Page Not Found - DVDfever.co.uk
DVDfever.co.uk

404: Page not found

It looks like nothing was found at this location. Maybe try a search or one of the links below?

Archives

Categories

Follow

Get every new post delivered to your Inbox

Join other followers:

WP Twitter Auto Publish Powered By : XYZScripts.com

Dom Robinson reviews

Dogma

It can be hell getting into heaven.

Distributed by
Film Four


"One of the sacred promises imparted to Peter, the first pope, by the Son of God before he left was, 'Whatever you hold true on Earth, I'll hold true in heaven'", so states Bartleby (Ben Affleck) - who is partnered with the former Angel of Death, Loki (Matt Damon) - and that if they enter the arch of the church, led by Cardinal Ignatius Glick (George Carlin), that's transformed its image to include a 'Buddy Christ' figure instead of one of the carpenter's son on a cross, then they'll become mortal and once they die, these exiled angels from heaven can return home. However, doing that will cause civilisation as we know it to collapse, so they intend to take down wrong-doers along the way such as adulterers and a Disney-esque organisation that has their own Mickey Mouse-like character, Mooby.

Unbeknownst to her at the start of the film, bored abortion clinic assistant Bethany Sloane (Linda Fiorentino) will be whisked away from her colleague Liz (Janeane Garofalo) and offered a new vocation as the Last Scion, who is given the task of stopping the two leads by Alan Rickman, here, crotchless, playing Metatron, the voice of God. Assisting Bethany is Rufus, the 13th - and only black - Apostle (Chris Rock), plus the return of Kevin Smith regulars, Jay (Jason Mewes) and Silent Bob (Kevin Smith, himself).

Hovering between working for good or evil is the creature from hell, Azrael (Jason Lee) and Salma Hayek has a rather redundant role in muse Serendipity. When God finally makes an appearance after much discussion as to whether He is a She, or the colour of God's skin, God is revealed to be singer/songwriter Alanis Morissette.

Finally, there's also an appearance from the Golgothan Shit Demon, who performs the best shit-splattering shenanigans since Trainspotting.

For all my faults, Dogma is the first Kevin Smith film I've actually got round to watching - so I've still got the Jersey trilogy (Clerks, Mallrats and Chasing Amy) to work through - and it's an entertaining one in part, but at times it does tend to have the characters ramble on a bit and there must be more words-per-minute spoken in this film than any other.


The picture quality is very good, the only downside being a slight tinge of fuzzy artifacts that are only spotted when viewing up close. The film is presented in its original anamorphic widescreen ratio of 2.35:1. The average bitrate is a fairly steady 6.66Mb/s (was this done on purpose given the aspect of Hell?), often peaking over 8Mb/s.

The sound is in Dolby Digital 5.1 with plenty of multi-channel sound effects from simple scene-change swipes to the buzzing of Azrael's helpers.


Extras :

This release has been rather badly timed. Just as VCI are releasing the same near-featureless version that Columbia did last May, the Americans will be striking back before long with a Special Edition containing audio commentaries, documentaries, deleted scenes, out-takes and something featuring the "Buddy Christ".

Playing this disc on a Creative Dxr2 DVD-ROM, I found that all of the extras have been FUBAR'd by stretching whatever was given to them and squashing it down vertically to within a 16:9 ratio - sort of the opposite of the benefits that an anamorphic presentation begins.

Hence, the two brief 4:3 TV Spots are 16:9, the two 16:9 Trailers are 2.35:1 and the 22-minutes of Cast & Crew Interviews featuring Kevin Smith, Ben Affleck, Linda Fiorentino and Salma Hayek are all 4:3 footage squashed into 16:9 - why??

I had the TV set correctly and any 4:3 footage on any other disc doesn't present such a problem with my Dxr2 set the same way (accommodating anamorphic widescreen pictures where appropriate and without buggering up 4:3 footage), but playing this in a Playstation 2 posed no such problems.

We could use more than 20 chapters that this disc provides and there are only subtitles in English for the hard of hearing. The menus are silent with a hint of animation.


Overall, fans of Kevin Smith will no doubt want to rush to get this, but how can I recommend a DVD which will be far superceded soon? It was due to be released just eight days after this one, but thanks to Simon from the DVD UK mailing list for confirming that it's been delayed - indefinitely but it isn't expected to be too long away.

Thanks also to Karl Flaschke from VCI for the info that they tried to obtain the rights for the content that is set to appear on the Special Edition but were unable to do so.

FILM CONTENT
PICTURE QUALITY
SOUND QUALITY
EXTRAS



OVERALL

Review copyright © Dominic Robinson, 2001

Check out The Official Dogma Website.

[Up to the top of this page]

Page Not Found - DVDfever.co.uk

DVDfever.co.uk

404: Page not found

It looks like nothing was found at this location. Maybe try a search or one of the links below?

Archives

Categories

Follow

Get every new post delivered to your Inbox

Join other followers:

WP Twitter Auto Publish Powered By : XYZScripts.com