Criss Angel: Mindfreak –
Season Three (Umbrella Entertainment/Region 4/Four/PAL DVD)
Picture:
C+ Sound: C+ Extras: B-
Episodes: B-
PLEASE
NOTE: This
DVD can only be operated on machines capable of playing back DVDs that can
handle Region 4 PAL format software and can be ordered from our friends at
Umbrella Entertainment at the website address provided at the end of the
review.
Criss
Angel is an illusionist and perhaps one of the best for a very long time. He has the gift of making people believe
things that they really don’t see and has mastered this art, which comes in
full bloom during Season Three of
his show Mindfreak.
We have
already covered Mindfreak before in Season One, which was the U.S. release,
you can read about that here
as well as the Region 4/PAL edition of his Halloween
Special covered here
and while we continue to enjoy the show, it’s evident that the shows formula is
starting to wear down and even in this season you can see how the producers are
trying to stretch things out a bit more, that doesn’t take away from Criss’
ability to wow his audience or come up with new ideas, but once you’ve seen a
few stunts and tricks, you begin to grow tired after awhile.
Angel
fans will certainly appreciate this set, which includes all of Season Three on 3 discs, which contain
all 24 episodes. Like the Halloween Special, we have the show in
a 1.33 X 1 PAL formatted transfer that looks fairly good, most of the show can
have a decent quality and often times there are Handicams used to give a gritty
look, or if a fan holds a camera to show that it is ‘real’, etc. While we certainly would like to see this
show shot in HD, that doesn’t seem like the route thus far, the Dolby Digital
2.0 Stereo is adequate, but you can hear the difference though when music is
played and the overall resolution is compressed sounding and weak, we would
love to get a true 5.1 mix of this show.
Episodes:
Steamroller
Prisoner Transport Escape
Screwed
Motorhead
Animal 2
Quad Drag Escape
Raging Bull
Car Crash Escape
Sucker 2
Drowned
Burning Man
Rollercoaster Thru Criss
Underwater Car Escape
The Loyal
Mentalism
The Kid In Criss
Cement Block
Séance
Tribute to Houdini
Making Mayhem
Fantasy
Thunderbirds
H2O Teleportation
Mexico Barrel Escape
Extras
are also included here, including a 44-minute retrospective piece about the
best moments of the show, plus 25-minutes of additional scenes, behind the
scenes material, and a featurette on the celebrities that have been on the
show. All of which make for a good solid
wealth of extras than will excite fans.
As noted
above, you can order this PAL DVD import exclusively from Umbrella at:
http://www.umbrellaent.com.au/
- Nate Goss
