Author: Robert Greenberger

Yes, gaining great power brings with it great responsibility but that does not mean a character cannot revel in the sudden ability to do the seemingly impossible. After a decade of films with tortured protagonists, all in the name of gritty reality, the arrival of the CW’s The Flash series has garnered near universal praise because, for a change, the protagonist is having some fun. Out now from Warner Home Entertainment, The Flash: The Complete First Season is well worth having.

Grant Gustin makes for an appealing and engaging Barry Allen because he’s young and an unlikely hero, who is having fun running faster than the speed of sound. He’s a pumped, hyper-active puppy hero, eager to use his powers for as much good as possible, from helping paint buildings to rescuing stray animals. He wants to do it all and thinks he can.

Along the 22 episodes of the first season, he was coming to terms with the changes in his life from the fun to the tragic as his newfound abilities opened up new clues into the investigation of his mother’s murder when he was a young child.

Spinning off from Arrow, the new series worked hard to differentiate itself from the darker show. Still, it couldn’t entirely avoid the structure of a support team, all of whom know his true identity. Here’s he’s aided by Dr. Caitlin Snow (Danielle Panabaker) and the tech wiz uber-geek Cisco Ramon (Carlos Valdes).  Both work at S.T.A.R. Laboratories in the employ of Dr. Harrison Wells (Tom Cavanagh), who was the catalyst for accident that resulted in Barry gaining super speed. Wells is more than he seems from the outset and with every episode another layer is peeled away, a far more successful rolling out of a Big Bad than Arrow managed in three seasons.

Barry also has a home team in the form of Detective Joe West (Jesse L. Martin), who took the young Barry in after his father, Henry (John Wesley Shipp), was arrested and jailed for the murder of his wife. As a result, he grew up with Iris West (Candace Patton) as a sister, someone he had fallen for although she fell, instead, for dad’s partner Eddie Thawne (Rick Cosnett).

From the outset, comic book fans had familiar names and all served as trigger warnings to future events, some of which will occur in season two, launching this week. The winks and nods are nicely handled and not overdone. They are there for a reason, and unlike in Gotham, they modify not ignore the source material. This includes Caitlin’s lover, Ronnie Raymond, who seemingly died in the same accident but actually merged with Prof. Martin Stein (Victor Garber) to form Firestorm.
If there’s a fault to the first season is that they have too many characters introduced, some dispatched with speed such as Simon Stagg (William Sadler), and others arriving and going without much consequence such as Dr. Tina McGee (Amanda Pays). Rather than focus on Barry and the Flash persona, time is given over to the development of Firestorm and later the Atom (Brandon Routh). And while its fun seeing the two series casts interact with ease, it again takes time away from developing the supporting cast. While we know something of Cisco’s past, Caitlin is fun but underdeveloped, which made “Who Is Harrison Wells?” such a fun turn for the actress.

The rogues, especially Captain Cold (Wentworth Miller) are resonant from the four-color pages but Cold in particular has a nicely developing persona and relationship with the Flash. Tying Girder (Greg Finley) to Barry’s past was also nicely done.
It’s a wonderfully, satisfying and strong debut season and listening to the production team discuss it on the bonus material shows the level of detail brought to the plots and effects. The first season is spread across four Blu-ray discs, each containing some deleted scenes, some of which I wish made to air.
There’s also enlightening commentary from executive producers Greg Berlanti and Andrew Kreisberg, and DC Chief Creative Officer Geoff Johns on Disc 1’s “Pilot”.

In addition to the deleted scenes, there are several nice special features such as Disc 3’s “Behind the Story: The Trickster Returns!” (8:39), exploring Mark Hamill’s return to his character of The Trickster and what went into the episode.

On Disc 4, there’s “The Fastest Man Alive” (30:39) exploring the process of going from four-color comic to network series. There’s a lot of interesting tidbits in this one. Mostly for fans of special effects, “Creating the Blur: The VFX of ‘The Flash'” (26:25). A nice bonus is “The Chemistry of Emily and Grant” (4:20), the test footage between Grant Gustin and Arrow’s Emily Bett Rickards. Repurposed across multiple episode sets is “DC Comics Night at Comic-Con 2014” (29:31). Finally, there’s the usual Gag Reel (8:24).

