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X-Men: The Animated Series (TV)
R1 - America - Buena Vista Home Entertainment Review written by and copyright: Noor Razzak (7th October 2009). |
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The Film
 After the excellent third volume release of this series, I was amped to continue with the fourth volume, but the episodes in this release aren't as strong as previous volumes. The 4-part "Beyond Good and Evil" arc was the best of the set, but the episodes start off rather weakly with two 2-part arcs. The problem I had with this series overall is that it started solidly, continued with well-plotted story lines (albeit simplified) but ended weak with a fourth volume of episodes whose episode quality started to wane. Admittedly it's hard to top the Phoenix/Dark Phoenix sagas, easily the crown jewel of this series. Focus tends to shift back to the key villain, Magneto in the early episodes of this set, but after the "Beyond Good and Evil" story arc we are left with a handful of stand alone episodes that don't have nearly the impact of "Beyond Good and Evil" or the previous multi-part episodes seen in previous seasons, especially a rather mundane Christmas episode. This is an unfortunate let down considering the strong scripting and overall value of the previous episodes, it's as if the series fizzles out after "Beyond Good and Evil" and doesn't really recover. Ironically that arc was meant to be the final episodes of the series but for some reason was shifted. One of the positives about this series as it progressed towards its final episodes they got much more action-packed, and the "X-Men" saw way more action and featured some cool sequences, for several years during the height of the comic book collecting frenzy of the 90's, kids and fans alike were treated to weekly episodes of "X-Men" adventures and finally we've got them all on DVD to treasure and share with the next generation of fans. This fourth and final volume includes the following episodes: - "Proteus: Part 1" - "Proteus: Part 2" - "Sanctuary: Part 1" - "Sanctuary: Part 2" - "Beyond Good and Evil: Part 1" - "Beyond Good and Evil: Part 2" - "Beyond Good and Evil: Part 3" - "Beyond Good and Evil: Part 4" - "Have Yourself a Morlock Little X-Mas" - "The Lotus and the Steel" - "Love in Vain" - "Secrets, Not Long Buried" - "Xavier Remembers" - "Family Ties"
Video
Presented in the original broadcast ratio of 1.33:1 full screen. Much like the previous two release, the show looks very much like it was produced in the 90's. Some of these episodes unfortunately suffer from some dirt and specks, however I found that they were not as frequent and certainly not too distracting but they are noticeable. The majority of the episodes fare much better as the season progresses. Overall the colors are pretty solid, blacks are bold and the image is bright and vibrant.
Audio
Three audio tracks are included in English Dolby Digital 2.0 stereo, French Dolby Digital 2.0 stereo and Spanish Dolby Digital 2.0 stereo. These are likely to be the show's original broadcast audio, the mix is pretty good, dialogue is solid, there's some decent activity at times, mainly during the action scenes and the music is quite loud and prominent. However, the track lacks depth and the appropriate range to go from ambiance (of which there is little to none) to the action scenes. It's a typical 2.0 stereo and seems to do the trick. There are optional subtitles in English, French and Spanish.
Extras
None, nada, zilch, zero, nothing at all save for a bunch of bonus trailers... this is very sad, it would have been nice to include some commentaries from the creators or voice actors especially since this series has been a long time coming, but alas we have nothing. DISC ONE: Only a collection of bonus trailers are featured for: - "Legend of the Seeker: The Complete First Season" which runs for 1 minute 45 seconds. - "G-Force" which runs for 1 minute 36 seconds. - "Disney Blu-ray" spot which runs for 1 minute 14 seconds. - "Disney XD" spot which runs for 32 seconds. - "Up" which runs for 2 minutes 32 seconds. DISC TWO: There are no extras on this disc.
Packaging
Packaged in a 2-disc amaray case housed in an embossed cardboard slip-case (strange they decided on this considering the previous two volumes did not include a slip-case).
Overall
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