Wonder Woman – Blu-ray Disc Review

February 27, 2009 – 1:04 PM - Posted by: Justin Sluss

Tags: Alfred Molina, Digital Copy, Keri Russell, Marg Helgenberger, Nathan Fillion, Oliver Platt, Rosario Dawson, Vicki Lewis, Virginia Madsen, Warner

has an average rating of 6.7 on IMDb
1080p in VC-1 on a 25gb disc
Dolby TrueHD 5.1 & Dolby Digital 5.1
include Digital Copy & more!
–
– 2009
– 74 minutes
– Warner
–
This uses 11.3GB for the movie out of 17.7GB total.
Street Date: March 3rd, 2009

Overall Verdict – Actually Worth A Look

Buy it for $10.99 @ Amazon.com

— Review written by: Justin Sluss & Danielle Byington —

Trailer:

The Movie Itself is directed by Lauren Montgomery (“Superman: Doomsday“, and 4 episodes of “Legion of Super Heroes“), with the writing credits of Michael Jelenic (screenplay & story), Gail Simone (original story), from the original character created by William M. Marston.

The story revolves the original beginnings of Wonder Woman, as Hera (Marg Helgenberger) tells the Queen of the Amazons, Hippolyta (Virginia Madsen), she will not have a child of “unholy union”, but form an infant out of clay, and it will be given life from the goddess Aphrodite. So, the Princess of the Amazons, Diana (Keri Russell), is raised on Paradise Island, where is has been thoroughly trained in the art of combat, and taught the Amazonian beliefs of universal peace and harmony. Being that Paradise Island‘s presence is invisible to the rest of the world, and having never personally ventured into the real world, Diana has a strong curiosity about mankind, of which she has only been taught how their ways are full of discord and war.

As fate would have it, an American pilot of the military, Col. Steve Trevor (Nathan Fillion), is shot down, and ironically enough crashes on Paradise Island. Diana of course desperately wants the mission of returning Steve home, as she would have the opportunity to journey into the outside world, though her mother refuses to give her daughter this responsibility. A contest is held amongst the Amazons to find the one most capable of taking on this mission, and abandoning her guard duty with Persephone (Vicki Lewis), Diana discretely mask herself in a combat helmet to compete in the contest. While the Amazons are distracted by the competition, Ares (Alfred Molina), the god of war, has persuaded Persephone to assist him in his escape from his centuries long imprisonment on the island. Winning the competition, and proving to her mother that she is worthy, Diana will not only be returning Steve to America, but helping the Amazons fight against the attempted rise of Ares and the havoc he desires to bring upon the world.

Overall, the movie does a great job of staying true to the general story we know. The animation in the film looks great, nicely representing the DC Comics world. Fans will be pleased with this release, and it of course makes future feature films involving the DC world pretty promising. Overall, the movie itself receives a “3.5 Star Rating“.

Video Quality on this release is in full 1080p using the VC-1 codec on a BD-25 (25 gigabyte single layer Blu-ray Disc) in the 1.85:1 aspect ratio. To begin with, the release does bare a very solid black, and definitely has a vibrant color palette. The more simplistic animation style works well for a visual presentation suitable for the comic book story, but isn’t exactly anywhere near “eye-popping”. There is an obvious bit of compression that does cause some occasional pixelation, and the bitrate of the VC-1 codec doesn’t run all to high, though this isn’t the most absolutely demanding form of animation. Overall, the video quality here earns a “4 Star Rating“.

Audio Quality on this release is presented in both Dolby TrueHD 5.1 & Dolby Digital 5.1 @640kbps. The dialogue for the most part is delivered perfectly and requires no volume adjustments. The amount of rear channel and bass presence is pretty impressive, notably scenes of battle between Ares‘ army and the Amazons; there is power behind this audio track as I found the soundscape fulfilled with my receiver at “50″, whereas I normally watch films at “65″. The score/soundtrack come across very nicely in the 5.1 soundscape, especially the TrueHD track, which I’m glad to see was included on this release. Overall, the audio quality for this release receives a solid “4 Star Rating“.

Bonus Materials on this release are presented in Standard Definition, using Dolby Digital 2.0 Stereo.

• “Digital Copy” is included with this release, compatible with PC or Mac, and iTunes.
• “Commentary By Senior VP Of Creative Affairs At DC Comics, Gregory Noveck, Producer Bruce Timm, Director Lauren Montgomery, & Writer Michael Jelenic“.
• “Wonder Woman: A Subversive Dream” (25 minutes) consists of basic documentary styled information about the original creator, William M. Marston, giving insight to his psychology education, his contribution to the development of the modern lie-detector, and some sociological background on his era, the 1930′s, and how the lives of adolescents were drawn to comic books in general, as well as how Wonder Woman and what her independence stood for, would make a wave of social change for female behavior in each following generation. A highly interesting supplement, definitely worth watching.
• “Wonder Woman: Daughter Of Myth” (26 minutes) discusses the original story of how Wonder Woman came to be in the comic book story; formed from clay, and given life by Aphrodite. The background of Wonder Woman‘s story in the comics also brings up discussion of how nearly all characters and their stories, though not as directly affiliated with Greek mythologies as Wonder Woman, bare striking similarities.
• “A First Look At The Animated Feature Film ‘Green Lantern’” (10 minutes) involves interviews with the production members and creative heads of DC Comics discussing Green Lantern‘s history and background, as well as interviews the voice actors of the film, such as Christopher Meloni, Victor Garber, and Michael Madsen.
• “From Graphic Novel To Original Animated Movie – ‘Justice League: The New Frontier’” (11 minutes) interviews the likes of Paul Levitz, Darwyn Cooke, and others, as they discussion the passion of bring the greatest superhero characters’ storylines together.
• “Wonder Woman: The Amazon Princess” (10 minutes) interviews the cast of voice actors from this film, as well as heads of DC Comics, as they discuss the character’s history and evolution through the decades; somewhat similar to the supplement, “Wonder Woman: A Subversive Dream“.
• “Batman Gotham Knight: An Anime Evolution” (10 minutes) interviews heads of DC Comics and the evolution of the character from the beginning comics and through big screen features.
• “Bruce Timm’s Top Picks” (1 hour, 29 minutes) includes 4 bonus episodes, “Paradise Lost-Part 1“, “Paradise Lost-Part 2“, “To Another Shore“, and “Hawk and Dove“.

In closing, these supplements are ports from the 2 disc SE of the DVD, though is great to see they made it to Blu-ray as well. If you have any interest in comics at all, you should find the bonus materials here very much worth a watch.

Blu-ray Disc packaging:

Screenshots:

NOTE: The full-sized 1920×1080 files are in a .PNG file format and uncompressed. Bare with the slow loading times, keep in mind these files are at least 1MB (1 megabyte) in size each.

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