We’ve been asked to reconsider our enjoyment of Marvel’s Avengers: Age of Ultron in the wake of the corporate shuffling that sees Kevin Feige reign supreme. Scuttlebutt has it the film was a disappointment to Walt Disney but one has to wonder how a global box office take of $1.4 billion (as of this weekend) can be a disappointment.  Shot with a mammoth $250 million budget, the film needed to earn only about $800 million to be profitable (before licensing and ancillary revenue) so it has to be a financial success.

A critical success is something else. According to Rotten Tomatoes, it is 74% fresh although audiences liked it 86% of the time. Now yes, it is far lower than the 92% the first Avengers film did, but let’s face it, nothing like that had ever been tried on film and it worked beyond anyone’s expectations.

And the expectations were incredibly high this time around as we got Ultron, the deadliest and most powerful of the Avengers rogues plus the introduction of Quicksilver (Aaron Taylor-Johnson), Scarlet Witch (Elizabeth Olsen), and the Vision so we knew going in this was going to be more packed than before. That writer/director Joss Whedon managed to make it work so well at all is to be commended.

The film is out now on Digital HD and hits stores October 3 on in a Blu-ray combo pack from Walt Disney Home Entertainment. It stands up well to a second viewing. I was sent a Digital HD code and can say the crisp color and strong audio were excellent both on my laptop and on my television via Chromecast.

The film nicely bridges the events from the first film, with Loki’s powerful staff located and taken from a wounded but clearly not dead Hydra (the set up for which was aided by ABC’s Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D.). We open with the team arriving in time to get the staff from Baron Strucker (Thomas Kretschmann) but what do you do when you have absolute power at your fingertips?

If you’re Tony Stark (Robert Downey Jr.), you use if for good, coaxing your egghead buddy Bruce Banner (Mark Ruffalo) into helping you use the power to create an android that would help them police the world. As the artificial intelligence is incubating, they briefly debate the ethics then go party with the team in one of the nicer ensemble moments. However, the A.I. , now called Ultron (James Spader), breaks into the Avengers’ swanky HQ and soundly beats them, propelling the story.

There’s a lot of meat to chew on between punches. While the fights be one too many or perhaps just each one is too long, the themes of power and responsibility echo clearly. There’s a nice moment between Stark and Steve Rogers (Chris Evans) that also sets the stage for next May’s Captain America: Civil War.

This is where the film gets rubbery and weak. We’ve closing out Phase Two and setting up Phase Three of the Marvel Cinematic Universe, and we’re expanding the cast of players rather quickly. As a result, what we loved about the first film is less prevalent here. Time has to be given to the introduction of the powerful siblings, the creation of the Vision (Paul Bettany), Ultron’s plans, and a set up for the eventual Black Panther film with a needless plotline involving Ulysses Klaw (Andy Serkis).

What is more welcome, though, is the middle section as the fractured team retreats from Ultron to a private home, where we learn that Clint Barton (Jeremy Renner) is happily married to Susan (Linda Cardellini), raising two kids between assignments. The reminder of what they’re fighting for is nice and it does give us some of the film’s strongest character moments (a little more of the contrast between heroes and mere mortals would have been welcome) from the Stark-Rogers confrontation to the budding romance between Natasha Romanov (Scarlett Johansson) and Banner.

But then we’re globetrotting, all to prevent Ultron from lifting up a small European country and using it to destroy the world, fulfilling its programming in an unanticipated manner. There’s some wonderful action moments in the second half, some good stunts, some lovely CGI, but after a time, it becomes just so much noise so you just want it over. When Mjolnir helps bring the fight to an end, we’re very thankful.

