A
Cinderella Story: If The Shoe Fits
(2016/Warner DVD)/Dark
Horse (2015/Sony
DVD)/Once Upon A Time: The
Complete Fifth Season
(2015 - 2016/ABC/Disney Blu-ray Set)/Peppa
Pig: Sunny Vacation
(2016/Fox/EOne DVD)/Scooby
Doo! And WWE: Curse Of The Speed Demon
(2016/Warner Blu-ray w/DVD)/Supergirl:
The Complete First Season
(2015 - 2016/DC Comics/Warner Blu-ray Set)
Picture:
C+/C+/B/C+/B & C+/B Sound: C/C/B/C+/B & C+/B Extras:
C-/C-/C/D/C-/C Main Programs: C-/C+/C-/C+/C-/B-
Here
are our latest children and family titles...
Michelle
Johnston's A Cinderella Story: If
The Shoe Fits (2016) is a
would be comedy trying to be a would be musical and not succeeding in
anything, starting with a sequence that looks like it is trying to be
tribute to the ''Greased
Lightning'' sequence from
Grease
(1978) with a gal in John Travolta's place. From there, the project
tries to show off lead Sofia Carson, but a ton of cliches, formula
and played-out tiredness stop her and everyone else (including a
welcome Jennifer Tilly as her stepmother) never go anywhere in its
long, long 93 minutes.
These
shoes ought to be burned and thrown out.
Three
featurettes, two Music Videos, Deleted Scenes and a Gag Reel (at
least they had fun making it) are the extras.
Louise
Osmond's Dark Horse
(2015) looks at first like it might be another lame, tired, played
out 'gal & her horse' melodrama, but instead, it is the true
story documentary about ho a group of people in Wales took on taking
care of a horse and how that led to success for them in racing and in
real life. Nice things worked out as surprisingly well as it did,
but the pacing, editing and arrangement of the story told is very
predictable and hurts the telling more than expected, so the energy
and any fun, joy or surprise is actually diminished a bit throughout
its 86 minutes, but its good otherwise. At least its not more awful,
tired fiction.
A
Photo Gallery is the only extra.
Once
Upon A Time: The Complete Fifth Season
(2015 - 2016) surprises me that the show has somehow made it this
far, but one-liners in a one-joke mode where every fairytale and myth
is mocked as part of a would-be slick show about the fantasy world,
mythology and the Fantasy genre found its young audience and they
just kept with it (like say, Supernatural,
an endless TV show that never seems to end) and getting into the
storyline and lot at this point is useless, so you'd better start at
the beginning yourself with the premiere season and work your way up
to this one if you can handle it.
This
five-Blu-ray disc set is offering more than enough, but as you can
see from the following coverage a few years ago of the sophomore
season, I thought it had gone as far as it could then...
http://www.fulvuedrive-in.com/review/12304/The+Captains+Close+Up+with+William+Shatner
Extras
inside the packaging include 1 of 3 postcards (hope they don't expect
fans to keep buying these sets until they own all 3!), while the
Blu-rays add audio commentary tracks, two Making Of/Behind The Scenes
featurettes, a Gag Reel, a clip about the show reaching episode 100
and The Fairest Bloopers Of Them All.
Peppa
Pig: Sunny Vacation
(2016) is the latest high quality compilation of episodes form the
charming TV show that has its moments, is one of the best releases on
the list and runs a never-long-enough 60 minutes and 12 shows. As
child-friendly as ever, I continue to be impressed with the show's
attitude and sensitivity. I just continue to wonder why this is not
even more popular, because it is not from a lack of quality.
There
are sadly no extras, though the artwork continues to be some of the
best on the field.
Tim
Divar's Scooby Doo! And
WWE: Curse Of The Speed Demon
(2016) is the worst of the crossover Scooby releases, serving
essentially as an 80-minutes-long brainwashing exercise in telling us
how wonderful all the WWE owners and participants are and stars are
so great. This is especially hard to buy since the franchise peaked
long ago, but here they are flatly animated and BORING!
The
plot has Scooby and company watching them in action, but then coming
across a hunted vehicle of some kind, but the real exorcism should
have happened to this script and this whole concept. This is really
insulting from the get go and only gets worse. Yikes indeed.
Extras
include Digital HD Ultraviolet Copy for PC, PC portable and other
cyber iTunes capable devices, while the discs adds two episodes of
Scooby TV shows and a brief Behind The Scenes/Making Of
featurette.
Supergirl:
The Complete First Season
(2015 - 2016) is the comeback show for one of DC Comics most
underrated characters, the cousin of Superman, we have not seen
enough of her in animation or live action. She landed up with a
white shirt redo in the underrated Superman:
The Animated Series and
before that, a perfectly cast Helen Slater played her in the 1984
theatrical feature film that was so badly written and directed that a
great franchise was instantly killed despite everyone STILL talking
about how Slater was so good in the role. That film and Slater's
Legend Of Billie Jean
(you can hear the Pat Benatar hit now) resulted in cult films and
Slater shows up on the show here.
This
time, Melissa Benoist takes over the title role, as well as alter ego
Kara, becoming a reporter and reporting to an inquisitive boss
(Calista Flockhart in equally perfect casting) just trying to keep a
job and have a 'normal life' with maybe the possibility of happiness.
Instead, more trouble arrives than the DC universe of heroes can
handle and the title character is born. We get 20 decent hour-long
episodes that fit nicely in the Arrow/Flash cycle of
these heroes, creating DC Comics best non-print moment since the
animated cycle of the 1990s arrived. Save some visual effects that
did not work for me, the show is rightly a success and worth your
time if you have not seen it yet.
Extras
include Digital HD Ultraviolet Copy for PC, PC portable and other
cyber iTunes capable devices, while the Blu-ray adds three Behind The
Scenes/Making Of featurettes including one from the 2015 Comic Con,
Deleted Scenes and Gag Reel.
The
anamorphically enhanced 1.78 X 1 image on the Cinderella,
Horse, Peppa and Scooby DVDs are good, decent
and fine for DVD, all tie for second place and are watchable enough,
but the 1080p 1.78 X 1 digital High
Definition image on Scooby,
Upon
and Supergirl
(with a very slight edge over the others) tie for first place (all HD
shoots/productions) have good, solid color and enough detail to make
for pleasant viewing experiences. You get a few demo shots in each
too.
In
the sonics department, the DTS-HD MA (Master Audio) 5.1 lossless mix
on Scooby,
Upon
and Supergirl
have solid soundfields throughout, though Upon
can still sound a little boxy and too much in the center channel when
it comes to dialogue. Otherwise, all are
mixed and presented as well as can be expected.
The
Cinderella,
Horse
and Scooby
DVDs offer lossy Dolby Digital 5.1 mixes, but Cinderella
and Horse
are weaker and lower in volume than usual, so their soundfields are
not so good and disappoint, so the lossy Dolby Digital 2.0 on Peppa
actually surpasses them both.
-
Nicholas Sheffo
