In his feature film follow up to Gone Baby Gone, Ben Affleck (Armageddon, Jersey Girl) directed The Town, a film taken from the Chuck Hogan novel Prince of Thieves. It was not only Affleck’s return to the directors chair but also his return to Boston, which was the location of his last film. After previously being released as a Theatrical Cut and a separate Extended Cut, Warner has decided to give the film the Ultimate Edition release which features both releases plus an additional release which contains an alternate ending. In my opinion, if you don’t already own the Extended Edition and your not a die hard fan of the film you should probably pass.

PICTURE QUALITY:
As I said before, if you own either of the first two releases of this film your seeing the film just about as good as it gets. Maybe this version is slightly better looking (from what I’ve read on-line), though only by inches. That being said if you have not seen the film on Blu-Ray before it is a beautiful, nearly perfect, Blu-Ray transfer. Colors are beautifully vibrant, textures gloriously detailed, black levels amazingly solid, and everything else that you could think of under the sun absolutely stellar. The only real discrepancies that come with the film include a bit of grain here and there, though hardly stand out, and there is some aliasing on certain buildings in wide out shots or on clothing such as the corduroy lapels of a jacket here and there. Really nothing to complain about. The film is clean, the clarity spot on, and the colors as natural as looking outside your window. Audio is more then flawless offering up lots of immersion, crisp dialogue, a hefty LFE output that gives boom to firearms and car crashes. You won’t be disappointed.

BONUS FEATURES:
~Alternate Ending: I personally hated it. Affleck, in the bonus feature A Directors Journey, states that it felt inconsistent with the rest of the film and I agree. It simply felt like a test ending  and honestly I can’t believe there is anyone on the planet that would have preferred this ending over the original theatrical one.
~Commentary for the Theatrical, Extended, and Alternate Ending versions: Really their all pretty much the same except they added a bit more to each one in regards to each stepped up version. Interesting though. I kind of still have some bias against Affleck for the horrendous acting he’s put me through over the years, but listening to him kind of puts him out of sight out of mind and I was able to really listen to the things that he had to say about the actors, location, and research he did on the film.
~Digital Download
~Full Color Booklet: This is a real thing of beauty. Full color gloss pages in a hard back presentation with paragraph entries about the film and the actors who appeared in it. If your hardcore into the film this swag should be your number one reason to buy up this edition.
~Focus Points: After awhile it felt like a lot of the information in the other supplements was being recycled. Depending on where you start your going to start to notice.
~Replicated Film Props: These come in a manila envelope and are pretty cool. You have mug shots, a map that pinpoints where things happen in the film, and some other interesting things from the film. Not really a selling point for me but still kind of cool.
~A Directors Journey: I liked this particular bonus. Yes, it does rehash some of the info from the commentary and some of the other bonus features but it goes into great detail about the research that went into making the film happen. For example Affleck talks about the day time armored car heist and how the location they chose had an actual armed car incident happen not to far from where they filmed, and that he went to the prison to visit the men who pulled that off (or tried to pull it off). It sounds like Affleck really put his heart and soul into this film and to hear him talk about it in this bonus feature is pretty cool. Maybe I don’t hate him as much as I used to hate him.  
~Extended Scene Markers: I thought this was a rather cool feature on the Extended and Alternate version. When a scene that was not originally in the theatrical cut begins there is a little camera insignia that pops up in the corner to let you know. From the many times that I saw that little insignia I can surmise there was a lot added back into the theatrical.
~DVD Extended Cut w/ Alternate Ending