In true Avengers style, now that the premier heroes have had their films and been in two Avengers features of their own, the spotlight is being shifted to the newcomers: Falcon (Anthony Mackie), War Machine (Don Cheadle),  Scarlet Witch, and Vision. It is true to the comic series and does stir things up, especially to see how they function together next year before they presumably take center stage in the two-part Avengers: Infinity War later this decade.

The Blu-ray and Digital HD will come with a limited assortment of features, but enough to keep you interested. There’s a brief review of the four already-seen Infinity stones in The Infinite Six (7:31) and you can sightsee during the briefer travelogue Global Adventure (3:00). More satisfying is From The Inside Out – Making Of Avengers: Age Of Ultron (20:53) which shows you just how the CGI for Ultron and Hulk worked and you will be even more impressed with the performances from Spader and Ruffalo. The Gag Reel (3:36) is the usual assortment of pratfalls and blown lines but far more interesting are the Deleted Scenes. You get a much better sense of the stakes in The Norn Cave (3:44) and Bruce and Natasha Talk (4:21). Interesting but less vital are Watch Your Six (2:49) and The Man in the Church (1:11).

Those purchasing the Digital HD through Disney Anywhere will also receive the exclusive Connecting The Universe (4:53) which is incomplete but nicely connects the dots of the cosmic doings, setting up the next two Avengers films, closing out Phase 3.

Pitch Perfect snuck up on us as a charming, funny film that took the national interest in all things acapella and grafted it onto the teen Coming of Age story template from Bring it On. With a strong ensemble and winning soundtrack, it wowed at the box office, making a singing star of Anna Kendrick, and ensuring there’d be a sequel.

If the film had any fault it was that some elements were so outsized they seemed incongruous with the rest of the story, such as the force and volume of Anna Camp’s projectile vomiting or Renee Wilson’s super-sized characterization.

Unfortunately, the trend towards bigger and more preposterous elements plagues Pitch Perfect 2, out now on Blu-ray Combo Pack from Universal Home Entertainment. At a performance before President Obama, Fat Amy has a wardrobe malfunction that gets televised but the reaction is far more extreme than Janet Jackson’s real life exposure during the far better watched Super Bowl.

As a result, the Barden Bellas are now pariahs both on campus and in the acapella competition world. Of course, there’s a loophole which they exploit so the disgraced national champions prepare to compete in the International Competition against a German team that works with stereotypical efficiency. They are the goliaths to beat and we all know they will be taken down a notch with heart and soul.

The film barely pauses to introduce the full Bella squadron so few actually feel like characters as opposed to window dressing. Instead, we focus on Kendrick’s character, who has over the last three years become the leader. But, she wants more and secretly takes an internship at a recording company where she faces new challenges, shaking her from her mash-up comfort zone.

Impossibly, the Bellas are all seniors so graduation looms and until a freshman arrives to join the team, there is little thinking about continuing their legacy or domination. But legacy becomes an undercurrent as Emily (Hailee Steinfeld), daughter of a former Bella (Katy Segal) forces her way into the group. Being the younger outsider does for this film what Kendrick’s Beca did in the first and she is utterly charming in her innocence.

The broad humor does not work for me at all, as I prefer the subtler, funnier bits such as Kendrick’s fascination with her German rival Kommissar (Birgitte Hjort-Sørensen). Or the clearly ad-libbed and inappropriate comments from podcasters

The team’s antics reach a nadir with a senior home performance so they go to seek their mojo from Camp’s Aubrey, now a motivational guru. Cohesive once more, they work hard for worlds and win (not a spoiler) and their performance is all you want from this film.

A third installment is in the works and one hopes that the transition to a mostly-new Bellas will bring with it a downshift in tone so they avoid embarrassing themselves.

The digital transfer is just fine with an excellent 1080p transfer matched with the more important DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1 lossless soundtrack that makes the songs pop.

