Batman: Hush (4K UHD Blu-ray Review)

I kind of ruined the surprise for myself, but when the motion picture release of Batman: Hush was announced I did the unthinkable.  I grabbed the digital version of the comic book series this storyline appears within and dived in headfirst.  It was a compelling storyline, which I found difficult at times to put down (as I read through it in chunks).  I’m not going to lie.  What really drew me in though was seeing Batman’s famous rouge of Gotham enemies all being controlled by a masked man behind the scenes like puppets.  It dives into Bruce Wayne’s personal life a bit and explores the complications in his relationship with the seductive Selina Kyle, aka Catwoman.  However, I am getting a bit ahead of myself here in this first paragraph.  I apologize as I get a bit excited and giddy when talking about the world of Batman and the rich characters surrounding him.  So without further ado I bestow upon you my review of Batman: Hush, which makes it 4K Ultra HD Blu-ray debut tomorrow, August 6th.

Film 

The following verbiage is mostly taken straight from the press release here, but it’s both necessary for setting the stage and of course informative.  Batman: Hush boasts an impressive voice cast led by primetime television stars Jason O’Mara (The Man In The High Castle) and Jennifer Morrison (Once Upon A Time) as the voices of Batman/Bruce Wayne and Catwoman/Selina Kyle, respectively. The cast also includes Jerry O’Connell (Carter, Billions, Stand By Me) as Superman, Rebecca Romijn (The Librarians, X-Men) as Lois Lane, Rainn Wilson (The Office) as Lex Luthor, Vanessa Williams (Desperate Housewives, Ugly Betty) as Amanda Waller, Jason Spisak (Young Justice) as Joker, Peyton List (Bunk’d, Jessie) as Batgirl, Peyton List (Gotham, Mad Men, The Flash) as Poison Ivy, Geoffrey Arend (Madam Secretary) as the Riddler, Sean Maher (Firefly) as Nightwing, Maury Sterling (Homeland) as Thomas Elliot, Bruce Thomas (Legally Blonde, Kyle XY) as Jim Gordon, Adam Gifford (Longmire) as Bane, Sachie Alessio (Justice League Dark) as Lady Shiva, Stuart Allan (Teen Titans: The Judas Contract) as Damian Wayne, James Garrett (Batman: Bad Blood) as Alfred, Hynden Walch (Teen Titans Go!) as Harley Quinn, Chris Cox (Family Guy) as Scarecrow and Tara Strong (Batman: The Killing Joke, Teen Titans, Teen Titans Go!) as Reporter.  Last but certainly not least Director Justin Copeland (Reign of the Supermen) helms Batman: Hush from a script conjured up by Ernie Altbacker (Teen Titans: The Judas Contract).

As I stated prior Batman: Hush is an adaption of a classic DC tale.  It tells the story of a mysterious new villain who looks like Liam Neeson in Darkman with his mummy-like face wraps.  I won’t spoil anything for you, but this villain unbelievably seems to have the upper hand on all of Gotham’s best Rogues Gallery of villains including the likes of the Joker, Harley Quinn, Clayface, Poison Ivy, Bane and more.  Who is this masked puppeteer?  Wouldn’t you like to know?  Besides the complexity and fun and games of Batman and Catwoman’s relationship here solving for the identity of Hush is the real draw of this 82-minute runtime.  He has everyone wrapped around his finger and seems to know a lot about Bruce Wayne too.  Hmm.  Who can it be?

Truth of the matter for me is I thought the comic series not only did a better job of handling the intricacies of this story, but also the final reveal of the villain.  In fact much of the story is missing from this DC Animated movie.  For example we’re missing out on a lot of the Bruce Wayne and Thomas Elliot personal relationship they explored deeply in the comics and even the Jason Todd graveyard fight I found so riveting while reading.  This adaption of this classic storyline just didn’t live up to the hype I was expecting it to bring from the comics.  The best part about it for me was the playfulness between Bruce and Selina as they explored both their personal/physical relationship and their crime fighting duo one.  Overall though the deep story of Hush in the comics is essentially lost for me on the big screen here resulting in nothing more than just an above average Batman adventure for this Gotham city lover.  Oh well.  They tried.  And there were many doubters going into this that they could do justice to the classic comics storyline.  They were right.  

Video 

The below video score and related critique of things here are based solely upon my viewing of the 4K Ultra HD Blu-ray presentation of Warner Bros. Batman: Hush.

