Vital

Vital

DVD Rating: ***

Reviewed by: Trash Fletcher

Read Anton Bitel's film review of Vital

The Vital disc has a healthy amount of extras. Unfortunately, most of them are pretty dull and not worth your valuable attention.

The Cocco music video is a bland montage of scenes from the film that doesn't work at all. The song itself is average, verging on likeable, but the video is completely uninspired.

The Venice world premiere footage is beyond boring. Imagine being forced to watch a group of people you don't know not having fun. It's a bit like Big Brother, only in a slightly more exotic setting.

The Making Of featurette is slightly more entertaining. You might even learn a few things and they seem to be enjoying themselves on set.

The interview with Tsukamoto is interesting and, as you might expect, he does come off as being a little bit strange.

The best feature is the making the props section, which is far too short. It is a great insight into the work of the special effects team, which ends rather abruptly. It really makes you appreciate the detail that went into the bodies lying on the dissection tables.

Tom Mes's commentary is an insightful endeavour from a man who really seems to know his stuff, a welcome change from the recurrently disappointing third party commentaries, which are often just bundled onto discs for extra "value."

The DVD has three audio options, including DTS, which sounds nice except for the irritating high pitch feedback during certain scenes, but I'm willing to put that down to hardware problems rather than the disc itself.

Half of these extras could have been omitted and the package would have been better for it, but as it stands, it's still impressive and worthy of your hard earned cash.

Reviewed on: 11 Mar 2006
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Vital packshot
A medical student reconstructs his identity after surviving a car crash.
Amazon link

Product Code: TVD3584

Region: 2

Ratio: 1.78:1 Anamorphic Wide Screen

Sound: DTS Digital Surround 5.1/ Dolby Digital 5.1 Surround/Dolby Digital 2.0 stereo

Extras: Commentary by author Tom Mes; The Making Of Vital; Behind The Scenes featurette; Venice film festival world premiere; interview with the director; special effects featurette; music video


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