The Combo pack comes with Blu-ray, DVD, and Digital HD. The Special Features are plentiful but perfunctory. There’s a Bonus Song Performed by The Treblemakers (3:27): The song follows an introduction; Extended Musical Performances: Bellas (1:58), Das Sound Machine (1:23), and Bellas: Finale Clap-Along (0:44); Das Sound Machine Finale Breakdown (2:06) so you can hear each layer on its own; Deleted/Extended/Alternate Scenes: Jesse Drops Off Beca At Work — Extended (1:46), Treble Party — Alternate (1:00), Bumper Arrives at Treble Party (1:18), Treble Party — Extended (1:04), Car Show: “Farter” (0:56), Intro to Mansion — Extended (1:35), Beat Box — Extended (1:21), Setting Up Tents — Deleted (1:50), and Amy and Bumper Make-Up — Alternate (1:32); a fun Gag Reel (3:08);  Line-Aca-Rama (3:36), alternate takes; Green Bay Rap (0:52), yes, those are the pro football players and film fans in their glory;  Elizabeth Banks’ Directorial Debut (5:20), a celebration of the actress’ ascension to behind the camera; The Bellas Are Back (6:13); Aca-Camp (1080p, 5:04);  The Making of the Riff-Off (6:02), a closer look at the underground sing off that seems out of place until they explain why it’s in the film; The World Championships of A Cappella (9:30), when Baton Rouge was used as Denmark; Snoop Is in the House (2:53), Snoop Dogg’s cameo is highlighted; Residual Heat Internship (2:26), as Beca works for the unnamed character played by Keegan-Michael Key; An Aca-Love Story: Bumper and Fat Amy (5:26), exploring the improbable Adam DeVine-Rebel Wilson romance; and finally,  Legacy: Hailee Steinfeld (6:04).

There is additional Audio Commentary from Director/Producer Elizabeth Banks and Producers Paul Brooks and Max Handelman which actually tells you more about the film’s production than all of the above.

The Inker’s Shadow
By Allen Say
Scholastic Graphix, 80 pages, $19.99

Growing up a Japanese youth during World War II must have been a dizzying time and rich with memories and material for narratives. Allen Say has been mining those remembrances in a series of graphic memoirs, the latest of which is out from Scholastic. The Inker’s Shadow picks up from his The Ink-Keeper’s Apprentice which was released in 1994.

Say was born in 1937 as Japanese aggression was at its height and was the product of a Japanese-American mother and Korean father. Four years after his parents divorced, he apprenticed himself to cartoonist, Noro Shinpei, who became his “spiritual father:” When his real father remarried and started a second family, he moved to the United States and invited Say to join him.

Being a Japanese teen in California less than a decade after the end of World War II brought with it prejudices and tensions that complicated Say’s assimilation to his new home. Here’s where this volume picks up and we see him struggle to make friends, learn English, and continue to develop his art. There was an initial, disastrous experience in military school His father’s inattention did little to help and Say struggled.

Things did not improve until he enrolled at Citrus Union High School, whose principal, Nelson Price, saw the young Say’s potential. Say studied, painted, and held a part-time job while still mastering American cultural mores.

His pages mix prose, illustration, and graphic storytelling seamlessly, carrying the reader through these trying experiences. We see close-minded adults, arrogant, privileged children, and the first true friends Say made in the United States. There’s a poignant moment toward the end as Say prepares to take a girl to the prom only to have his heart crushed.

Still, Say’s perseverance sees him through to his high school graduation and as the book concludes, one chapter closes and we see him on his way.

Overall, this provides a unique view into the immigrant experience at a particular point in American life, just as the Cold War was gripping the country’s psyche and conformity was becoming the watchword of the decade. Say’s individuality is challenged time and again but through his art and work ethic, we watch him gain confidence and skill, putting him on a path that has seen him win the coveted Caldecott Medal, Boston Globe/Horn Book Award, and ALA Notable Book and Best Book for Young Adults.

Homeland has been a strong drama series that has tackled timely issues mixed with interesting personal drama. However, its third season meandered a bit so it was refreshing to see the fourth go round return to stronger, more dynamic storytelling. With the Nicholas Brody (and his family) thread now neatly snipped off, the focus has returned to driven, flawed Carrie Mathison (Claire Danes) and the shadowy world of espionage.

