BBC
Earth: Snow Babies
+ Penguins: Spy In
The Huddle (DVDs)/Care
Bears: The Care-A-Thon Games
(Lionsgate DVD)/Geronimo
Stilton: Intrigue On The Rodent Express
(E1 DVD)/Max & Ruby:
Essentially Spring - Everybunny Loves Spring
(Nickelodeon DVD)/Wings
(Lionsgate DVD/all 2013)
Picture:
C+ Sound: C/C+/C+/C+/C+ Extras: C/D/D/D/C Episodes:
C+/C+/B-/B-/C-
Here
are a few family friendly titles aimed at a child audience...
The
BBC continues their release of the BBC
Earth
series with a our long show on polar bears entitled Snow
Babies
and the self-explanatory Penguins:
Spy In The Huddle,
both issued at the same time to be arctic-themed releases with a deep
winter street date. Maybe they could have waited for summer, but
these are just fine (Penguins
is 150 minutes with 3 episodes) and includes the usual pleasant
footage of the animals with scientific explanations in between cutesy
moments. These are in line with the series, though they offer
nothing beyond what they have already been doing. Polar
Bear: Spy On The Ice
is a bonus program in 5.1 on Snow,
while there are no extras on Penguins.
Care
Bears: The Care-A-Thon Games
is from Lionsgate and feels like an odd tie-in to push the
not-for-children (or others with a brain) Hunger
Games.
This CGI single of the revival series is on par with the rest of the
DVDs we covered, but we only get four episodes at 88 minutes with no
extras, making this a very basic release that is not one of the best.
As
for the next two shows, we have reviewed both of them well enough
before. Geronimo
Stilton: Intrigue On The Rodent Express
also has 4 episodes of this smart for young people show having fun
with travel, detective and publishing adventure. It is more of the
same, but I liked this set a bit more than the last one. Sadly,
there are no extras.
Max
& Ruby: Essentially Spring - Everybunny Loves Spring
has 12 episodes of its show, but they are shorter than the other
series above, so they only run 96 minutes combined, but this
continues to be one of Nickelodeon's most charming shows and I still
think its popularity has yet to peak. I am even expecting some kind
of breakout success if it just gets picked up a certain way. I am
surprised that there are no extras, but a show of this higher quality
should have some.
Last
and least is Olga Lopato's cynical, derivative, lame CGI feature
Wings
(2012) not to be confused with the sitcom or silent Academy
Award-winning classic of the same name, but picked up here to trick
families into thinking it might be Disney's Planes
(reviewed on Blu-ray elsewhere on this site) and as you watch, they
rip off every shot and idea they can from Disney and Pixar in its
long, tired, flat 88 minutes. Josh Duhamel, Hillary Duff, Jesse
McCartney, Rob Schneider and even Tom Skerritt (!?!) provide the
English language track. Too bad it is too such a wreck.
4
Miniscule
bonus episodes and a featurette on voicing the program are the
extras.
All
the DVDs are offered here in anamorphically enhanced 1.78 X 1 image
presentations save Max
in 1.33 X 1 and all are in color, but they are on par with each other
having their share of soft shots, maybe aliasing errors and the
limits you'd expect from the DVD format. The BBC
and Wings
DVDs are offered in lossy Dolby Digital 5.1 presentations, save one
the main program on Snow
(the one weak presentation here) and the rest of the DVDs, which all
offer lossy Dolby Digital 2.0 Stereo. Save Snow,
these are on par with each other as well sonically and are just fine
for regular such programs in the format.
-
Nicholas Sheffo
