The Movie
Pulling together events from multiple popular Batman storylines, Under the Red Hood begins with a glimpse of the still-controversial four-issue "A Death in the Family" arc from 1989 and takes it in some shocking new directions. Scripted by Judd Winick and adapted from his recent "Under the Hood" tale, Red Hood introduces a murderous new crook who shows up in Gotham and ruthlessly seizes control of the city's booming drug trade. He also takes on Batman and Dick Grayson--the original Robin who has grown up to become the solo crimefighter Nightwing--and wins! But is he hungry for illicit wealth and power, or is he after something more? Why is he wearing a red hood, a familiar motif in Batman lore, including the origin of The Joker? And what's Red Hood's relation to Jason Todd, the second Robin, savagely beaten and blown to bits years ago?
An interesting new lineup of voice actors headed by the paternal Bruce Greenwood as Bruce Wayne/Batman lends strong emotion to this often brutal exploration of justice, ethics and revenge, the latest in DC Comics' string of straight-to-disc PG-13 original movies.
The Picture
Despite some hard ringing in soft backgrounds and some fine lines that can give way to aliasing and twitch, I found Red Hood to look quite respectable for a direct-to-video offering. The 1.78:1 image shows lots of detail in the video displays studied by the characters for example, right down to the faux scan lines. The animation is all digital these days, but with a somewhat traditional style and distinctive artwork, boasting mostly clean, crisp lines and even certain photo-realistic elements.
The Sound
High-resolution audio is back! After a couple of Dolby Digital-only releases in this series, Warner Premiere defaults to DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1 for Red Hood and it pays off. The soft electronic ticking of a countdown timer gives way to a big explosion, with bass that is solid throughout although frankly I would have enjoyed even more. There's lots of aggressive, well-defined action, with whizzing arrows and bullets and grappling guns that flaunt a thrilling directionality across the multichannel soundfield.
The Extras
The original short adventure "DC Showcase - Jonah Hex" is no doubt playing into the release of this summer's live-action feature film. It runs twelve minutes and is the only extra here in real high definition. A pair of "Behind the Story" documentary featurettes analyzes one of Batman's central character dynamics. "Robin: The Story of Dick Grayson" reveals the origins and significance of The Dark Knight's first sidekick, and "Robin's Requiem: The Tale of Jason Todd" (21 minutes) gathers many of the same expert voices to weigh in on Dick's first replacement. ("Jason Todd" is a Blu-ray-exclusive.) These, and the rest of the video content on the disc, are a sort of pseudo-HD, a low-bitrate VC-1 that looks like DVD quality.
"Bruce Timm's Top Picks" from Batman: The Animated Series and The New Batman Adventures collects four TV episodes pertinent to the Red Hood story, versus two on the special edition DVD. Included are "Robin's Reckoning" Parts 1 and 2, "Mad Love" and "The Laughing Fish," about an hour and a half total. A Digital Copy is available at no extra charge, to download via an online code inside the package, Windows Media only. I guess the days of iTunes-compatible Digital Copy for these DC Universe titles are just over.
We're also given a 12-minute first look at the upcoming Superman/Batman Apocalypse movie, coming to disc this fall.
Final Thoughts
An entertaining and rather violent treatise on Robins past, Batman: Under the Red Hood is one of the best-produced installments in the DC animated movie series thus far, and a must-see for modern Bat-buffs with an appreciation for The Caped Crusader's long and illustrious history.
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