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| Dvdivas
was founded by John Gabbard in 2000. It's purpose has been and
remains to be to provide you, the entertainment community with
the latest dvds and movie reviews. It will continue to be your
link to the most popular dvd movies. |
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“Game
Over“
|
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Reviewed
by: |
Wayne A. Klein |
| Genre: |
Animated
comedy |
| Video: |
1.33:1 Full
screen |
| Audio: |
Dolby Digital
2.0 |
| Languages |
English |
| Subtitles |
English |
| Length |
123 minutes
|
| Rating |
NR (Occasional
bad mild bad language) |
| Release Date |
6/28/05 |
| Studio |
Anchor Bay
Home Entertainment |
| Commentary:
|
None |
| Documentaries:
|
None |
| Featurettes:
|
None |
| Filmography/Biography:
|
None |
|
Interviews: |
None |
| Trailers/TV
Spots: |
None |
| Alternate/Deleted
Scenes: |
Unaired footage
|
| Music
Video: |
None |
| Other:
|
Character
bios, “Watch Closely”, crew photos, progression reel, trivia
game, booklet on the series |
| Cast
and Crew: |
Patrick Warburton,
Lucy Liu, E. G. Daily, Rachel Dratch, Artie Lang, Jeffrey Tambor
|
| Written
By: |
Jason Venokur,
Ross Venkokur, Dave Goetsch, David Sacks |
| Produced
By: |
Narcet Carsetm
tin Werberm Cartb Nandabach |
| Directed
By: |
John Rice
|
| Music:
|
Jeff Sudakin
|
| The
Review: |
A witty, CGI series that takes a
clever idea and runs with it at full speed, “Game Over” didn’t
last very long at UPN (I wonder why?) so we can all thank
the lord for the creation of DVD. What do videogame characters
do when they’re not playing the game? Do they have a life?
According to “Game Over” they do indeed and their lives are
as complicated, fraught with disaster and misadventure as
our world only complicated by the fact that they have really
weird professions (crashing race cars, hunting for golden
idols, fighting ninjas, etc.). ***
Their lives take a complicate turn
when they adopt a weird cigar smoking cross between a lizard
and a dog named Turbo (Artie Lang) who teaches Billy (E.G.
Daily) to steal, cuts holes in the wall to look at Raquel
(Lucy Liu) in the nude and gets their dad Rip (Patrick Warburton
of “The Tick” and “Seinfeld”) busted with stolen goods. Pop
culture humor has never been so much fun. Rip and Raquel’s
bright daughter Alice (Rachel Dratch from “SNL”) always seems
to be protesting some strange injustice. ***
Featuring the series entire run
(including an unaired 6th episode) and lots of very neat extras,
“Game Over” will find fans among those folks who love “Family
Guy”, “The Simpsons” and “The Incredibles”. In reality, it
has more in common with the later than the former along with
the irreverent type of humor seen in both Pixar and Dreamworks
productions. Be aware that like “Family Guy” and “The Simpsons”
the dialog is occasionally littered with one or two mild four
letter words so this really isn’t for small tykes. Some folks
have compared this to “ReBoot” but that’s not really accurate
at all (beyond the superficial resemblance)—the humor is definitely
adult here and the performances by the cast set this show
apart. If “Game Over” had aired on Fox and been paired with
“The Simpsons” it would have had a much longer life. UPN really
has no clue on how to market their TV series to the appropriate
audience and the pairing of this show with an extremely BAD
show that had no audience goes to prove it. ---
|
| Image
and Sound: |
“Game Over”
looks decent on DVD but there are compression issues throughout
the set and I’m puzzled as to why. There should have plenty
of room on the disc to prevent this from being an issue. During
extremely active sequences the compression issues are particularly
noticeable. It appears as if someone just take the time or put
the additional work into the transfer to prevent this from occurring.
Although it’s not a perfect presentation, it’s not particularly
bad either. There are, of course, no analog defects (it’s a
CGI series after all).Detail is sharp and colors bright. The
2.0 sound comes across loud and clear with lots of detail and
nice presence. The soundtrack is rich with sound effects and
panning from speaker to speaker is quite good as well. --- |
| The
Extras: |
The special
features are spread over both discs. There are brief character
bios on disc one. We also get progression reels watching the
series from storyboards, layout to animation and the final
picture with the images divided up across all four quadrants
of the screen. You may also use the angle feature to view
one exclusively. We also get photos of the production crew
in a slide presentation as well. Disc two also features more
character bios. “Watch Closely” features trivia about inside
jokes planted throughout every episode and odd sort of bits
of trivia. There’s also a trivia game that, if answered correctly,
allows you to see never-released footage. The footage looks
like it came from a brief presentation reel on the series
for advertisers. I would have liked to see how the unaired
pilot differed from the final version. ---
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| Commentary:
|
No commentary
on any of the episodes which would have been pretty neat to
have for the pilot. |
| Final
Words: |
A clever,
funny series “Game Over” looks exceptionally good on DVD. Although
it could have used a commentary track or two and also a featurette
on the creation of the series, this is a pretty good set. You
won’t access the extras a whole lot after the first time. The
set really could have used a gag reel, outtakes where animation
was screwed up but the fact that fans have access to this clever
series on a regular basis should make them happy. |
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