Care Bears Super Cuddly Collection/Clifford The Big Red Dog Big Big Collection (Lionsgate DVD sets)/Little Rascals: Pirates Of Our Gang + Scary Spooktacular! (Legend DVD Singles)/Spy Kids [4]: All The Time In The World 3D (2011/Weinstein/Anchor Bay Blu-ray 3D with Blu-ray 2D and DVD)

 

Picture: C+/C+/C/B + B- + C+     Sound: C+/C+/C+/B + B-     Extras: C/C+/C-/D     Main Programs: B-/B/C/D

 

 

The next group of children’s releases all continue franchises.  First we have two surprisingly nice sets of titles we have seen over and over in singles form that may be the nicest in each case to date from Lionsgate.

 

The Care Bears Super Cuddly Collection has six singles including the Flower Power single we covered here:

 

http://www.fulvuedrive-in.com/review/10975/Bands+On+The+Run:+The+Rubber

 

 

Entries new to us include more of the same with Cheer, There & Everywhere, Helping Hearts, Tell-Tale Tummies and Bear Buddies, plus the To The Rescue Movie they are counting as an extra but we will not and previously reviewed at this link:

 

http://www.fulvuedrive-in.com/review/10731/Care+Bears+%E2%80%93+To+The

 

 

Needless to say picture, sound and extras are the same, but even better is Clifford The Big Red Dog Big Big Collection which includes the Happy Birthday, Clifford single in the fun red-handle child-friendly cases we covered a few years ago at this link:

 

http://www.fulvuedrive-in.com/review/5545/Clifford+%E2%80%93+The+Big+Red

 

This set adds Playtime With Clifford (including Real-Life Doggie Friends and Speckle Stories as extras), Clifford’s Schoolhouse (including Sing Along and Speckle Stories as extras), Doghouse Adventures (including the “Where Did Clifford Hide It?” game and Speckle Stories as extras), The New Baby On The Block (including the “Help Baby Find Mom” game and Speckle Stories as extras) and Growing Up With Clifford (including Learn How To Draw Clifford and Speckle Stories as extras).  For the season, we have seen several such culmination releases and they are nice as gifts and catch-up releases, but this is by far the best of them for newer children’s productions and the one to recommend.  Picture and sound are consistent with the previous singles as noted.

 

 

Legend is back with two more singles from Little Rascals: Pirates Of Our Gang + Scary Spooktacular! Even with two box sets on the market, but these include awful colorized versions of the classic shorts and each disc only holds six shorts.  At least some of them are silent ones you do not see enough.  Pirates includes Shiver My Timbers, Mama’s Little Pirate, Three Men In A Tub, Buried Treasure, Derby Days and Our Gang Follies of 1938, while Scary offers Spooky Hooky, Moan & Groan, First Roundup, Little Sinner, Sundown Ltd., and Bear Shooters.  The last two shorts in each case are being touted as extras, but we will barely count them as such, especially since more shorts could have fit on each disc, while picture and sound are consistent with their previous singles in the series.

 

Last and least is Robert Rodriguez’s very desperate Spy Kids [4]: All The Time In The World 3D (2011) with Joel McHale, Alexa Vega, Jessica Alba, Daryl Sabara, Jeremy Piven, Rowan Blanchard ands Mason Cook.  Though this madness was supposedly over, The Weinstein Company needed product, so here is a very unnecessary fourth installment and everybody looks as bored as I felt suffering through this generic run-through which would bore even most of the fans these releases actually have.  There is nothing new here, including the 3D as the last installment had that, though not on Blu-ray yet.  Piven is a time-controlling villain who can do everything but stop this mess from being greenlit until they find a better script or original idea, so you get the idea of how bad this gets.  For diehard fans of the trilogy only, to say the least, extras include Digital Copy for PC and PC portable devices, Making Of featurette, Rodriguez on camera interview and Deleted Scenes.

 

Oddly, the Blu-ray 3D disc is being treated as a bonus, but the 1080p 1.78 X 1 MVC-encoded 3-D – Full Resolution digital High Definition image on the disc is the default highlight of the four-disc set with some good effects and depth.  Too bad that cannot save this unnecessary sequel, yet it looks better than the 1080p 1.78 X 1 digital High Definition 2D image and the much softer anamorphically enhanced DVD.  The DTS-HD MA (Master Audio) 5.1 lossless mix is not great, but full and dimensional enough to be a solid modern soundmix and the DVD’s lossy Dolby Digital 5.1 mix is a lesser version of that.  Dialogue can be a little weak and towards the speakers at times, but this does not last long.  For more on the first three films on Blu-ray, try this link:

 

http://www.fulvuedrive-in.com/review/11122/Scholastic+Spanish+Language+DVD

 

 

-   Nicholas Sheffo