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Hannah Montana/Miley Cyrus: Best of Both Worlds Concert Tour - Extended Edition
R1 - America - Buena Vista Home Entertainment Review written by and copyright: Jeremiah Chin (2nd September 2008). |
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The Film
 After sitting through all of the Disney Channel Original Movie “Camp Rock” (2008) I thought it would be good to just get it over with and get “Hannah Montana/Miley Cyrus: Best of Both Worlds Concert: The 3-D Movie” (2008) out of the way, after all a concert film can’t be too much worse than the story “Camp Rock” tried to string together. I even went for the gusto and popped in the second disc, the 3D version, to see if the gimmick would make it even better. Sadly I forgot that almost 3D experience is nothing more than a gimmick, with some few, but outstanding, exceptions like “Captain EO” (1986): the Michael Jackson starring and Francis Ford Coppola directed space/rock-opera that was shown at the Disney theme parks in the 80’s (and is in serious need of a DVD release). “Hannah Montana and Miley Cyrus” is a condensed version of her ‘Best of Both Worlds Tour’ concert series, edited around the songs with some pre-show preparations and behind the scenes looks into preparations for the concert. It’s almost terrifying to see the legions of parents and pre-teen, and even some late teen, fans going crazy before the concert. The interviews with the kids waiting to get in to the show are a little terrifying how fanatical about this concert they are, except for the one little boy who says he doesn’t know anything about Hannah Montana. For the 3D version of the film, only the actual concert footage is in 3D. All of the behind the scenes things and crowd interviews are in 2D, which makes sense since there isn’t anything really interesting going on in those scenes, but it gave me a headache to either watch the 2D scenes with the 3D glasses on or continually have to put the 3D glasses on or off. The idea using 3D in a concert video like this is not necessarily a bad one, especially considering how much Cyrus and The Jonas Brothers (who make a segue appearance mid film) point, wink or otherwise gesture at the camera. However it gets fairly annoying to have the audience silhouettes in 3D popping out, this combined with the 2D footage and the music itself are a migraine inducing experience. The Jonas Brothers performance is just as bad in this film as it was in “Camp Rock” and Hannah Montana/Miley Cyrus’ concert is almost surreal, especially in 3D. From the way that they oversee their thousands of fans, it seems odd that a 15-year-old can command a packed arena crowd, but then again when you have Disney overseeing the way that the image is created, produced and performed for the crowd, it starts to make a terrifying amount of sense. Plus along with the fact that so many parents take their kids to this concert and the images of so many girls who probably aren’t even 10 glam-ed up in pounds of makeup for the concert is just plain frightening. Overall, a gimmick concert tour DVD built only for those who either went to the concert or just couldn’t make it. Like any concert DVD, it’ built only for the already fans of the music, people who just need to own more of it, or in this case also made for parents trying to either distract their kids or giving in to their bizarre demands for more Hannah Montana. For anyone else, nothing worth seeing or hearing here.
Video
The 3D version of the film is available in both 1.85:1 anamorphic widescreen and in 1.33:1 full screen aspect ratios, while the 2D version is only available in the 1.33:1 ratio. It’s kind of an odd choice, though shows a clear understanding of it’s intended audience who are far less likely to care about the different aspect ratios and only want to see Hannah Montana as big as possible. The transfer of the video from the concert is not bad, it was all filmed in fairly good quality and the 3D works out for them, but the frustrations and headaches I mentioned earlier about the 2D or 3D switches combined with the audience in 3D is visually frustrating and sort of a pain for the eyes.
Audio
Presented in either English Dolby Digital 5.1 surround sound or English Dolby Digital 2.0 stereo the DVD knows that it has to create and audio experience to match the 3D and does a fair job of this. The levels are fine, the crowd roar is there to keep the real concert feel though the actual singing and instruments are fairly well balanced for being a live recording, but Disney likely plans on marketing this to infinity so it was well prepared to make it sound clear. The music itself is not for me, frustrating and annoying, especially the Jonas Brothers, who I can’t seem to escape. There are also subtitles in English for the hearing impaired available on both versions of the film.
Extras
This DVD is packed with Disney music-oriented features such as sing alongs, extra music videos, along with a featurette and a bunch of bonus trailers which, for better or for worse, expand the concert (meaning more headaches for me). Here’s a disc by disc rundown of the 2 disc set. DISC ONE: This disc contains the 2D version of the film and the majority of the special features. First up are two concert recordings of “S.O.S.” by The Jonas Brothers, which runs for 3 minutes and 8 seconds, along with “Good and Broken” by Miley Cyrus which runs for 3 minutes and 11 seconds. Next is the selection of Sing Along songs, which basically have words subtitled over them karaoke style. Songs included in this section are: - “Rock Star” runs for 3 minutes and 30 seconds. - “Life’s What You Make It” runs for 3 minutes and 22 seconds. - “Just Like You” runs for 3 minutes and 18 seconds. - “Nobody’s Perfect” runs for 3 minutes and 27 seconds. - “Pumpin’ Up the Party” runs for 3 minutes and 43 seconds. - “I Got Nerve” runs for 3 minutes and 9 seconds. - “We Got The Party” runs for 3 minutes and 39 seconds. - “The Best of Both Worlds” runs for 3 minutes and 3 seconds. Next up is “The Ultimate Personal Tour” which runs for 11 minutes and 24 seconds and this featurette is mostly an interview with Miley Cyrus about being famous about becoming famous through her own persona and the Hannah Montana Persona. Most of the featurette though features screaming fans, which nearly blow out the speakers, along with taking you through a day with Cyrus and all around behind the set and behind the scenes of the setup for an arena concert of this magnitude. Kind of interesting to see behind the scenes of an arena concert, but other than that just more of Cyrus and the Jonas' which I could do without. Of course there are also the bonus trailers for: - “Sleeping Beauty” runs for 2 minutes. - “Disney Blu-Ray Disc” runs for 2 minutes and 1 second. - “Disney Movie Rewards” runs for 20 seconds. - “Wizards of Waverly Place: Wizard School” runs for 47 seconds. - “Phineas and Ferb: The Fast and the Phineas” runs for 1 minute and 12 seconds. - “Beverly Hills Chihuahua” runs for 1 minute 28 seconds. - “The Secret of the Magic Gourd” runs for 2 minutes and 12 seconds. - “Camp Rock” runs for 57 seconds. - “Wizards of Waverly Place” runs for 32 seconds. - “101 Dalmations II: Patch’s London adventure” runs for 1 minute 28 seconds. - “High School Musical: The DVD game” runs for 28 seconds. - “Disney” ad runs for 52 seconds. DISC TWO: This disc features the 3D version of the film and no special features except a startup bonus trailer ad for: - “Disney” on DVD and Blu-ray which runs for 52 seconds.
Packaging
This 2-disc set is packaged in an amaray case that is housed in a cardboard slip-case which features a 3D lenticular cover.
Overall
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