Homeland The Complete Fourth Season is now out on a three disc Blu-ray set from 20^th Century Home Entertainment. The revitalized series picks up with Carrie now in Kabul as a station chief, using reliable intelligence fed to her from a resource to target terrorists and take them out. That is, until one attack destroys a civilian home, amidst a wedding celebration no less. The target escapes and the groom has also survived and becomes the fulcrum upon which the season’s major arc revolves.

Carrie is a great field operative but not much of a station chief, barking orders and doing nothing to build relationships with her team. Life in Afghanistan is busy enough but things change when Pakistan chief Sandy Bachman (Corey Stoll) uses bad intel that results in a civilian home being destroyed. When Bachman is attacked on the streets and killed in a retaliatory action for bombing the house, a guilty Carrie gets involved in the investigation, forcing her way into becoming his replacement where she repeats her bad management and lack of trust. This means that rather than trusting and using her team, she winds up working with those form her past including Saul Berenson (Mandy Patinkin), who has his own issues with Dar Adal (F. Murray Abraham), Fara Sherazi (Nazanin Boniadi), and of course the enigmatic Peter Quinn (Rupert Friend). In fact, Quinn’s story arc this season started off strong and petered out once he was caught up in Carrie’s magnetic pull.

There’s a lot of plotting, moves, and countermoves but it all builds to Saul getting kidnapped and his attempts at escape while target/Taliban leader Haissam Haqqani (Numan Acar) is executing his own plot to infiltrate the CIA base and extract its secrets. The pacing is tight and builds to a nice crescendo in the final episodes as everything comes together. The larger issues reflect the contentious relationships in Afghanistan, Pakistan, and those who resettled from those lands in America along with how American diplomats have to tread a fine line between frenemies. Carrie may also have met her match in Aasar Khan (Raza Jaffrey), Pakistan’s counter-terrorism expert.

There prices to be paid all around as allies die and Carrie is made to feel guilty for not being in America to raise her child. However, once the dust settles, Carrie comes home and even reconciles with her mother while Quinn is off on a dangerous mission that apparently does not set up the soon to launch season five. But it does leave Carrie and Saul far apart, which is a shame since they work so well together. But trust and friendship remain collateral damage in the very dangerous game they play.

The high definition AVC encoded 1080p transfer in 1.78:1 is perfectly fine as is the lossless DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1 track. There aren’t many special features to entice you and they are fairly perfunctory. You have a few nonessential Deleted Scenes (10:52), Character Profiles (16:56) featuring Peter Quinn, Aasar Khan and Fara Sherazi; and, From Script to Screen (23:17), the most unique feature.

While one of the strongest ensembles on television today, The Big Bang Theory has come to revolve around the socially awkward Sheldon (Jim Parsons), so it makes perfect sense that the eighth season began and ended with the brilliant scientist. Sandwiched in-between, the series slowly advanced the cast of characters through their lives and thankfully Chuck Lorre has not prevented them from growing.

Warner Bros Home Entertainment releases The Big Bang Theory The Complete Eighth Season this week and the combo pack contains all 245 episodes on Blu-ray and Digital HD. We open with Sheldon, 45 days after leaving on a train, only to call Leonard (Johnny Galecki) to come rescue him from Kingman, Arizona. Accompany him is Amy (Mayim Bialik), who has been hurt by Sheldon’s actions, which remains a recurring theme through the season, setting up the finale, where she puts their relationship on hold just as he was about to propose.

While their relationship foundered, the real winner this year has to be Penny (Kaley Cuoco-Sweeting) since she has come to realize she won’t make it as an actress and gives up waitressing to become a pharmaceutical salesman. And guess what? She’s good at it and is finally making money so we see how this does and does not change her as she and Leonard keep talking about their impending marriage.

The character who may have grown the most this season was Raj (Kunal Nayyar). Not only has he felt comfortable speaking to women, but he has endured one breakup and is now involved with Emily (Laura Spencer). At first, we think it’s an odd but sweet pairing but by the finale, we realize just how creepy she is which apparently propels Raj’s arc in the coming ninth season.

