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I love nothing more than the controversy which is caused over the release of a certain movie.
Hannibal caused such a ruckus over it's face eating pigs and brain eating sequence that the Censorship board was essentially forced into uprating the film from an MA15+ to and R18+. 
David Cronenberg's "Crash" had the Queensland minister for transport is such a huffy and he made it perfectly clear that he wanted the movie banned, that it became one of the Dendy Cinema's in BrisVegas biggest box office hits, with people lining out the door on George Street to see it.
And now it's Dogma's turn.  A Kevin Smith film which had the Catholic Church in the USA in a tizz.   With Miramax having ties to Disney, the film was sold off to Lion's Gate for the USA release because of this.

Two angels Bartleby (Ben Affleck) and Loki (Matt Damon) have been long since kicked out of heaven and as luck would have it for these two arch angels have been anonymously informed of a loophole which will get them back into heaven.  Problem is God is suppose to be infallible so this loophole would prove god can be wrong and so the world as we know it would cease to exist.
In comes Bethany (Linda Fiorentino), a catholic who works in an abortion clinic.   Bethany is visited by the voice of god, better known as the Metatron (a perfectly cast and very funny Alan Rickman).  He informs her she is requested, by God herself/himself, to seek out the two angels and stop them from succeeding at getting into heaven. 
To make bethany's trip seemingly a little easier, she is aided by a couple of prophets in the form of Jay and Silent Bob (Jason Mewes and Director Kevin Smith, respectively, both characters are regulars of Kevin Smith films).

As the three make their way across America, they run into more biblical icons, Rufus, the [unknown, unreferenced] 13th Apostle who just so happens to be Black, and was Jesus's best friend (Chris Rock), Serendipity the muse (Salma Hayek), and from far below the earth's surface, Azrael (Jason Lee).

Dogma is full of sick and very twisted humour and it never lets up for a second...I absolutely loved it. 

So how does this transfer hold up?

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VIDEO
Dogma comes to us in quite a fine looking Anamorphic Widescreen Transfer.
Black level is a bit too low and as a result darker detail is lost to some degree.
Even so it's a pleasant looking film with vibrant colours and natural looking flesh tones.  
Sharpness comes and goes throughout, but is never overly soft or overly sharp, and there's not a great deal of aliasing to be had here. 
Even though this transfer has its [minor] problems I still liked what I saw and found the film quite a joy to watch overall.
Running near 2 hours, Dogma has been spread over 2 layers of an RSDL DVD.  The Layer change occurs at 77:49 where Metatron is walking on water.  Other than a slight pause in the music, it's not too bad as far as layer changes go.

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AUDIO
Oh Yeeeees!  this is a very sweet Dolby Digital 5.1 soundtrack.
Composer Howard Shore has whipped up a very cool music score, which comes across with incredibly wit and has a great cheekiness about it which suits the tone of this film beautifully, and at the same time manages to make very good use of 5.1 sound.
There's plenty of showy sound FXs to be had with some quite shockingly quick and aggressive sound attacks all through the movie
Dialogue is pretty much clear and intelligible throughout.
I truly loved this soundtrack.. it kicks ass!

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EXTRAS
The only real area which lets this DVD down is the extras.
There's been talk for donkeys years of a region 1 superduper special edition (much like Kevin's Smith's Mallrats region 1 DVD release)..  it's still in the works though
What we get is pretty limited and with such a cool film like Dogma it's nothing but deserving of a 2 disc Special Edition Set (we can only hope)
Here's what we get (all extras are Anamorphic Widescreen)
Nice animated menus with Dolby 2.0 sound
A Theatrical Trailer (with DD5.1), cast and crew interviews (quite a few here), a hidden Trailer for another Matt Damon Film, Cast and Crew Bios galore, and my favourite Dolby 5.1 Trailer - Train. 

As great as I thought Dogma was the first time I saw it, I find it gets better with repeated viewings.  Certainly not for the faint hearted or Humour impaired is this great film on a nice DVD. 

PICTURE QUALITY	8/10 Quite nice, but inconsistent in sharpness
SOUND - Quality - 5.1 WOW Factor	9/10 very clean and clear   9/10 so much fun here!
EXTRAS	4/10 pretty lacking

Click HERE for more Region 4 DVDs released in Dolby Surround EX or DTS-ES

Review Equipment
TV: Pioneer SD-T50W1 (16:9 RPTV)
DVD: Pioneer DV717  (using RGB outputs)
Receiver : Denon AVC-A1SE THX Ultra (Dolby Surround EX, DTS-ES Discrete)
Speakers:-
     Mains: Quadral Phonolgue Gold Amun
     Centre: B&W CDMC-SE
     Surrounds Left/Right: B&W 602
     Surrounds Back : Jamo Magic 14
     Subby: M&K V125 

- Reviewed 20th March 2001

* Dogma  jpeg files for internet promotion use only. Copyright© exists on all aspects of these files by Roadshow Home Entertainment