THE MOVIE

Boogie has a unique visual style.

Apparently Boogie 3D is based on an Argentinian comic called Boogie, el aceitoso. I'd never heard of the comic, never heard of this film and had absolutely no idea what to expect when I plopped this Blu-Ray into my PS3 for review. What I discovered was an extremely violent, over the top, animated movie that makes Rambo look like a kids flick. So what's it about then?

In a city where crime rules the streets, Boogie shows up only to make things brutally worse. A hired thug, with a blatant disregard for human life - especially those that are less fortunate, and an unmatched lack of respect for women, Boogie is the ultimate anti-hero.

Despite being animated, Boogie 3D is very violent.

It was somewhat surprising to see the amount of violence in this movie and it is indeed very much an animated movie for adults with a deserving R18+ rating. People get shot, sliced up, explode and pretty much anything else you can think of. There's also some sexual content and swearing too. But none of this bothers us. In fact it was somewhat refreshing to see an animated movie that doesn't pander to the youngsters.

Made for a reported $US2.5 million this really is an impressive effort with some gorgeous animation, unique locations and great effects. It's even more impressive given that the film is presented in both 2D and 3D on Blu- Ray. The storyline is mildly interesting with some interesting characters, but it's not a high point of cinematic writing. Still, there's certainly enough action and entertaining moments here to keep you watching through the 85 minute runtime with more then a passing resemblance to movies such as Sin City or Pulp Fiction. Indeed, the climactic battle has plenty of people being blown away, but even here there's a sense of humour in many of the moments, and some Kill Bill styled silhouette action!

Boogie 3D is a very solid film.

Not only had we never seen this film, but we'd never even heard of it prior to Icon Films sending us a review disc to check out. Sure, it's super violent and gruesome in parts - although it is of course animated - but it's also very enjoyable.

VIDEO
Now this release is Boogie 3D but unfortunately we were unable to test this disc on a 3DTV in time for this review. While the characters and artwork are primarily presented in 2D, there are definitely scenes where the 3D would, we suspect, be brilliantly effective and we can't wait to check out the film in the third dimension. When we do, we'll look to update this review.

In terms of the 2D presentation this film has been encoded at a 1.78:1 aspect ratio using the AVC MPEG-4 codec. This really is a stellar presentation visually with plenty of fine detail, little obvious compression artifacts and a gorgeous visual style with plenty of bold colours. Having said that we did notice some very light colour banding - whether that's an issue of the transfer or the original presentation we're not sure.

Ohhhhh... Nice...

AUDIO
Somewhat surprisingly, despite being a film made in Argentina, the original Spanish soundtrack isn't included on this release but what the Blu-Ray comes with is a single English DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1 track (16-bit/48Khz). Dialogue is crystal clear and the movie makes great use of surround sound channels on a regular basis. Indeed the audio on this disc certainly surpassed what we were expecting of it and you'd be hard pressed to be disappointed.

There is only one single subtitle track on this disc, an English for the Hearing Impaired, which getx the job done if you need subtitles. For those requiring other languages, including Spanish as the original film was presented in, you're out of luck I'm afraid.

Boogie 3D is out on Blu-Ray now.

EXTRAS
Sadly this is pretty much a bare bones release with no real extras to speak of.

Trailers (8:04/HD): Prior to the movie we have trailers for Tucker And Dale Vs Evil (1:44) which looks pretty amusing actually, the Asian film Mulan (2:08), The Tree of Life (2:06) and the rather silly looking Hybrid 3D (2:06).

OVERALL
As we understand the Boogie 3D release is exclusive to JB Hi-Fi at the moment, so you'll need to source it from there, but those looking for something different with a bit of a Sin City or Pulp Fiction flavour would do well to check it out. It's quite interesting indeed.

Review By: Dave Warner

THE MOVIE	7/10
THE VIDEO	7/10
THE AUDIO	8/10
THE EXTRAS	1/10
OVERALL	6.5/10