Blu-ray Movie Reviews

With fuel prices skyrocketing, the Planet Express crew sets off on a dangerous mission: to infiltrate the world's only dark-matter mine, source of all spaceship fuel. But deep beneath the surface lies a far stranger place... a medieval land of dragons and sorcery and intoxicated knights who look suspiciously like Bender.

I’ll admit straight out that I’ve never followed this TV show so I found myself a bit lost early on with the characters. Thankfully you don’t have to be a long time viewer of the show to appreciate the film, but it probably helps. This is actually four episodes of the show combined into a feature length film and you can see where they put some spit and polish into some of the tie-in shots while most of the animation is similar to what we’ve seen from the show, just with better color rendition. The production values aren’t quite as good as the recent Simpsons movie, but they are close. The story is funny enough and I was glad to see them make it friendly for people unfamiliar with the show.

The animation has a wonderful sense of depth and color rendition is gorgeous. The animation isn’t as detailed as most of the CG stuff we see today, but its simplicity lends to its appeal and offers more color area than most CG efforts. I saw some very minor banding and line twitter but it was anything but distracting. Contrast levels are solid and the blacks were deep lending to a very dimensional image despite the two dimensional animation style. Like The Simpsons, this is a very color rich film that still shows this type of animation can be compelling.

The audio mix is not quite as engaging as most feature animation productions. Dynamics are decent but the sound design is a bit limited in execution. The voice work is excellent but the soundstage lacks a sense of environmental ambiance and seems a bit front heavy. There are some directional effects that open things up from time to time, but the action stays mainly in the front soundstage.

Fox delivers a very nice assortment of extras for this one. In fact, there are more extras here than on most of Fox’s titles aside from their tent pole features. There are two commentaries; one is an audio commentary with the talent and the other is a video commentary using Bonus View. There are a few themed features that look into the production and gags, but most are kind of promo based features. Outtakes and a deleted scene are included along with a trailer for the next feature.

I was worried that my lack of history with this series would keep me from really enjoying this one but that wasn’t the case. The film is quite funny and Fox has done a great job with the presentation. If you haven’t given this show a chance, you may want to use this one as an introduction.