Catwoman: Hunted [Blu-Ray]

Director: Shinsuke Terasawa

Cast: Elizabeth Gillies, Stephanie Beatriz, Jonathan Banks (VOICES)

Release Date: February 8, 2022

A Review By: Kevin Lovell

Film Rating: 5.5/10
Disc Rating: 8/10

Synopsis:

In the all-new original Catwoman: Hunted, Catwoman’s attempt to steal a priceless jewel puts her squarely in the crosshairs of both a powerful consortium of villains and the ever-resourceful Interpol, not to mention Batwoman. It might just be enough to contain her. Or not.

Please Note: Warner Bros. Home Entertainment provided me with a free copy of the Blu-ray I reviewed in this Post. The opinions I share are my own.

Our favorite diabolic feline is back in ‘Catwoman: Hunted’ which follows Catwoman/Selina Kyle as she steals a priceless jewel only to have it be used against her by Batwoman and some associates who are intent on utilizing the gem in order to track down an underground group of villains whose reach is becoming a threat to the world itself. Unable to turn down the deal presented to her, Catwoman teams up with Batwoman in order to locate these supervillains and attempt to put a stop to their plans. But is Catwoman really a team player with the intention of helping, or is it merely another con by Selina? With this dangerous thief, it’s anyone’s guess.

‘Catwoman: Hunted’ delivers a unique and fairly enjoyable new animated DC movie that’s quite unlike the majority of these animated films both in appearance and also in formula to a degree. As opposed to the more standard animation style, ‘Catwoman: Hunted’ is clearly heavily influenced by anime more than anything else, with the look of the characters, general style of the animation and even some of the reactions all following patterns most commonly associated with anime, yet with the dialogue and other elements sticking to more typical American tropes as well as being presented in English dialogue. The film finds multiple ways to incorporate the action and various fight sequences throughout to avoid ever allowing the film to become dull, and the 79 minute runtime certainly keeps things brisk and fast paced in its own right.

By going out of its way to find excuses for one fight after another it unfortunately ends up causing a somewhat jumbled story with little to no actual character growth or noticeable progression occurring, instead using the narrative primarily to find ways for each over the top action sequence to feel organic. Something in which it does succeed at occasionally, although the fact that the story basically wraps up only to have two more huge and largely unnecessary battles thrown our way feels more like the approach to a video game than a movie. Director Shinsuke Terasawa does a nice job of making the anime style feel unique throughout and guides along the film quite capably, while the solid voice cast including Elizabeth Gillies, Stephanie Beatriz, Jonathan Banks, Steve Blum, Lauren Cohan, Keith David and more helps significantly to at least make this a thoroughly fun ride that’s probably still worth taking.

Overall, ‘Catwoman: Hunted’ is an exciting and action-packed ride that’s quite a bit of fun throughout, aiming for thrilling action and fight sequences over a well-crafted story. When it all comes together it results in a fairly average outing that might slightly disappoint those hoping for a real story or character growth with their action, although those who just want to experience eighty minutes of fast paced fun, action and excitement should certainly at least have a lot of fun with this one. ‘Catwoman: Hunted’ is recommended for fans of the DC Animated Movies in general and even more so for dedicated fans of Catwoman, Batwoman and Black Mask who each play a significant part in the tale. While I would definitely encourage giving it a chance, it probably wouldn’t hurt to try and find a rental option before dropping the money on a purchase just to be safe.

VIDEO:

The Blu-ray release of ‘Catwoman: Hunted’ features a full 1080p High Definition presentation with the film’s original 1.78:1 Aspect Ratio. The video presentation looks pretty wonderful as a whole and provides a sharp, richly colored and nicely detailed presentation from start to finish with no notable problems or issues to be uncovered throughout. It holds up great even during the various fast moving and heavily populated action sequences of which there are quite a few, and aside from a few brief and largely unnoticeable bits of noise which are pretty rare, it delivers admirably without ever allowing anything occurring onscreen to become problematic. Overall, this is a solid high definition video presentation that shouldn’t have any trouble pleasing fans.

AUDIO:

The Blu-ray release features a 5.1 channel DTS-HD Master Audio soundtrack. This multichannel soundtrack delivers a crisp, aggressive and fairly immersive audio presentation throughout. It frequently takes advantage of all five available channels in order to send the music, along with action effects and plenty more zipping throughout the various speakers quite regularly, and never resulting in any dialogue or other audio elements that might be occurring simultaneously becoming distorted or rendered inaudible in the process. Overall, this is a great 5.1 DTS-HD MA soundtrack that repeatedly contributes some extra fun to the viewing experience throughout and should not disappoint.

SPECIAL FEATURES:

The Blu-ray release of ‘Catwoman: Hunted’ includes a couple of notable extras in the way of two Featurettes; the first Featurette ‘When the Hunter Becomes the Hunted’ (running approximately 19 minutes in length) explores the new film and the ideas behind it, while the second ‘Catwoman: The Feline Femme Fatale’ (running approximately 40 minutes) explores the character of Catwoman as a whole as well as her various on-screen portrayals.

*Please note that the above images are taken from the Blu-Ray and resized. They will additionally 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.

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Film Rating: 5.5/10
Disc Rating: 8/10

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‘Catwoman: Hunted’ is Now Available to Own on 4K Ultra HD, Blu-ray & Digital from DC Entertainment & Warner Bros. Entertainment

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