• Encoding: HEVC / H.265
• Resolution: 2160p
• Aspect Ratio: 1.78:1
• Clarity/Detail: These Batman releases usually have a weird kind of animation.  It makes it good for the depth of field we’ll talk about next here, but it’s not a Secret Life of Pets razor blade style by any means.  The animation is very crude and as a result the picture is murky with clarity at times.  Anyone used to these releases will understand.  It just is what it is.
• Depth: There’s a lot of depth to be found throughout here, but only because of the way this one is animated.  For instance one has to look no further than the foreground characters.  They are chiseled while most of the background is a blur, not matching the level of clarity the foreground characters are.
• Black Levels: The black levels are natural throughout here, but never overly deep.  There are a lot of dark sequences here that take place in the shadows or nighttime darkness, but the HDR keeps things visible.
• Color Reproduction: There’s a bright, bold and colorful look to everything here that’s very easy on the eyes and quite striking.  Particularly noteworthy are Bruce’s Blu-ray blue eyes and the bright glow of fire, explosions and flames.
• Flesh Tones: The skin tones all look natural in appearance, but hey it is a cartoon so there’s that.  Ha!
• Noise/Artifacts: This 4K presentation is completely clean with zero debris.

Audio 

Like I mention up above in the video section, the below audio score and critical comments of such are based solely upon my viewing of Warner Bros. 4K Ultra HD Blu-ray presentation of Batman: Hush.

• Audio Format(s): English DTS-HD MA 5.1, French Dolby Digital 5.1, Spanish Dolby Digital 5.1
• Subtitles: English SDH, Spanish, French
• Dynamics: I don’t know what was wrong with me.  Maybe this one didn’t sit well with me, but I wasn’t that impressed here. I loved the discrete channel prioritization and the wide soundstage, but man is this one ever top heavy.  With that being said though nothing ever gets lost in the shuffle so it has that going for it.  The devilish and playful score is also entertaining.
• Height: N/A
• Low Frequency Extension: The bass is my favorite part of this 4K presentation.  The thuds, action moments, explosions and more come to life with authenticity thanks to the LFE channel here.  One of my most favorite examples here in this category has to be the heft and weight the LFE portrays whenever Bane’s body comes crashing down.  It’s quite menacing.  Bane’s heartbeat is pretty cool too.
• Surround Sound Presentation: There’s not a lot of good stuff packed into the rear channels that immerses you the way it should in my opinion.  The fronts and ambiance plus score do bleed into the rears, but not much.  It’s a pretty docile experience.
• Dialogue Reproduction: The dialogue levels are all loud, clear and intelligible throughout the 4K presentation.  There are absolutely zero complaints here.  I never had an issue understanding a single spoken word.

Extras 

Like the last couple of DC Animated releases there’s a plethora of items to conquer here on the separate Blu-ray Disc, which also contains the film too.  For starters there’s an audio commentary.  You don’t see those very much nowadays.  Second there’s previews, episodes, an animated short and more to tackle too.  In addition to all of this you’ll also get a redemption code good for the movie in 4K redeemable via Movies Anywhere.  What’s not to like about this supplemental package?  Ah!  That’s a rhetorical question.  You know you love all this!

• DC Showcase: Sgt. Rock (Animated Short) (HD, 14:55) – From executive producer and director Bruce Timm comes the first new DC Showcase animated short since 2011’s Catwoman, bringing DC Comics’ gritty World War II hero to animated life in an all-new adventure.
• Batman: Love in Time of War (HD, 16:53) – Dangerous. Seductive. Villain. Hero. This is the story of Selina Kyle and the relationship she has forged with the world’s greatest detective.  This one is my favorite extra here only because it talks about the complexities of Batman’s relationship with Catwoman.  This one dishes into Catwoman’s power over Batman, her history, personality and more.  Love it!
• Audio Commentary – This commentary track features Executive Producer James Tucker, Director Justin Copeland and screenwriter Ernie Altbacker as they share their thoughts and insights on Batman: Hush.
• A Sneak Peek at the next DC Universe Movie, Wonder Woman: Bloodlines (HD, 10:00) – Here we have an advanced look at the next animated film in the popular DC Universe Movies collection.
• A Preview of Batman: Assault on Arkham (HD, 7:29) – I can’t recommend watching the full movie version of this film enough.  It’s one of my favorite DC Animated titles.  It’s on 4K too here.
• From the DC Comics Vault – Batman: The Animated Series, “Catwalk” (HD, 21:17)
• Trailers

Summary 

My final recommendation here is to stick with the comic book version of the Batman: Hush storyline.  While this animated feature isn’t completely awful or anything like that there’s just a lot of things sorely missing from the deep story the comic books delivered on.  That sounds weird coming from me where ordinarily I’d watch a movie any day over having to actually read something, but I digress.  After the previous few Batman home video releases the past couple years this one just falls a tad short of the finish line for me.  Your results may vary, but you’ve been warned nonetheless.  Enjoy!

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DISCLAIMER: This 4K Ultra HD Blu-ray review was judged and graded using the following 4K certified Ultra HD Premium television set found here and player here.  Make sure to check out all our 4K Ultra HD Blu-ray reviews archived here.  The images used above within the review are not actual 4K screenshots.  They are for illustrative purposes only.  

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Batman: Hush!

Quietly Sneaks Onto

4K Ultra HD Blu-ray

August 6th

PRE-ORDER NOW!

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