Review of Dance Xtreme: The Workout

Introduction

The Christmas DVD market tends to attract two types of release that are rarely, if ever, seen at any other time of the year: the Yin and Yang of novelty DVDs - interactive quizzes and `celebrity` workouts. The former is designed for when you`ve feasted on chocolate and Christmas dinner and are in a sedentary mood, the latter supposedly to help you shed the unwanted pounds gained over the festive period.

With a release date of December 24th, this is clearly aimed at helping you get your figure back for the new year, the winners of `DanceX` and fitness instructor Jackie Diss show you how to dance the pounds away. The DVD is split into five sections: Disco; Hip Hop; Pop; Latin and House, each featuring a member of `Team Bruno` or `Pulse` as they are now known, who specialises in that dance style.

The contents of the DVD are outlined above and need no further repetition here.

Video

A clear 1.78:1 anamorphic transfer which struggles to cope with the sheer amount of white on show. `Dance Xtreme: The Workout` was seemingly filmed in an open plan apartment with the furniture removed and the walls cleared, it may be a small dance studio, but I might be wrong. Two disco lights mounted on tables in the corners provide patterned white lighting on the white walls, creating all the ambience of the inside of a fridge.
Truly bargain basement production values.

Audio

An extremely loud and offensive DD 2.0 Stereo soundtrack, with thumping music that doesn`t appear to change with the theme of each workout - Hip Hop, House or Pop, I couldn`t discern any difference. Jackie Diss` instructions are clear enough, but the frequency with which someone yells "Freestyle!" in every session is extremely annoying.

Features

There are separate workouts for legs, abs and arms, bums, a freestyle section where the dancers (and, annoyingly, the cameraman) improvise, and `Slam Dunk with Marquelle` where, for reasons unknown, he shows his skills with a basketball for a minute.

The Easter Eggs are really easy to find (press left from each menu) and a purple `X` will appear over a dancer. When you press the enter button, they talk you through their favourite dance move.

Conclusion

Just as I can`t stand the use of `txt spk`, spelling anything with a `X` instead of `Ex` is an offence against the English language and good taste and I don`t know whether it`s because I live under a rock, but none of the names on the DVD meant anything to me. With Google and Wikipedia as my Holmes and Watson, I discovered all there is to know, which isn`t much, about `DanceX` and `Pulse`. `DanceX` was a BBC reality dancing competition and the winners were `Team Bruno`, who were renamed as `Pulse`, a name chosen by Sun readers, and reached number 91 in the UK Singles Chart in August 2007 with `Dancing In Repeat`. After that, the trail ran cold and, having watched this DVD it`s no wonder, as they are an unbelievably uncharismatic bunch, showing less dance ability than I saw in the `Dannii Minogue Video Collection`.

I couldn`t work out (pardon the pun) who this is aimed at, or what the purpose of it is, because people who want to lose weight through exercise would get a fitness DVD, not one that seems to show you how to become a backing dancer. Unless the area in front of your TV is particularly spacious, with good headroom, trying this would probably result in you catching your arms in light fittings and tripping over furniture and/or pets, resulting in a trip to casualty rather than significant weight loss.

The editing of the programme is problematic, as most of the workout takes place in front of a fixed camera showing all six dancers. In the middle of showing you a move, an inexplicable cut to someone`s lower leg makes you completely lose focus and you don`t get to see what it looks like when performed by the group. The camerawork is also poor, with odd zooming and frenetic movement that serves no purpose other than to prevent you seeing the dancing and induce a headache.

This was a horrendous DVD to sit through and, even though it`s only 64 minutes long, I have to admit to scanning and even skipping through to the next section, before I completely lost the will to live. Unless this is the standard of workout DVDs (of which there are many), there must be something better on the market if you want to lose weight by following the guidance of a DVD. This DVD is neither a workout video nor a dance lesson and is priced far too high - even Marquelle and Phoenix (whose name is misspelled `Pheonix` on the DVD!) look embarrassed to be there.