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Great Journeys DVD Review - www.impulsegamer.com -

Feature 5.0
Video 9.0
Audio 6.0
Special Features   N/A
Audio 5.0
Distributor: Ovation Visit's Soph's modelling profile and interview at Impulse Gamer
Running Time: TBA
Classification:  PG
Reviewer: Soph

5.0


Great Journeys

Travelling can be amazing. I’ve ventured overseas a few times, been to some vastly different and wildly interesting places, and each and every time I feel thoroughly enriched by the experience of immersing myself in a fully formed, intricately detailed part of the world that I barely knew existed. If I wanted to convince someone to go travelling, that’s how I would sell it to them: as a full body, full mind, expansive and thorough experience.

Clearly, the filmmakers of Great Journeys disagree. The style of both features in this double-header is relentless, rapid-fire, MTV-style editing. It’s a forest - it’s a train - it’s a mountain - it’s a guy laughing - it’s a tree - it’s a forest - and that’s Papua New Guinea, apparently. All done and dusted in less than 30 seconds containing shots that never exceed more than two seconds. Time to move on to Alaska. Snow! – mountains! – laughing! - furry creatures! - and now we’re off to Kenya. In all fairness, I can’t accuse the filmmakers of being out-of-touch. We’re practically conditioned to consume information in tiny, bite-sized chunks. Well, bravo, Globe Trekker Travel Collection; you’ve certainly hit that nail on the head.

What this adds up to is fairly nice, but ultimately shallow, background television. It’s not entirely unpleasant to glance over occasionally and see a couple of seconds of footage of an exciting vista, and then glance over ten seconds later and see something completely different. But for those of you who are interested in coherent, thematically driven documentaries, you will need to look elsewhere. It’s difficult to discern a point or a dominant message; at least a message other than “The world has some cool stuff in it and we can take good footage of it.” Which reminds me: some of the footage is actually rather stunning, which partially makes up for the fact that the presenters are not as funny as they think they are.

The first episode - Planes, Trains & Automobiles - does what it says on the tin. It’s about various ways of getting around, and getting into, some fairly interesting and exotic locations. I can’t deny that some of these modes of transportation are fun to learn about, but this documentary doesn’t give you any hope of finding out if the destinations themselves are actually worth visiting.

The second episode - Road Warriors - is much the same, only this time we get a stronger emphasis on bikes and cars. Reader, I know that you have things to do and places to be, so I daren’t steal more of your time than is required. To that end, all you need to know is that both episodes are cut from the very same cloth, and that this DVD is effectively an extended, filmic travel brochure. Sometimes you need something like that; an easy-on-the-brain break from more heady entertainment. If that sounds like your cup of tea, you could certainly do worse than this collection. Damning with faint praise? Perhaps. But I’m trying to be polite. After all, a change is as good as a holiday.






 
 



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