The season is also one of loss. First, and perhaps to foreshadow matters, the team clean out the office of a deceased professor and find a bottle of champagne he had stored for the day he made his big discovery, which never happened. And then, just as Stuart (Kevin Sussman) reopens the comic book store, Howard (Simon Helberg) learns of his mother’s death (prompted by the quick death of actress Carol Ann Susi). The remainder of the season follows the repercussions of her absence culminating in the wonderfully touching “The Leftover Thermalization”.

The season is filled with all the usual supporting players without losing the focus on the core characters, as the guests serve as foils such as when Wil Wheaton and Penny discuss the horrible film they made together. In some ways the strongest episode of the season is a result of the combustible meeting between Mary Cooper (Laurie Metcalf) and Beverly Hofstadler (Christine Beranski). And the geek quotient may have been diluted by the various romantic entanglements, it is not gone. The impromptu visit to Skywalker Ranch was a highlight.

The season-long threads come to a head in the finale which sees Sheldon and Amy in crisis while Leonard and Penny are ion the process of eloping. If there’s a false note in any of the brilliance, it’s Penny’s overreaction to the news that Leonard had a drunken kiss with a colleague while in Antarctica. Given her sexual past, her reaction, spilling into the season premiere in a few weeks, rings falsely.

Still, the series has sustained its premise and become a rich, endearing, and still uproariously funny series. The high definition transfer and audio are superb. There are six special features spaced between the two discs. We have the 2014 Comic-Con Panel, which is interesting for archival purposes, and Shooting Stars: BBT on BBT, a cleverly named bit about Billy Bon Thornton’s turn as a lecherous doctor.

It’s a Quark…It’s an Atom…It’s the #BBTSuperfnas! Which shows the winners of the international contest brought to the soundstage. While engaging, it would have been nicer to show us how they won and the challenges that earned them the points. Best is the loving tribute Here’s to You, Carol Ann Susi and cast and crew talked about the unseen actress’ impact on them and their characters. Finally, there’s a lengthy Gag Reel showing that the complicated dialogue is quite difficult to master.

Gotham arrived amidst a ton of hoopla and promised to be a fresh look at the intervening years between the deaths of Martha and Thomas Wayne and their son Bruce’s debut as Batman. Rich, fertile territory to explore, ripe for drama. What we were offered instead, was a hodge-podge of warmed over cop retreads and overstuffed with criminals who have no business operating in Gotham during this period. You can see this for yourself on the just-released Gotham: The Complete First Season from Warner Bros Home Entertainment.

It became fairly quickly after the promising pilot episode that the series was going to pay no attention whatsoever to the canonical material published by DC Comics. At best, they borrowed names and places and affixed them to characters they wanted to use, ignoring what made them work for the last 75 years.

Gotham is a dark, depressing place, rife with corruption, an ineffectual police department and too few citizens willing to fight to save their city. It appears the lone exception is James W. Gordon (Ben McKenzie), the only good cop on the GCPD. Everyone else apparently is in the pocket of Carmine Falcone (John Doman), Sal Maroni (David Zayas), or their underbosses. Over the course of the 22 episodes, we see little variation in this so when even heinous crimes are committed, Gordon stands in police HQ, doing his best to rally the troops and gets stared at.

His captain, Sarah Essen (Zabryna Guevara), has given up and his partner, Harvey Bullock (Donal Logue), is slowly climbing out of the criminal pocket, shaking his head in disbelief that he is actually coming over to see things Gordon’s way.

Gordon doesn’t seem to know what to do with himself. When he’s forced to kill Oswald Cobblepot (Robin Lord Taylor), he fakes the man’s death (which we all see coming back to bite him, and fast) the word is out that he’s now one of “them”. Rather than use it to his advantage, he lets it gnaw at him. He refuses to share with his fiancée, Barbara Kean (Erin Richards) and here, the producers appear to have added one supporting player too many. It took most of the season to conclude the producers had no idea what to do with her other than give her a former affair with Renee Montoya (Victoria Cartagena). She’s now in the looney bin which is shame since she winds up marrying Gordon in the comics.

