Batman Begins (DVD Widescreen) [DVD]

The Terminator series has a long history of delivering jam-packed DVDs sure to rock your speakers and blind you with their pristine picture quality -- a legacy which, at the outset, Warner Bros. T3: The Rise of the Machines seems to live up to -- though closer inspection of this two-disc set might prove otherwise. Technically it's brilliant, with a deep 5.1 Dolby Digital track that'll knock your socks off and shake your teeth, while this version's equally as rich 2.35:1 widescreen picture contains crystal-clear clarity surrounding the perfectly transferred auburn and blue color schemes of the hit film. Feature-wise, the first disc offers two audio commentaries, the first featuring director Jonathan Mostow and every principal in the cast, including Arnold Schwarzenegger, Nick Stahl, Claire Danes, and the sexy TX herself, Kristanna Loken. While it's not quite the group experience that you'd expect, the individual interviews that make up the track still offer amazing insight into the production -- even if Arnold is far funnier when he has someone else to work off of (see his hilarious commentary with John Milius on the Conan: The Barbarian Collector's Edition for proof). Another, more pared-down, in-depth commentary can be found on the director's lone track as he discusses everything from casting decisions to the role he had to fill after James Cameron departed. Rounding out disc one is the final theatrical trailer, along with a trailer for Atari's T3 game for X-Box and Playstation 2. Disc two is where the juicy extras await you, starting with a new introduction from Arnold, explaining what you'll find on the disc and, of course, the promise that he will inevitably "be back." Next is a breezy 13-minute on-set HBO First Look documentary and the best feature on the DVD -- the deleted Sgt. Candy scene, a bit which not only provides some good continuity for the series, but also one of the biggest intentional (or unintentional, figuring on how you view it) laughs on the whole disc. The heart of the extras comes with the T3 Visual Effects Lab, which features separate sections on the stunts and effects of the Crane chase, TX Transformation, Future War, and Crystal Peak (aka: half-machine Arnold after the helicopter crash) scenes. Sadly, the featurettes are littered with a truly annoying transition screen that screams "cheap" and shows exactly why this is the more casual commercial release, rather than the one for the hardened DVD and movie lover. In contrast, this section also contains a truly innovative feature called Create Your Own Visual Effects, which puts the audience in control of three key money shots in the film and lets them create the scene over and over again by deleting or adding various layers into the final FX shot (the part with the exoskeletons with flame-throwers is genius). Next up is the Skynet Database section, which also adds to the overall cheapness factor of the DVD, by including fictional Skynet "files" on various characters and machines in the Terminator series and in the video portions, substituting horrible stand-ins for some of the leads (who they obviously couldn't get footage of) and recycling footage already seen in the visual effects featurettes. The makers of the DVD put a tad more time into the Terminator Timeline feature, an extra which details the entire series' story line in a comprehensive manner -- though it, too, is hampered, this time with poor design and functionality (as can be seen after a few minutes fiddling with it). Rounding out the second disc are a gag reel, a storyboards section, featurettes on the costumes and Todd McFarlane toy line, a PC game trailer, and a making-of segment on the game itself. Gripes about the features aside, this disc should tide fanatics over until the more bonus-filled disc Mostow has promised comes out -- until then, audiences will always have that Sgt. Candy scene....