 What happens when you combine the beautiful islands of Tahiti and Bora Bora with the likes of Tera Patrick, Jesse Jane, Devon and a cavalcade of adult stars? Island Fever 3, the third in the series by master auteur Joone, featuring breathtaking camera work by Robby D, makes its glorious debut in the format it belongs on, Blu-ray. Originally an HD-DVD release last year in 720P, this BD shows marked improvement over its predecessor.
Island Fever 3 is closer to a music video in how its done, as it is not plot-driven and certainly not gonzo in theme. Different vignettes are lavishly strung together by the gorgeous landscape, making this one a hit with the ladies as well as the gentlemen.
Devon has long been considered one of the most beautiful women in the adult industry, and had been a staple of Digital Playground’s biggest releases. Jesse Jane is the new “gold standard” starlet of XXX, and IF3’s opening scene has these two girls together in a spectacular girl/girl sequence that features scenery almost as magnificent as these two girls. Adult film superstar Evan Stone, the hardest-working man in porn, begins our second big sequence, this time again with the lovely Devon.
Tera Patrick makes her final Digital Playground appearance before starting TeraVision, and goes out with quite the literal bang here in a stupendous scene with Barrett Blade. Tera is one of the most elegant and unique beauties ever to be featured in adult films, and IF3 marks her most beautiful film to date. Tera herself tried to recapture this same look and feel with Teradise Island, but fell dramatically short of the bar DP and Joone set with the Island Fever series. Evan Stone and Eric Masterson are quite the lucky guys in this movie, and their scenes flip back and forth between each of our starlets, none better than the hot sequence with Jesse Jane and Evan beachside.
Robby D really shows why he is one of the most talented cinematographers in the adult field, and certainly we can see why his Handheld Pictures division of Digital Playground is now making quite the name for itself with such hits as the Control series. Joone, as he has shown more recently with IF4 and Pirates, really is heads-above the competition as a director, re-inventing himself in almost every film. A mark of a good director is someone who has more than one forte, and Joone is showing that unlike some of his flashier competition such as Andrew Blake, his films are not destined to repeat their predecessors, as he is constantly evolving.
Well, when I reviewed the 720P IF3, I really thought this could NOT be improved upon. Well, I was wrong. The new 1080P transfer is, in a word, breath-taking. I was able to do a side-by-side comparison between the HD-DVD and BD, and the BD wins in every facet. This looks as good as any transfer I have seen, and Bora Bora couldn’t look any better unless I was the one on the beach banging Devon (are you listening DP?). Yes, as with all HD adult material, yes you can see flaws, but again as I’ve said before, we are all people, and we all have flaws. Seeing stretch marks and razor burn reminds us that even Tera and Devon are human, and if they are human, they are indeed attainable.
The audio is virtually identical to the HD-DVD, with a robust Dolby Digital soundtrack that best reproduces the music and sounds the way it should. Being that the IF is more music video-esque than natural sound-filled gonzo, this is as good as the sound can be. Pirates has more surround because of the nature of its presentation, but this is equally impressive considering the source.
Now that HD-DVD is officially dead, it’s great seeing DP stepping up more than any studio, adult or otherwise, and re-issuing on BD with improvements over the already great HD-DVD version. A definite must-have. |
