Black Hawk Down

It's been a while since I last got my hands on a Jerry Bruckheimer DVD. The action master has outdone himself once more with this absolutely ridiculously packed DVD double disc set. And I do not use "ridiculously" without meaning it. Three commentaries? THREE!? I bought this DVD on that alone - and that was just on disc 1.

This is one of the longest DVDs I have ever sat through, only a few hours short of Planet Of The Apes. But these continuously long extras are so ample that they're overwhelming, and trap you, making watching them a chore, rather than an experience. For example, the six Essence Of Combat featurettes are about 25 minutes long each. They focus on a single thing in such detail that it's shocking how much work someone did to import relatively useless information. A single featurette on the boot camp that the actors went to seems boring enough, but six??? Jerry, you should know better.

Fortunately, the deleted scenes are interesting and just as visually engulfing as the rest of the film, making you remember why we were brought this format in the first place.

The commentaries? Well, you only need to hear Jerry's, really. He knows what you want and so talks about it. In honesty, if this film hadn't won an Oscar for best sound and best editing, there would only have been one commentary.

What this disc demonstratates is the intense work undergone by everyone involved in the making of the movie and just how much effort is involved. When you watch extra features like these, it puts you off movies in a funny way, because you feel almost undeserving of watching them when you know how many hundreds of people have devoted months of their lives just to make YOU happy.

This disc, as full as it may be, is only for extreme hardcore movie fanatics. The rest of the world will be content with the deleted scenes and filmographies. As it should be.