The Powerpuff Girls-Powerpuff Bluff (2000) |
|
The Powerpuff Girls-Powerpuff Bluff (2000) |
|
|
| BUY IT |
| General | Extras | ||
| Category | Animation |
Main Menu Audio & Animation Featurette-Sheep In The Big City-22 minute amusing cartoon (no PPGs!) |
|
| Rating |
|
||
| Year Of Production | 2000 | ||
| Running Time | 108:38 (Case: 113) | ||
| RSDL / Flipper | RSDL (68:28) | Cast & Crew | |
| Start Up | Menu | ||
| Region Coding | 2,4 | Directed By |
Genndy Tartakovsky Craig McCracken |
|
Studio
Distributor |
Hanna-Barbera Warner Home Video |
Starring |
Tom Kane Tom Kenny Tara Charendoff Catherine Caradini E.G. Daily Kevin Richardson Roger Jackson Jennifer Martin Jeff Glen Bennett |
| Case | Amaray-Transparent | ||
| RPI | $34.95 | Music |
Thomas Chase Steve Rucker James L Venable |
| Video | Audio | ||
| Pan & Scan/Full Frame | Full Frame |
English Dolby Digital 2.0 (192Kb/s) French Dolby Digital 2.0 (192Kb/s) Italian Dolby Digital 2.0 (192Kb/s) Dutch Dolby Digital 2.0 (192Kb/s) |
|
| Widescreen Aspect Ratio | None | ||
| 16x9 Enhancement | No | ||
| Video Format | 576i (PAL) | ||
| Original Aspect Ratio | 1.33:1 | Miscellaneous | |
| Jacket Pictures | No | ||
| Subtitles |
English French Italian Dutch Arabic Romanian Bulgarian Italian for the Hearing Impaired |
Smoking | Yes, Pipe-smoking Professor Utonium |
| Annoying Product Placement | No | ||
| Action In or After Credits | No | ||
The cartoons can be viewed as bubblegum, transient entertainment for the kids devoid of any significant deeper meaning or moral substance. If there was a message contained within, it was lost on me. However, serious devotees of the genre will tell you that the three supergirls all have different characters and strengths in a similar vein to the Charlie's Angels. Bubbles (the blue blond) is soft, cuddly and kissy, Blossom (the orange one with the flowing red mane) is a master of thinking and tactics whilst Buttercup (the green short-haired brunette) is a no-nonsense butt-kicking action girl - stereotypes have no business here! I could wax lyrical about the substance of the plots and the deep and hidden meaning, as will be found on some American review sites, but to me the humour is crass, lacking in subtlety and the plots are shallow and obvious. If you're a fan of Seinfeld, Malcolm in the Middle and American humour in general you might appreciate the finer aspects of the storylines - I did not.
The transfer is taken from film stock, presented at an aspect ratio of 1.33:1 and not 16x9 enhanced.
The transfer was sharp. Shadow detail was non-existent due to the nature of the cartoon production and there was very little in the way of low-level scenery so noise wasn't apparent.
Colours were a curious combination of pastels with the fluorescent pinks, greens and yellows of the girls. On the whole, they were bright and attractive. Don't look for any subtle renditions of shading or air-brushing 'cos there ain't none - these are poster-like renditions of the storyboard and lack the beauty and vibrancy of Disney or Pixar productions.
The transfer was marred on the large screen by obvious chroma noise and less obvious posterization in the frequent expanses of plain colour, particularly evident in the large expanses of blue on buildings such as at 13:26. As previously mentioned, the transfer was sharp but there was no aliasing apparent. The film was also spoiled by evident telecine wobble throughout the picture which at times rivalled the earth-shaking special effects. The lossy compression of the transfer (never over 5 and usually around 3 Mbps) was evident by the extreme jerkiness of scene panning which was quite nauseating at times (eg 12:10). Film artefacts were endemic throughout the picture and if the transfer had been cleaned up, as suggested by the end-credits, then the original film stock must have been of very poor quality. There were white and black flecks (eg 10:08), hairs (eg 8:02) and even a scratch (at 29:27) evident throughout the transfer.
There is an abundance of subtitles available - 8 languages in all. The English subtitles seemed reasonably well synchronised.
Despite the cover claim that this is a single layer disc it is in fact dual layered (RSDL-formatted) with the layer change placed at 68:28. As this is camouflaged in a black scene change, it is not visually apparent.
For reasons not obvious to me, chapter skipping was disabled (other than to the beginning of the current chapter) which given the shortcomings of the menu (qv) made navigation of the feature tedious.
| Sharpness |  |
| Shadow Detail |  |
| Colour |  |
| Grain/Pixelization | |
| Film-To-Video Artefacts |  |
| Film Artefacts | |
| Overall | |
There are 4 soundtracks in all with dubbed French, Italian and Dutch soundtracks available in addition to the English master.
The dialogue was very clear and easily audible to this reviewer several rooms away whilst trying to escape the extended reviewing of his 3 year old accomplice.
The English audio sync was spot on and seemed reasonably so for the other audio tracks
The soundtrack consisted of a racy musical accompaniment to the action with strains of the Man from Uncle theme coming through and included appropriately synthesised Batman-style sound effects for the action
There was no utilisation of rear surrounds nor the sub-woofer channel.
| Dialogue | |
| Audio Sync | |
| Clicks/Pops/Dropouts | |
| Surround Channel Use | |
| Subwoofer | |
| Overall | |
NOTE: To view non-R4 releases, your equipment needs to be multi-zone compatible and usually also NTSC compatible.
The Region 1 release misses out on:
There is nothing compelling here to favour either version.
| Video | |
| Audio | |
| Extras | |
| Plot | |
| Overall | |
| Review Equipment | |
| DVD | Toshiba SD-900E, using RGB output |
| Display | Pioneer SD-T50W1 (127cm). Calibrated with Video Essentials. This display device is 16x9 capable. |
| Audio Decoder | Built in to amplifier/receiver. Calibrated with Video Essentials. |
| Amplification | Denon AVC-A1SE |
| Speakers | B&W 602 front/rear. B&W LRC6 Centre / Solid (AKA B&W) 500 SW |