2008-10-08

Prepare To Be Reviewed


Futurama: The Beast With A Billion Backs

Directed by David X. Cohen

All right, the second of four new Futurama direct to DVD features begins some six months after the events in Bender’s Big Score. Mankind cowers in terror at a searing rend in space/time that looms menacingly over the Earth…

Futurama is my favorite series ever. Over its four seasons it proved to be funny, and clever, and able to bring its audience from gut-aching hilarity to tears in just seconds (“Jurassic Bark” I’m looking at you!) It’s tough sometimes to be completely objective when I’ve been such a passionate fan for years, but here goes.

The Beast With A Billion Backs is a satisfying tale, yet when compared to some of the best stories in the series, it comes off as just a little better than mediocre. There are some good twists and turns, The League of Robots is super cool, and Bender as a Pirate is just plain awesome.

The Beast With A Billion Backs is presented in a slick, clean 1.78:1 anamorphic aspect ratio that, to be perfectly honest makes one wonder why they didn’t shoot the WHOLE SERIES like this. The Dolby Digital 5.1 soundtrack was passable, but nothing extraordinary. Where these Futurama DVDs really shine is in the special features. This disc includes a hilarious commentary track with creators Matt Groening and David X. Cohen, actors Billy West, DiMaggio, Maurice LaMarche, co-writer Michael Rowe, director Peter Avanzino, and producers Claudia Katz and Lee Supercinsk, The Lost Adventure, which is all the cut scenes from the XBOX Futurama game that came out a few years back, as well as animatics, deleted scenes, bloopers, 3-D models, A Brief History of Deathball, and more.

Fans of the series rejoice, Futurama is not dead yet, and hopefully if the rest of these DVDs do well, we will be treated to many more adventures in the future.

A Four, out of Five.

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