X-Men: Evolution-Mutants Rising (2000)

This review is sponsored by

BUY IT

General		Extras
Category	Animation	Main Menu Audio Episode Introductions-Boyd Kirkland (Producer) Biographies-Character-X-Men - Shadowcat, Professor X, Cyclops, Jean Grey, Rogue, Biographies-Character-X-Men - Spyke, Nightcrawler Biographies-Character-Brotherhood of Mutants - Toad, Mystique, Blob, Avalanche Biographies-Character-Brotherhood of Mutants - Quicksilver
Rating
Year Of Production	2000
Running Time	99:58
RSDL / Flipper	RSDL (79:35)	Cast & Crew
Start Up	Menu
Region Coding	2,4,5	Directed By	Steven E. Gordon Gary Graham Frank Paur
Studio Distributor	Marvel Warner Home Video	Starring	Kirby Morrow Scott McNeil Venus Terzo David Kaye Christopher Judge Meghan Black Neil Denis Brad Swaile Maggie Blue O'Hara Kirsten Williamson Noel Fisher Richard Ian Cox Michael Dobson
Case	?
RPI	?	Music	William Anderson

    I'm not very knowledgeable about the X-Men, but I suspect that some of our readers are. So I'll tell you what I think is going on here, but I fully expect to be corrected.

    The previous X-Men cartoon series had many of the major X-Men as adults (admittedly, many were young adults). This newer series goes backwards in time — to when many of the main characters were in high school. However, it seems to re-write X-Men history, bringing Wolverine into the X Institute much earlier, and making him rather older than Cyclops. Anyway, in this series we have:

    The adults at the X Institute:

• Professor X
• Storm
• Wolverine

    The youths at the X Institute, who are also students at Bayville High School:

• Cyclops / Scott Summers
• Jean Grey
• Rogue
• Nightcrawler / Kurt Wagner
• Shadowcat / Kitty Pryde
• Spyke / Evan Daniels

    The bad kids, members of the Brotherhood, also sometime students at Bayville High:

• Toad / Todd Tolansky
• Avalanche / Lance Alvers
• Blob / Fred Dukes
• Quicksilver / Pietro Maximoff

    There are a few other mutants who appear during these episodes: Mystique, Boom Boom, and The Beast (Hank McCoy). Magneto, however, is believed to be dead, although there is some doubt about it.

    They've played a few games: Cyclops and Jean Grey are not together yet, although Cyclops yearns for her and Jean shows occasional jealousy (the old unrequited love game). Nightcrawler is able to mix with regular people because he has a holographic imager that lets him appear normal. Neither Jubilee nor Gambit appear in these episodes.

    The episodes on this disc may be consecutive ones, or may be selections from an entire season (they are all drawn from season 2) — I don't know. The episodes are:

    This series rings some interesting changes on the X-Men themes, including the whole idea that teenage alienation is exacerbated when you're a mutant with odd-ball powers. These teens do act like brats on occasion (Boom Boom more than most — she's a real delinquent and vandal), but they are generally decent people. Even the bad boys may be bad, but they aren't that bad — the writers bring in adults when they want someone really evil.

    If you like the X-Men cartoon series, you'll probably enjoy this series too. The animation is much cleaner and more attractive, and the storylines are a bit lighter than the original. I like it.

Video

    The DVD is presented in an aspect ratio of 1.33:1, and is not 16x9 enhanced. That's probably the original aspect ratio for an American TV cartoon series.

    The picture is quite sharp on close-ups, but blurry on long shots; backgrounds look soft, probably because they are painted rather than drawn. Film grain is never an issue, although it is occasionally simulated. Low level noise is completely absent.

    Colour is bright and vivid, and well-rendered. There are no colour-related artefacts.

    There are no film artefacts.

    There is plenty of aliasing, ranging from minor to medium (the worst example is probably at 76:22), but there is no moire. There is no background shimmer. There are no MPEG artefacts.

    There are subtitles in twelve languages, including English, and captions in English and German. I watched the English subtitles — they are quite accurate (virtually word-for-word), well-timed, and easy to read.

    The disc is single sided, formatted RSDL. The layer change is at 79:35, between the fourth and fifth episodes, which surprised me: I expected it to be between the third and fourth episodes.

Video Ratings Summary

Sharpness
Shadow Detail
Colour
Grain/Pixelization
Film-To-Video Artefacts
Film Artefacts
Overall

Audio

    There are four soundtracks, one being the original dialogue in English Dolby Digital 2.0 surround encoded, at 192kbps.

    Dialogue is clear and readily understood.

    The music comes from William Anderson. It is somewhat updated from the original series, and better quality. It won't be mistaken for a film score, but it's better than average for a TV series.

    The surrounds don't get anything significant to do — this is a very frontal soundtrack. There's no signal for the subwoofer in this track.

Audio Ratings Summary

Dialogue
Audio Sync
Clicks/Pops/Dropouts
Surround Channel Use
Subwoofer
Overall

Menu

    The menu is static, but with music. It's easy to use.

Episode Introductions

    These are brief introductions (typically just over half a minute) to each episode by producer Boyd Kirkland. They are accessed from the episode selection menu, by clicking on an "X" next to each episode. Unfortunately, there is no "Play All" option that includes the intros. Indeed, after watching the intro you have to select the episode manually — you'd think the episode would play after the intro, but it doesn't.

X-Men

    This is an introduction to a number of the X-Men characters, with each introduction including a voice-over, plus half a minute of character highlights from the series.

• Shadowcat
• Professor X
• Cyclops
• Jean Grey
• Nightcrawler
• Rogue
• Spyke

Brotherhood of Evil Mutants

    This is an introduction to mutants on the other side. Like the X-Men intros, these include a voice-over and a half minute of character highlights.

• Toad
• Mystique
• Blob
• Avalanche
• Quicksilver

    Region 1 received the equivalent to this disc in early 2003. I haven't discovered if their disc contains the same extras as the Region 4, but I can tell you that it only has the first four episodes that appear on this disc — apparently they miss out on the fifth episode. That makes the R4 look like the preferable disc.

    Five episodes of this series given a reasonable transfer to DVD.

    The video quality is fairly good.

    The audio quality is good.

    The extras are fairly rudimentary.

Video
Audio
Extras
Plot
Overall