7.8 | / 10 |
Users | 4.5 | |
Reviewer | 3.5 | |
Overall | 4.0 |
After a mysterious explosion at the Xavier mansion, and the resulting disappearancesof Professor Xavier and Jean Grey, Wolverine must attempt to reunite the disbanded X-Men to discover what has happened.
Starring: Steve Blum, Jim Ward, Nolan North, Fred Tatasciore, Kari WahlgrenComic book | 100% |
Fantasy | 83% |
Action | 83% |
Adventure | 80% |
Sci-Fi | 79% |
Animation | 77% |
Video codec: MPEG-4 AVC
Video resolution: 1080p
Aspect ratio: 1.78:1
Original aspect ratio: 1.78:1
English: DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1
Spanish: Dolby Digital 2.0
English SDH
50GB Blu-ray Disc
Three-disc set (3 BDs)
Region free
Movie | 3.5 | |
Video | 4.0 | |
Audio | 4.5 | |
Extras | 3.5 | |
Overall | 3.5 |
When did Marvel assume the mantle of Comic Book King from DC? For what seemed like decades, it was a DC universe, populated by such iconic figures as Superman and Batman, with Marvel considerably back in the pack with such relative also rans as Spider-Man and The Fantastic Four. Stan Lee’s always somewhat idiosyncratic take on the comic book idiom seemed to flower more and more as the 20th century grew to a close, and the dawn of the 21st century turned out to be an epochal era for the imprint, as a handful of motion picture adaptations of various Marvel enterprises hit the big screen in the early 2000s, making Marvel the top of the heap in terms of box office revenue and general impact. While the glamour and cultural zeitgeist awards probably belong squarely to the Spider-Man franchise, for many Marvel aficionados the more consistently enjoyable series has been the X-Men outings, three films (four if you include the standalone Wolverine film) which ably captured the original comic book spirit while also (generally speaking) being wonderful thrill rides full of some very interesting characters. Aided by the acting gravitas of such heavyweights as Ian McKellen and Patrick Stewart, as well as fun turns by everyone from Hugh Jackman to Halle Berry, the X-Men films showed us a semi-dystopian future where mutants, all with their individual superpowers, banded together to fight both the bad guys (as personified by McKellen’s Magneto character) and a government intent on sequestering them all away in “ghettos” clearly redolent of World War II concentration camps. Of course Marvel has always maintained a hand in the television animation camp at least since the 1967 Spider-Man cartoon with that unforgettable theme song so lovably morphed into Spider-Pig by Homer Simpson in The Simpsons Movie. While last season’s Wolverine and the X-Men is probably not going to win any “classic television animation” awards, it does posit a sort of parallel universe for our mutant hero brigade that makes it at the very least an interesting companion piece to both the comic books and the film series.
Wolverine and the X-Men slices and dices its way onto Blu-ray with an OK looking AVC encoded 1080p image in 1.78:1. While this release is to be commended for a full 1080p treatment, even a great transfer can't overcome the inherent shortcomings of this animation, which is often at Hanna-Barbera levels of simplicity. Midrange shots often feature faces without little details like, you know, eyes, ears and mouths. Backgrounds are often impressionistic, which is to say severely lacking in detail. Fine line detail in close-ups is quite exceptional, and there is some attention paid to getting characters developed with relatively distinctive "looks." Colors are very robust and well saturated throughout the series. But this is, after all, "kiddie fare" so don't expect anything approaching the often painterly technique that graces a lot of Marvel books nowadays.
Considerably more impressive is Wolverine and the X-Men's bombastic and often completely immersive DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1 track, one that segues beautifully from a plethora of directional sound effects to excellently clear and well positioned dialogue. This series consistently surprised me with the amount of surround activity, something unusual enough for regular live action series, let alone a cartoon outing. Right off the bat in the first episode, as a series of ominous helicopters flies by and we get some excellent panning sound effects, you know you're in for a fun ride with the sound design. This series excels at LFE, filling the many action sequences with some really boisterous low end that will rattle the floorboards. But even quieter ambient effects are often very well placed in the soundfield, opening this series up sonically to a really surprising degree.
The bulk of the extras on this three disc set consist of an astounding 29 Commentary tracks, all but three of which feature Kyle, Johnson, and producer Chris Yost. Either as a duo consisting of Kyle and Johnson, or a trio of all three, the guys chat through each and every episode of the 26, providing a wealth of background detail. The extra three commentaries are reserved for the opening trio of episodes, and feature supervising director Boyd Kirkland, as well as associate director and character designer Steve Gordon. Two other OK, if fairly standard, supplements are included on the third disc of the set, The Inner Circle: Reflections on 'Wolverine and the X-Men' (HD; 18:51), where Johnson and Kyle talk about creating a series built as a tie-in to the live action Wolverine film, and a somewhat less interesting Making of (SD; 5:15), where the same two talk about ripping Wolverine's father figure and girlfriend out of his life to create some drama. Bookmarks are also available on all three discs.
The best thing about this series is its complex and very well thought out storyline, one which harkens back to several classic Marvel tropes while skewing everything just slightly for this particular enterprise. The animation is pretty basic looking, a definite minus for the series, but the sound design is often astoundingly effective. This is certainly great fare for young boys, and older "boys" might also find themselves more involved than they'd care to admit. Recommended.
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