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DVDfever.co.uk – Ben X DVD reviewDom Robinson reviews
Momentum Pictures Home Entertainment
- Cert:
- Running time: 90 minutes
- Year: 2007
- Released: December 2008
- Region(s): 2, PAL
- Chapters: 12 plus extras
- Sound: Dolby Digital 5.1
- Languages: Dutch
- Subtitles: English
- Widescreen: 1.85:1
- 16:9-Enhanced: Yes
- Macrovision: Yes
- Disc Format: DVD 9
- Price: £15.99
- Extras:Trailers, Archlord game
Director:
- Nic Balthazar
(Ben X)
Producers:
- Burny Bos, Peter Bouckaert, Erwin Provoost, Michiel de Rooij and Sabine Veenendaal
Screenplay:
- Nic Balthazar
Music:
- Praga Khan
Cast :
- Ben: Greg Timmermans
Mother: Marijke Pinoy
Scarlite: Laura Verlinden
Jonas: Cesar De Sutter
Coppola: Gilles De Schrijver
Desmet: Maarten Claeyssens
Bogaert: Titus De Voogdt
Father: Pol Goossen
Sabine: Tania Van der Sanden
Psychiatrist: Peter De Graef
Metal teacher: Jakob Beks
Religion teacher: Johan Heldenbergh
Ben (age 6): Bavo Smets
In Ben X,Ben (Greg Timmermans) is obsessed by an massive multiplayer online role-playing game, aka MMORPG, called Archlord andthe film’s title forms his character name within that game. From what I know about World of Warcraft, it looks fairlysimilar to that. Like any teenager, he doesn’t much fancy having to venture out into the real world even though he knows hehas to and, as such, he likens everything he sees in reality to that of the gaming world. However, Ben is much more insularthan the average kid and his only real contact with another human is with online companion Scarlite (the very cute Laura Verlinden).
As he goes about his solitary life, he recounts traumatic experiences as a child and, interspersed, we get what are effectivelyvox pop pieces with relatives, friends and figures in authority, portraying a lad that gets bullied frequently at school, sincewe learn Ben’s autistic and the bullies don’t understand that their actions look set for the whole thing to end in tears. Theaforementioned pieces to camera also often talk in despondent terms about Ben which makes you wonder greatly about what’s to come.
Timmermans gives an exceptional performance as the troubled Ben. When it comes to some of the things he goes through, on theone hand I really feel for his plight, while on the other when I see him missing a chance to better his life I want to slaphim six ways from Sunday and it made me practically have my head in my hands shouting at him to get on with what he should do!(Note that I’m trying so hard not to give any spoilers here, but if you’ve a heart then you’ll feel the same way as I do).
Overall, although this came out effectively on the last Monday of 2008, it’s early 2009 as I’m reviewing this and I can easilyproclaim this the first must-see DVD of 2009. While it suffers from a lack of supplimentary material, the film is an outstandingpiece of work and is one of those few films that you can feel yourself really enjoying it while you’re watching it. It takesyou through a range of emotions as Ben’s situations play out right from start to finish and I can’t recommend it highly enough.
An English-speaking remake is already planned for this year, it seems, although I couldn’t find any further details at the timeof writing this review. However, I wish I could urge the filmmakers to cancel that idea and just show the perfect originalinstead. Big congrats to director Nic Balthazar for making such a wonderful debut.
The film is presented in a 16:9 anamorphic widescreen ratio, but is slightly windowboxed. This is something most people won’tnotice unless they’re viewing on a flatscreen TV as a CRT TV will always have some overscan that can’t be got rid of. I wasalso watching the DVD on an Xbox 360, upscaled to a 37″ plasma screen and it gives a fantastic detailed picture. Often thereare semi-close-ups on the faces of the cast as they give a piece to camera and this shows the definition really well.
The Dolby Digital 5.1 sound gives clear dialogue and great ambient sound when required, often resembling Ben’s own experiences,and while this isn’t a special FX movie we have Praga Khan to thank as they sure know how to put together an encapsualingsoundtrack to accompany the subject matter.
The only extras to view on the DVD are two versions of the trailer, one subtitled (1:50) and one in the original language(1:41). They’re both fairly similar and actually are both in Dutch but only the first has English subtitles. Oddly, the trailersare in 2.35:1 (anamorphic widescreen) so it looks like a wider print could have been struck for theatrical distribution, butif that was the case then it’s likely the DVD was too, so it could just be for effect given that the film was shot on HDTVvideo and will have a native ratio of 16:9, and that the trailers just crop this image top and bottom.
There’s also one other important extra, and while it’s not my type of game, personally, for those who are fans you get toplay Archlord itself which can be installed by putting this DVD in your PC.
There are also some trailers not relating to this film prior to the main menu. I didn’t watch them but DVDcompanies should really understand that the place for trailers is in the EXTRAS menu…
The menus are all static and silent, there are subtitles in English only which are burned into the print and the disccontains 12 chapters, so over the course of 90 mins it could really do with a few more as I work on the average of one perfive minutes, plus opening and closing credits.
PICTURE QUALITY
SOUND QUALITY
EXTRAS
OVERALL
Reviewer of movies, videogames and music since 1994. Aortic valve operation survivor from the same year. Running DVDfever.co.uk since 2000. Nobel Peace Prize winner 2021.