Expelled from Paradise Blu-ray Movie

Rating summary

Movie		3.5
Video		4.0
Audio		4.5
Extras		2.5
Overall		3.5

Expelled from Paradise Blu-ray Movie Review

Reviewed by Jeffrey Kauffman October 23, 2015

Virtual reality was a hard concept for filmmakers and television creators to adequately deal with until relatively recently, offering a lot of inherent hurdles in presentation that probably kept older entries (like the short-lived television series VR) from ever resonating very well or indeed even making it clear what exactly was going on. Animation therefore perhaps took the lead in some of these storylines that depended at least somewhat on digitized environments through which various characters—themselves aggregations of bits and bytes—passed. A number of interesting anime have explored some of these aspects, with many going for the gusto within the virtual world of a game, as in Sword Art Online: Box Set I. Expelled from Paradise starts out in a virtual world, though that conceit isn’t revealed right off the bat, but then takes an almost opposite tack, pushing its heroine Angela Balzac into a devastated real world context where she has to deal with pesky elements like dirt and dust, not to mention dangers like marauding sandworms that threaten to make her all too aware that she’s no longer within the safe and secure confines of a computer controlled universe.

Expelled from Paradise actually seems to be well ensconced in Utopia as it begins, at least that is if one agrees that a sunny day at a gorgeous beach is an unbeatable way to spend one’s time. While revelers play and work on their suntans, a young woman is approached by a guy who obviously has more amorous intentions on his mind. Suddenly, though, there’s a rift in the environment, and it becomes clear that all of the people in the scene are in fact enjoying a virtual reality. Kind of ironically (at least within the confines of typical VR tropes), the interloper causing the digital anomalies is actually “recruiting” people to take part in an exploration of the galaxy. It turns out that Angela is actually an agent trying to track down this hacker, who goes by the handle Frontier Setter. Her initial (virtual) attempt comes up short, at which point she’s urged to take on a real physical form, port to the decimated surface of the Earth, and try to bring the fugitive to justice in the good, old fashioned real world fashion.

Angela, who has thus far lived a fairly pampered existence as a virtual human, has to adapt to a physical body, one which due to the exigencies of time ends up being a 16 year old. Plopped onto Earth in a gelatinous green goo, she awaits the arrival of a human agent appointed to help her in her quest, a kind of ne’er-do-well guy nicknamed Dingo. Dingo arrives, albeit with a swarm of sandworms chasing him, leading to the first of several knock down, drag out fights, one that briefly pushes the anime firmly into mecha territory, though commendably Expelled from Paradise rather wryly jettisons that setup when Dingo cashes in Angela’s huge fighting robot for some scrap metal moolah.

In fact the bantering relationship between Dingo, a guy who’s out for himself and (not so coincidentally) for a quick buck, and Angela, a no nonsense operative who’s hamstrung by her new physicality, provides a lot of the enjoyment that this otherwise fairly derivative entry offers. As the two set off on their trek to find and defeat Frontier Setter, the two (of course) need to put aside their differences to learn how to work together, a plot arc that is undeniably familiar and predictable, but which is played here in a largely winning manner. While at least some elements of the story may strike some as old hat, from a visual perspective the film is almost always stunning to look at. The design aesthetic flirts with fan service with regard to the extremely buxom Angela, who is also in a skin tight uniform for the proceedings. Some of the Earth environments are rendered with some fantastically evocative elements, especially with regard to some wonderfully lifelike looking skies.

Expelled from Paradise offers a supposed “twist” in its late going that puts both Angela’s virtual paradise and the decimated Earth itself in a completely new light, though this plot element is probably less revelatory than it was intended to be. The film manages to be quite exciting a lot of the time, though, especially in a cataclysmic showdown that caps the film and keeps the adrenaline pumping pretty resolutely until a kind of bittersweet finale that suggests paradise may not depend entirely on lush jungles and perfect weather.

Expelled from Paradise Blu-ray Movie, Video Quality 

Expelled from Paradise is presented on Blu-ray courtesy of Aniplex with an AVC encoded 1080p transfer in 1.78:1. This is by and large a nicely crisp and well defined looking presentation, one that benefits from a deeply burnished palette that offers some really bold primaries (especially some very vivid blues), as well as lustrous other tones that exploit elements like deep purples and teals. The Earth environments look nicely nuanced and realistic, and the film's computer generated aspects provide some added dimensionality. There are some occasional anomalies with instability, including a bit of shimmer on line detail at times, especially when the camera is panning across the frame.

Expelled from Paradise Blu-ray Movie, Audio Quality 

Expelled from Paradise features boisterous DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1 mixes in both Japanese and English (along with a stereo Japanese track in LPCM 2.0). The two 5.1 tracks are virtually identical in terms of overall mix, though there are some major differences in the approach of the voice actors in the two languages. The film offers enough action elements to provide a glut of surround activity in scenes like Dingo tooling through the desert on his go cart being chased by the voracious sandworms, or, later, a more traditional battle scenario that unfolds. Dialogue is presented cleanly and is well prioritized. Fidelity is top notch and dynamic range is very wide on these problem free tracks.

Expelled from Paradise Blu-ray Movie, Special Features and Extras 

This so-called Limited Edition from Aniplex comes housed in a slipcase that includes the keepcase holding two Blu-ray discs (one for the feature film, the other for the supplements, which are listed below), as well as nicely illustrated glossy booklet and a pin up card.

Bonus Disc

• The Making of Expelled from Paradise (1080p; 29:57) is a well done piece covering the production, including good interviews with the creative crew.


• Trailers (1080p; 17:33)

Expelled from Paradise Blu-ray Movie, Overall Score and Recommendation 

Expelled from Paradise is essentially a twice (or even thrice) told tale, but it does so in a brisk and enjoyable fashion. The two main characters are distinctive and if the story regurgitates a few hoary clichés, things move along quickly and succinctly enough as to not raise too many hackles. The film is quite beautiful from a design perspective, and younger males who enjoy their fan service will get at least a smattering of that tendency in the (voluptuous) form of Angela. Technical merits are generally very strong on this release, and Expelled from Paradise comes Recommended.