Jonas Brothers: 3D Concert Experience Review

By: Joe Healy Click author's name for more of his/her articles

The history of modern pop music is full of arrivals that have been called boy bands. The majority are essentially one hit wonders and are gone quickly, confined to the rubbish bin of history. The newest entry in this string of boy bands is the Jonas Brothers, catapulted into stardom through their appearances on The Disney Channel. Much like that other Disney property, Hannah Montana aka Miley Cyrus, The Jonas Brothers have made their live performance debut on Blu-ray, in 3D no less. Is it worth a look?

I am able to confidently state that if you're a fourteen year old girl, you'll adore this release. If you aren't, you'll likely be like me and wonder what all of the hoopla is about. The Jonas brothers The 3D Live Experience is well produced, capturing the band live at Madison Square Garden in New York, with a full backup band, featuring a string ensemble, along with featured quests Taylor Swift and Demi Lovato. The concert itself is well produced and presented before a full house of screaming loving teenaged girls and features all their hits. The issue here is that this is fully disappointing and definitely forgettable pop music, which after awhile, simply runs together, like one long forgettable song. There are no familiar tunes here, just formulaic by the numbers pop music.

I suspect you can tell it's not that I am a fan. Regardless, I can appreciate a quality presentation of lackluster music and the show here, for an arena pop show is sort of good, with all the histrionics that one has learned to expect with such a show. Fans won't be unhappy with this release. The remainder of us, well that's another story entirely. Overtly, the video quality here is excellent. It features a very natural color palette with spot on flesh tones. As one would expect, the film is filled with many bright and bold first colors with deep, stable and inky blacks. Video noise, even in the darker sequences, is non-existent.

Detail and clearness are excellent as well with the result being an image with excellent depth and three dimensionality. There is very little to argue with about the video show here and it will without doubt thrill fans of the band. As for the 3D version of the film, I was less than impressed. While the 3D effect does work in the sense that a 3D image is generated, it is generated with a cost, particularly the entire lack of color fidelity. The release comes provided with four sets of 3D glasses with red and blue lenses. When watching the film, the only colours you really see are red and blue. The wonderfully natural color palette of the 2D version of the film is totally gone, as is lots of the detail.

In addition, the glasses are card and insubstantial and tough to wear and keep on your face, particularly if you already wear glasses like me. If I were you, I would skip over the 3D version wholly, as the 2D version provides a far more satisfying viewing experience. The audio here is every bit as good as the video and captures the sound of a live arena show with wonderful fidelity. The lossless mix has lots of dynamics with deep and tough bass and very good transparency and imaging. The surrounds are actively engaged throughout and really conveys the spaciousness of Madison Square Garden, placing you right smack dab in the arena during the show. In this respect, this is an excellent sound mix. The sole real quibble I had with the sound here is with the display of the vocal track, which is buried in with the remainder of the sound mix, being almost inaudible at times.

Perhaps that isn't a bad thing at all given the general quality of the vocals here. Regardless, I would have expected the vocal track to have once been more prominent in the mix and out further in front of the remainder of the sound. Apart from this one argue, this is a fine sounding mix overall. This deluxe extended flick edition contains three discs. ; the first disc is the Blu-ray version of the film containing both the 2D and 3D versions of the film. The second is a DVD which has an extended version of the film in 2D only plus the bonus features included on the Blu-ray disc. The third disc contains a digital copy of the film, compatible with Macs and computers.

The extras included with both the Blu-ray and DVD versions of the film consist of two bonus songs not included with the theatrical release of the film together with a up close and personal featurette, providing a behind the curtain look at the lives of the Jonas brothers on tour. Candidly, the extras here are rather frayed but are offered in HD. Also included are sneak peaks at upcoming Disney Blu-ray releases including Snow White which looks fantastic in the trailer included here.

3D Glasses for Jonas Brothers 3D Concert