Ben 10: Race Against Time (2007)

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General		Extras
Category	Childrens	Menu Animation & Audio Featurette-Behind The Scenes-3 Featurette-2
Rating
Year Of Production	2007
Running Time	66:08 (Case: 69)
RSDL / Flipper	No/No	Cast & Crew
Start Up	Menu
Region Coding	4	Directed By	Alex Winter
Studio Distributor	Cartoon Network Madman Entertainment	Starring	Graham Phillips Lee Majors Christien Anholt Haley Ramm Beth Littleford Don McManus Sab Shimono Aloma Wright
Case	Amaray-Transparent
RPI	?	Music	Andy Sturmer

Video		Audio
Pan & Scan/Full Frame	None	English Dolby Digital 5.1 (448Kb/s) English Dolby Digital 2.0 (224Kb/s)
Widescreen Aspect Ratio	1.78:1
16x9 Enhancement
Video Format	576i (PAL)
Original Aspect Ratio	1.78:1	Miscellaneous
Jacket Pictures	No
Subtitles	English	Smoking	No
		Annoying Product Placement	No
		Action In or After Credits	No

    Ben10 is a phenomenon amongst pre-teen boys. To date, four seasons of an animated television show have been produced for the Cartoon Network along with an animated feature length movie. Now, Ben10 has made the transition to live action with this movie, Ben10 - Race Against Time, again developed for the Cartoon Network. There is also a new spinoff animated series. The basic concept of the series is that a young boy called Ben Tennyson found an alien watch called the Omnitrix which allows him to transform into 10 different aliens. He uses this power to fight aliens and other threats while travelling around with his Grandfather Max (an ex-alien hunter himself) and his cousin Gwen in a campervan. In each episode Ben fights a new enemy using one or more of the aliens at his command. Unfortunately, he does not seem to have full control over the watch at sometimes he gets something different to what he was expecting. Also, he can only transform into an alien for a limited amount of time before he goes back to being a boy. Both of these problems tend to land him in hot water, but he can always save the day in the end.

    This live action movie starts at the point where Ben (Graham Phillips), Gwen (Haley Ramm) & Max (Lee Majors) return from their road trip at the end of summer and Ben returns to school. He has trouble fitting back in and just being a kid. However, these problems are soon left behind as his home town in under attack from a mysterious alien called Eon (Christien Anholt) who wants to use something called The Hands of Armageddon to open a hole in the universe to allow his people to come through and conquer the Earth. Of course Ben , Gwen & Max must save the world with the help of the Omnitrix's aliens.

    This movie is obviously a fairly low budget production but it does a pretty good job of bringing the animated series to live action without being likely to attract anyone from outside its normal fanbase. The effects are pretty good for the style of production and the aliens are well realised into a live action world. It is worth noting that the move to live action may make this film a little too scary for the more junior end of the fanbase. My boys are 5 and 4 and it was a little too much for them especially the younger one even though they love the series. I think some of the scenes became just a little too real for them.

    A good addition to the Ben10 canon, however, you should probably be careful if your kids are at the more junior end of the spectrum of Ben10 fans.

Video

    The video quality is very good.

    The feature is presented in a 1.78:1 aspect ratio 16x9 enhanced which is the original aspect ratio.

    The picture was quite sharp and clear. There was no evidence of low level noise.

    The colour was very good with no major issues to report.

    Artefacts were restricted to some reasonably regular aliasing.

    There are subtitles in English utilising SBS yellow instead of the usual white. The English subtitles were clear and easy to read but somewhat summarised from the spoken word.
    

Video Ratings Summary

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

Audio

    The audio quality is very good.

    This DVD contains two audio options, an English Dolby Digital 5.1 stereo soundtrack encoded at 448 Kb/s and an English Dolby Digital 2.0 stereo soundtrack encoded at 224 Kb/s.

    Dialogue was clear and easy to understand and there was no problem with audio sync.

    The music by Andy Sturmer does a fine job without intruding. This movie features a different version of the Ben10 theme.

    The surround speakers were well used by the 5.1 track providing surround presence to the music and some directional effects to action scenes.

    The subwoofer was also well used for music, action scenes and tension noises.

Audio Ratings Summary

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

    All the extras are presented in 4x3 with letterboxed scenes from the film.

Menu

    The menu included motion and music.

Behind The Scenes - Ben10:The Movie (2:04)

    A very short promo for the movie made for the Cartoon Network.

Behind The Scenes - The Omnitrix / Eon (2:04)

    A very short promo for the movie made for the Cartoon Network this time focussing on The Omnitrix and the baddie.

Behind The Scenes - The Movie According to Gwen (1:34)

    A very short promo for the movie made for the Cartoon Network focused on the Gwen character and the actress who plays her.

Live at the LA Premiere (1:38)

    Director doing intro for the film at premiere. Really bad sound.

Meet the cast with Fried Dynamite (6:53)

    Kids show episode from Cartoon Network focused on the movie.

     The Region 1 version of this title is basically identical except for some extra subtitle options. Draw.

    The video quality is very good.

    The audio quality is very good.

    A small selection of very short extras are included.

Video
Audio
Extras
Plot
Overall