Meantime, young Bruce Wayne (David Mazouz) is being raised solely by Alfred Pennyworth (Sean Pertwee) and the withdrawn, sullen 12 year old is trying train his body in fits and starts, using his already-keen mind to figure out who may have killed his parents, a trail that leads him to the deadly board of directors at Wayne Enterprises. He is also on the cusp of adulthood and can’t figure out his feelings for the fascinating street urchin and thief Selina Kyle (Camren Bicondova).

In the first season alone, producers Bruno Heller and Danny Cannon have given us Catwoman, Penguin, Mr. Szasz (Anthony Carrigan), Poison Ivy (Clare Foley), Riddler (Cory Michael Smith), Tommy Elliot (Cole Vallis), the Electrocutioner (Christopher Heyerdahl), the Scarecrow (Charlie Tahan), the Dollmaker (Colm Feore), the Ogre (Milo Ventimiglia), and maybe even the Joker. And we’re promised even more villains in the second season starting September 21.

The addition of Fish Mooney, a little too on the nose of a name, improves the male/female ratio but she is also a stock character without much to differentiate her although it is interesting to see Jada Pinkett Smith play against type. Her story arc was destined to end up short-lived but she was also given some of the most interesting material to work with.

So, Gordon remains the seemingly lone voice of reason in a city spiraling around the drain. He tells young Bruce that there is always hope and their budding relationship will inevitably lead the detective to figure out who the new dark knight is 13 years from now. The series, to be successful, has to tread that delicate line between utter defeat making Batman a necessity and Gordon a failure.

As a result, the show is a mess. Oddly, though, it’s a compelling mess that you keep coming back to check in and see if they’ve figured things out yet. The acting goes from square-jawed and wooden to outlandishly bad and caricatured. The writing is tedious and melodramatic, robbing interesting characters from saying interesting things. We’re told in the pilot that Thomas Wayne and Falcone both loved Gotham and were fighting, in their own ways, to preserve it. A great premise that went absolutely nowhere all season.

For a moody and atmospheric show, it has a dull color palette which transfers nicely to high definition disc. The combo pack comes with just four Blu-ray discs and a Digital HD code. The 1080p/AVC MPEG-4 video presentation makes a bad show lovely to look at. Coupled with a fine DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1 surround track you can hear it all.

The set comes with handful of average Special Features, starting with Gotham Invented (32:00), a three-part (“Building Our Gotham,” “Paving the Way for the Caped Crusader” and “Fractured Villains.”) behind-the-scenes look at how to study then ignore the source material; Designing the Fiction (20:00), a look at the process of making the city unique and timeless; The Game of Cobblepot (26:00), a profile on Robin Lord Taylor, one of the most arresting things about the series; The Legend Reborn (22:00), looking at the pilot’s shoot; DC Comics Night: Comic-Con 2014 (30:00): Gotham, Arrow and The Flash; Character Profiles (14:00), examining Jim Gordon, Oswald Cobblepot, Bruce Wayne, Alfred Pennyworth, Harvey Bullock, Fish Mooney, Dr. Leslie Thompkins and Killer Characters; Unaired Scenes (7:00); and finally, the Gag Reel (5:00).

Before post-apocalyptic fiction became in vogue, there was always a work or two that captured the imagination. From Cormac McCarthy’s The Road to Margaret Atwood’s The Handmaiden’s Tale there have been stories to challenge society. But few packed the visceral punch of the visuals Australian director George Miller brought to his bleak world in 1979’s Mad Max. It set a standard rarely surpassed and introduced us to the talent of Mel Gibson. The modest film found an international audience so Miller was able to revisit the world on a somewhat larger scale in 1982’s The Road Warrior. And that found an even more eager audience so Hollywood threw money at him and we got the somewhat over-the-top Beyond Thunderdome.

