate Scenes mixes clips exclusive to the 2017 Blu-ray and those from earlier releases. The “new” stuff resides under “Deleted & Extended Scenes”, where we discover 20 segments.

Along with an intro from Crowe, this compilation totals 55 minutes, 38 seconds. In addition, we find three Original Deleted & Alternate Scenes with a sum time of two minutes, 42 seconds.

That means almost an hour of cut/alternate footage, and almost all of it adds to existing scenes – though not in particularly interesting ways. We get unnecessary moments that deserved to get the boot.

The first one we see exemplifies this trend. It shows Jerry at the copy shop as he preps his “mission statement”. Does it serve any real purpose? None that I can see, and most of the cut material follows suit.

Does any of this prove to be enjoyable? I like a short spat between Tidwell and Cushman, and a quick bit in which Avery promises Jerry a “Chicago-style” blowjob amuses.

Otherwise, don’t expect much. The scenes tend to ramble without purpose and don’t deliver a lot of entertainment. In the abstract, I’m glad to get them, but they fail to bring out interesting threads.

The “original” scenes can be viewed with or without commentary from Crowe and editor Joe Hutshing. They give us minor notes about those shots. We don’t learn a lot.

Next we find a Photo Gallery. It presents 110 shots that mix promo pictures and snaps from the set. This turns into a pretty good collection.

An archival piece, The Making of Jerry Maguire takes up seven minutes, 14 seconds. It features comments from Crowe, Cruise, Zellweger, Gooding, Hunt, and athletes Drew Bledsoe and Ki-Jana Carter. “Making” focuses on story and characters to deliver a thoroughly promotional take on the film.

Something unusual arrives via ”My First Commercial” by Rod Tidwell. As the title implies, this 51-second clip shows Gooding in character, as “Tidwell” sells us sneakers. It’s an insubstantial but fun extra.

Drew Rosenhaus: How to Be a Sports Agent goes for three minutes, 46 seconds and offers info from an actual agent. An inspiration for the movie’s characters, the motor-mouthed Rosenhaus offers insights about the fast-paced world of sports agents. This becomes a cool little clip from the mid-1990s.

Under Rehearsal Footage, we get three clips with a total running time of one minute, 58 seconds. We can watch run-throughs for “Cuba’s Kwan”, “Show Me the Money!” and “Goodbye to SMI”. Nothing exciting appears, but this becomes a moderately interesting compilation.

We can view this material with or without commentary from Crowe and Hutshing. They throw in a few thoughts about the footage but don’t give us many insights.

In addition to the film’s trailer, we get a music video for Bruce Springsteen’s “Secret Garden”. This clip differs from the version on Springsteen’s Video Anthology.

That one intercut Bruce lip-synching/playing guitar with shots of attractive women. This edition intercuts Bruce lip-synching/playing guitar with shots from the movie. It was a mediocre video in its original incarnation, and the inclusion of the film clips – while logical – makes it even less interesting.

Cameron Crowe hit his commercial peak with 1996’s Jerry Maguire. I don’t view it as his best creative endeavor, but the film manages to offer an enjoyable and endearing romantic comedy. The 4K UHD brings us good picture and audio along with a long roster of supplements. Almost 25 years after its debut, Maguire remains a sweet ride.

Note that as of June 2020, the 4K UHD disc of Jerry Maguire can be located only as part of a six-movie “Columbia Classics Collection”. This set also includes 4K UHD versions of Mr. Smith Goes to Washington, Dr. Strangelove, Lawrence of Arabia, Gandhi and A League of Their Own.

To rate this film, visit the original review of JERRY MAGUIRE