Justice League: Throne of Atlantis [Blu-Ray]
Director: Ethan Spaulding
Cast: Jason O’Mara, Matt Lanter, Christopher Gorham (VOICES)
Release Date: Own it today on Blu-Ray Combo Pack, DVD & Digital HD
A Review By: Kevin Lovell
Film Rating: 7/10
Disc Rating: 9/10
Plot Summary:
In the aftermath of Justice League: War, the world is at peace or so it seems. When Atlantis attacks the Metropolis for the death of their king. But the Queen has different plans and requires the Justice League to find her lost son. But while they search for him, Atlantian troops; lead by Ocean Master, continue their assault. Who will win?
Serving as a follow-up (or sequel if you will) to the recent DC Animated Film ‘Justice League: War’ (which you can read my review of here), the latest entry in the DC Animated Universe continues the adventures of the Justice League (based on DC’s ‘The New 52’ full on comic universe reboot) and introduces Arthur Curry (aka Aquaman) to the fold. When Arthur is contacted by a strange yet beautiful woman, he learns the truth about his mother and is beckoned to Atlantis itself in order to help his mother thwart his evil half brother. While this task may be too much for Arthur to handle on his own, fortunately with a little help from the heroes of the Justice League, he might just stand a chance.
Ethan Spaulding is at the helm as director once again for ‘Justice League: Throne of Atlantis’, having recently served as director for ‘Son of Batman’ as well as co-director on ‘Batman: Assault on Arkham’ and Spaulding does a solid job yet again. The voice cast this time around consists of a number of folks reprising their voice roles from JL: War, while a number of others are recast. The returning voice cast from JL: War includes Jason O’Mara (Batman), Sean Astin (Shazam), and Christopher Gorham (The Flash) among others, while the new voices this time around include Jerry O’Connell (Superman), Rosario Dawson (Wonder Woman), Nathan Fillion (Green Lantern) and many more. Some of the voices are spot-on and great selections for the characters, but there are also a few that seem to not fit the shoes quite as well as others; fortunately that is something you can get past for the most part.
‘Justice League: Throne of Atlantis’ delivers plenty of action-packed fun and adventure in this solid follow-up to ‘Justice League: War’ and does a pretty good job of properly introducing Justice League alumni Aquaman into the current ‘New 52’ Justice League series. The character of Arthur Curry is provided a large amount of screen time which allows a pretty thorough introduction, although also harms the film at the same time to a degree by detracting from the rest of the Justice League members we all know and love, who while they are still present, it’s in more of a supporting role in ‘Throne of Atlantis’. Nonetheless it’s another exciting and action-packed addition to the DC Animated Universe that fellow fans will definitely not want to miss out and will almost surely want to pick up a copy of the Blu-Ray release to add to their collections.
VIDEO:
The Blu-Ray release of ‘Justice League: Throne of Atlantis’ features a full 1080p High Definition presentation utilizing the film’s original 1.78:1 Aspect Ratio. The video presentation looks pretty solid overall, the colors rich and bright, the movement and animation sharp and detailed. The video does suffer from the usual banding issues that seem to be consistently present on the DC Animated Film releases, yet aside from the (at times heavy) banding issues, everything else looks pretty great as a whole.
AUDIO:
The Blu-Ray release features a lossless 5.1 channel DTS-HD Master Audio soundtrack. Once again, the lossless multichannel soundtrack is definitely the most notable aspect of the release and it sounds great, contributing a lot to the overall fun of the film. It takes every opportunity that it’s presented to utilize all five available channels and there is a lot of activity making their way throughout all five speakers and immersing the viewer in the action, while never negatively affecting or detracting from the audibility of any dialogue occurring simultaneously. This 5.1 channel DTS-HD MA soundtrack gets high marks and is quite a bit of fun.
SPECIAL FEATURES:
The Blu-Ray release of ‘Justice League: Throne of Atlantis’ includes a pretty nice collection of bonus content for the fellow DC fans out there to enjoy. Included on the Blu-Ray release is an Isolated Score track for the film, plus a Sneak Peek of the next DC Animated Film ‘Batman vs. Robin’ which runs approximately 10 minutes in length and takes a Behind the Scenes look at the upcoming film and features interviews with the crew. Also included on the release are a couple of Behind The Scenes Featurette’s that take a look at different aspects involved with bringing ‘Throne of Atlantis’ to life. The included Featurette’s are ‘Villains of the Deep’ (which runs approximately 11 minutes) and ‘Scoring Atlantis: The Sound of the Deep’ (which runs approximately 30 minutes). Also included is a bonus animated short titled ‘Robin and Nightwing’ which features an introduction by James Tucker, the Executive Producer of the DC-DTV Line. The ‘Throne of Atlantis 2014 NY Comic-Con Panel’ and the usual 4 bonus cartoon episodes ‘From the DC Comics Vault’ round out the bonus content included on the Blu-Ray release. It should also be noted that a large majority of the included Bonus Content is Blu-Ray exclusive and therefore will not be available on the DVD release.
*Please note that the above images are taken from the Blu-Ray and resized. They additionally will suffer quality loss as a result of .jpg compression. Larger versions of each image can be viewed by clicking on the image. All images and content included on this Blu-Ray release are the property of their respective owners.