NBA Ultimate Jordan Collector's Edition

I like basketball and one of the reasons is Michael Jordan. At 5ft 6, I was never going to slam dunk, but to hear Jordan talk about it, you would believe that with the right training, with the right thoughts and with the right Nike's, even this was possible. Michael Jordan is possibly the greatest basketball player of all time and his record speaks for itself (2x Olympic Gold Medals, 6x NBA Champion, 5xNBA MVP, Sports Illustrated Sports Personality of the Year and many, many more). He is a name synonymous with his sport and though we could argue that seven disks and over sixteen hours is a bit of overkill, you will understand why he deserves every second of it. The set is split into five documentaries that had been released by NBA throughout his career and then hours upon hours of extra features.

Come Fly with Me

Less than an hour documentary about Jordan's career released in 1989 when Jordan hasn't exactly hit his stride yet and looks at his career up until that point, his education, his training for the 1984 Olympics and winning the gold medal before joining the Chicago Bulls in 1984 winning NBA Rookie of the year and NBA MVP during the 1987-88 season. Though it is odd that the documentary ends a year before he was able to lift his first of many NBA World titles with the Bulls, but it shows exactly why there was such a worldwide buzz about him.

Michael Jordan's Playground

This one from 1990 tries far too hard to be all artistic and actually looks almost OTT at times. At times it's almost like one of those 'The Life of...' TV films and could be watched almost like a motivational video and not a documentary about Jordan and the moments of him playing basketball are lost within its very cheesy storyline. It tries to make itself all preachy, letting us know that Jordan didn't make the school team the first time, but kept trying and got better and better. Yes, it's a nice message, but really this could all be said in a 2-5 minute video and not in this almost hour long mini feature with Jordan giving his wisdom to this poor kid who didn't make the cut, but tries again and I won't spoil how it ends... but he's been training with Jordan, if that didn't help him then nothing would!

Air Time

Finally a proper documentary! This time we get to see Jordan playing for an NBA Championship team and also his entry into the Olympics with the 'Dream Team', winning him his second gold medal. Again the footage is amazing and you cannot describe just how good Jordan was at this time and you can understand why he won so many awards during this time. As with the others it is a nice documentary, a little short, but still a good look at his career during this time.

Above and Beyond

Again this is simply just a 'best of Jordan' compilation released in 1996 to cash in on his return to the game after his first retirement to try playing baseball and the buzz of him appearing in the awesomely awful feature film Space Jam. Again a great amount of footage of him in action.

His Airness

Is the final documentary that covers Jordan's career up to his final retirement from the game. I enjoyed watching this a lot more than the others as there is a very nostalgic and emotional feel to everything that you see in this documentary and the footage of Jordan as always is simply electrifying.

These five documentaries cover Jordan's career and although they all have their moments, I do wish that they had filmed just one long two or three hour documentary or spliced these five together in some way as it would make for a better analysis of Jordan's career rather than this almost stop and start one hour documentaries which apart from the first and last don't really tell much and Playground is possibly the most banal, badly acted piece I have ever had to watch.

As well as including hours of extra footage, the main highlights is the inclusion of his five greatest games in full:

• 1986 NBA Playoffs 1st Round Game 2 vs. Boston Celtics: Jordan scores 63 points

• 1990 Reg. Season Game vs. Cleveland Cavaliers: Jordan scores a career high 69 points

• 1993 NBA Finals Game 4 vs. Phoenix Suns: Jordan scores 55 points

• 1997 NBA Finals Game 5 vs. Utah Jazz: Jordan Scores 38 Fighting the Flu

• 1998 NBA Finals Game 6 vs. Utah Jazz: Jordan's Final Game in a Bulls Uniform

Now all five of these games are perfect at showing just why Michael Jordan is considering the greatest and when you consider there is over ten years between the first and last game, you really do see not just how much he improved along the way, but also that he was always that good. When people think of basketball there are only a few names that come to mind to me, but rest assured the name that everyone is thinking of first is Michael Jordan and this is a perfect set to prove just way that is.