Deep
(2017/Lionsgate DVD)/Justice
League Action: Superpowers Unite!
(2017/Season One, Part
One/DC Comics Animation
set)/Once Upon A Sesame
Street Christmas
(2017/both Warner DVDs)/Paw
Patrol: The Great Snow Rescue
(2016 - 2017/Nickelodeon DVD)
Picture:
B/C+/C+/C+ Sound: B/C+/C+/C+ Extras: C/D/C+/D Main
Programs: B+/C-/C+/B-
Now
for our next round of child releases...
Julio
Soto Gurpide's animated Deep
(2017) is a young baby kraken who longs to explore outside the safety
of his grandfather's colony, but when disaster strikes, it is up to
Deep and his friends to save the colony. He is joined by Alice the
sassy shrimp and Evo the silly angler fish. Together, they search
and find Nathan the white whale to save their home, but to find
Nathan they will have to travel through dangerous waters and face new
friends and enemies.
After
the humans destroyed the world and left for another, Deep and his
colony only survived due to his Grandfather Kraken's protected coral
reef. But Deep is too curious and wants to learn more of the outside
world. When he accidentally causes a giant rock to block the colony
entrance, his grandfather sends him on a quest to find Nathan the
whale, the only one big enough to move the rock. As Deep and his
friends laugh, sing and dance they will have to brave strange,
dangerous and colorful new world. In the end, they must free Nathan
the whale from a crazy Penguin in a spaceship ark, who has plans to
take them (and Nathan) to the new world.
This
movie was like a mix of Little
Mermaid
and Finding
Nemo,
a young octopus dreaming of adventure and danger but finding out more
than he thought. Through the character's impulsive nature they
constantly get into trouble, he eventually learns about teamwork,
responsibility and leadership. Well done. Extras include music
video and trailers.
Justice
League Action: Superpowers Unite!
(2017) is another new series based on the great comic book series
from DC Comics' Animation division, arriving in time for their
first-ever live-action feature film. This variation is aimed more
towards younger children and is a nice twist to the tales of the
team, with Batman, Superman, Wonder Woman, Firestorm, Cyborg, Green
Arrow and the underused Plastic Man. We get a double DVD set of 26
decent adventures that are fun to watch and achieve a different tone
than the preceding Justice
League
(or Superfriends!
for that matter) series, which is not easy.
These
are fun, energetic and offers more characters, villains and
otherwise, but we'll not hurt any more surprises except to say this
is worth checking out to see what the makers did and I hope it is the
next DC TV hit.
There
are sadly no extras.
Once
Upon A Sesame Street Christmas
(2017) is coming out before Halloween or Thanksgiving even arrive,
but it is still a good set with a solid main program as they do their
version of Charles Dickens' A
Christmas Carol,
plus we get the equally long ''Twas
The Night Before Cookie''
and briefer Elmo's Christmas Song. Other extras include six Sesame
Studios shorts and a downloadable version of the Sesame Street book
Once
Upon A Sesame Street Christmas,
so this is a nicely-loaded DVD single with all the programs just
fine, so you can get it soon, or closer to the actual holiday if
you're like this writer.
Finally
we have Paw
Patrol: The Great Snow Rescue
(2015 - 2017) is the latest DVD single compilation of the fun,
energy-filled, semi-adventure TV show with seven cold-weather-related
adventures that manage to be better than you might think. Issued by
Nickelodeon with the Holiday in mind without being explicit about it,
this is one of the better DVD singles we've seen in the series and I
was surprised how upbeat it could stay when some shows are starting
to drag. There are no extras, but this is a solid 96 minutes that
won't disappoint children.
The
anamorphically enhanced 1.85 X 1 image on Deep
and anamorphically enhanced 1.78 X 1 image on the rest of the TV DVDs
are looking as good as they can, though Deep
has an edge being a solid CGI animated feature. Not bad at all from
a lesser-known animation studio, down to its impressive-enough, lossy
Dolby Digital 5.1 that is a mixdown from its Dolby Atmos 11.1
original theatrical sound. Why no Blu-ray? Hopefully later.
The
lossy Dolby Digital 5.1 mixes on Justice
and Paw,
plus the lossy Dolby Digital 2.0 Stereo on Sesame
are as good and clear as they can be in the older sound codec, though
I bet lossless presentation in all cases would impress more. Like
Deep,
they are professionally recorded and mixed, top rate productions, if
not meant for the big screen.
-
Ricy Chiang (Deep) & Nicholas Sheffo
