DC Super Hero Girls: Legends Of Atlantis (DVD Review)
The DC Super Hero Girls of the appropriately named Super Hero High are back in action and taking it to the seas. Wonder Woman, Bumblebee, Batgirl and Supergirl will be meeting up with their underwater cohorts Mera and Siren in this brand new DVD adventure. Hmmm, October DC animated release features Aquaman characters with Aquaman hitting theaters in December. Hmmm…nah, couldn’t be right? Of course they’re warming up and priming the young ones. If you want to prime yours for the Jason Mamoa-led James Wan live action Aquaman film this December, you’ll want to grab a copy of this new DC Super Hero Girls DVD when it arrives in store both online and physical on October 2nd. Check out the review link to secure you rcopy.
Film 
It seems like an uneventful day at school until the powerful Book of Legends is suddenly stolen from Super Hero High. In order to uncover the mystery, Wonder Woman, Batgirl, Supergirl, Bumblebee and the rest of the Super Crew must journey through the depths of the ocean to Atlantis. There, the girls encounter Mera and Siren, the ocean-dwelling thieves, who prove to be a formidable match. In order to recover the stolen tome and return it to its rightful place, DC Super Hero Girls must band together and use their collective powers to successfully get back to land…and back to class!
This is the first I’ve covered the ACTUAL DC Super Hero Girls show I think. I’ve done a few of their LEGO adventures, but never the flagship program. Its a fantastic idea, finally breaking some ground in catering to a more female-centric side of children’s entertainment based on comic book characters. I bought the hell out of the initial launch of figures and costumes for my daughter when it came out, and luckily she loves them! What is great about this show is that its not just “for girls”, a boy could easily fall for this thing as the humor and characters are pretty on-point and not just “girls only”.
Legends of Atlantis is an easy marketing strategy to prepare the kids to tell their parents they want to go see the new Aquaman movie later this year. Our heroes are introduced to the undersea characters of Mera and Siren, as are probably most of them. Oh, and yeah, Aquaman is there too. The adventure is what it is, and is a very kid’s show kinda thing, but what they enjoy is seeing the characters interact and kick butt. And with regards there, they’ll excelled.
DC Super Hero Girls latest is a fun little jaunt for what it is. My only grievance is the format they continue to release these on, but it is what it is. Like any release of its ilk, and being the comic book super hero fan I am, I say you should really pick this up for your kids. This series is one of the areas where DC is covering ground head first where Marvel is dragging its feet. Overall, not for me, but it wasn’t created with me and mind and I’m glad for it. Let the kiddos have their own!
Video 
Encoding: MPEG-2 NTSC
Resolution: 480i
Aspect Ratio: 1.78:1
Layers: DVD-9
Clarity/Detail: When it comes to 2-D animated TV shows, you can coast by on a DVD being all right most of the time. However, this latest DC Super Hero Girls release is quite soft looking, a little blurred, lacking any real sense of crispness. Details are okay and I do think the colors come across with some decent vividness. However, on a 4K television, this wasn’t much fun on the eyes. Especially when this is a program you know has a high definition presentation on television.
Depth: As expected due to the combination of the style of animation and the limitations of the DVD disc, its pretty flat. Motion can be a bit blurred when frantic.
Black Levels:Blacks are just black here with decent darkness to it. Crushing does occur but it rather outlines things pretty decently.
Color Reproduction: Colors have a more limited platted and don’t amuse in the saturation department. They do come off as vivid as they can do pop a little in the purples, green, yellows and reds.
Flesh Tones: N/A
Noise/Artifacts: You typical DVD image related issues do occur here, like aliasing and the like as to be expected.
Audio
Audio Format(s): English 5.1 Dolby Digital, French 5.1 Dolby Digital, Spanish 5.1 Dolby Digital
Subtitles: English SDH, French, Chinese, Spanish
Dynamics: DC Super Hero Girls: Legends of Atlantis has a solid, loud presentation here on DVD. Its surprisingly more intricate with movement and design than you’d think. The best thing about it is that it utilizes the subwoofer well and has some power.
Height: N/A
Low Frequency Extension: Magical wooshes, crashing, battle sounds landing and more get a nice rumble or bump from the subwoofer.
Surround Sound Presentation: While a lot of this takes place in the front, there is plenty of unique activity and assistance coming from the back, especially in the underwater sequences. There was a cool moment where Siren summoned something up and it loudly began in the rear and shot to the front.
Dialogue Reproduction: Vocals are clear and discernible at all times no matter how loud or quiet the scene in question is.
Extras
DC Super Hero Girls: Super High [Special Episode 2016] (SD, 44:46) – A previously aired TV special.
Trailers (SD, 3:33) – Daphne & Velma, Alex & Me
Summary
DC Super Hero Girls: Legends of Atlantis is a solid contribution from this sect of DC that aims to get some youngsters ready for Aquaman this winter. The DVD has a subpar and disappointing video presentation couple with some solid audio. There is a double-length episode here as a bonus feature giving you 2 hours of entertainment at a pretty decent low cost (Though I’d say $7.99-9.99 is the perfect price for this). If you’ve got little ones, this is a really cool series to get them into.