Miller has wanted to look back at that society and has spent the last three decades attempting to mount such a production but fate was unkind to him. Meanwhile, contemporary fiction and filmed entertainment caught up to him so dystopia is as common as the soap opera. Audiences were therefore a little cautious when they settled into their seats to see Mad Max: Fury Road. As you may have seen for yourself or heard, he was more than up for the challenge, as was Thomas Hardy, the new Max.

Max has lost everything and like many a good protagonist, he wanders the wasteland, a restless spirit. His chance encounters ignite the stories much as the orphaned children took him to Thunderdome, here his capture by a savage society led him to Imperator Furiosa (Charlize Theron). For all the heroics Max display here, this is truly Furiosa’s film and she has made an indelible impression on audiences around the world.

The film, out now on Digital HD and coming to disc Tuesday from Warner Home Entertainment, is well worth a look. While there isn’t an overly complex story don’t think there isn’t a story or a message in this high-octane chase. By the time Max finds her, she has stolen five women known as the Breeders, from Immortal Joe (Hugh Keays-Byrne), who has kept them in sexual bondage, seeking to generate male heirs to inherit his brutal control over the masses. She has The Splendid Angharad (Rosie Huntington-Whiteley), Toast the Knowing (Zoë Kravitz), Capable (Riley Keough), Cheedo the Fragile (Courtney Eaton) and The Dag (Abbey Lee) aboard an amazing machine and is taking them to the only safe place she knows, the land where she was raised.

While it’s her story, we see it from Max’s point of view, and are privy only to his thoughts. Still, Furiosa ignites the story and is active rather than reactive, something that has been debated online since the film opened in June. She has been savaged and has lost an arm, but has not lost her wits and when the opportunity presented itself, she took the women, robbing Joe of his destiny. He wants them back and the chase is on as one truck is followed by dozens of the most imaginative motor vehicles captured onscreen.

Max has been taken by Nux (Nicholas Hoult), one of the white-painted war boys, the Citadel’s armed forces. He’s strapped to the front of Nux’s vehicle and over the course of the story, once Max gets free, he exerts a quiet influence over Nux, who finds his soul, and first love, while risking his life to eventually protect the Breeders.

Miller co-wrote the film with Brendan McCarthy and Nico Lathouris and touch on many aspects of heroes, villains, sacrifice, and the greater good. Although little of their writing is found in the finished film, you can learn from the extras how every character and vehicle had a name and distinctive background. Miller can tell you more about Immortal Joe or Coma Doof Warrior (the flame throwing guitar guy) than you can infer from onscreen, but it certainly helped inform the performances. And it clearly helped Margaret Sixel (Miller’s wife) edit the reported 450 hours of footage into an entertaining story.

Furiosa wants the women safe in The Green Place, even if it costs her her life. Max and Furiosa find themselves reluctant allies and little personal is shared between them, but there are volumes said between glances from Hardy and Theron. As they come to trust their lives and their precious cargo with one another, we get new glimpses of how harsh life on Earth has become, with rival factions, fragile alliances, and few places that can be considered safe refuges. There’s little hope here, but you find yourself rooting for their success regardless.

The action rarely slips out of third gear and the visuals are an unending array of imaginative devices, big explosions, loud thrumming noise from the Doof mobile, and Max’s careworn gaze. The cast makes the most of their meager lines, letting their physicality convey much of the story.

The flawless 1080p/AVC-encoded video transfer means you can enjoy the visuals from home and study the machinery or terrain with ease. Matched with the Dolby TrueHD 7.1 surround sound, the film sounds strong and you hear everything from the whisper wind-swept sand to the revving of an engine in the distance.

The combo pack comes with the Blu-ray, DVD<,and Digital HD along with a handful of extras that elaborate on the amazing world Miller has successfully revisited and we hope will bring us back for another look. The special features start with  Maximum Fury: Filming Fury Road (29:00); Fury on Four Wheels (23:00), a detailed look at the incredible war machines; The Road Warriors: Max and Furiosa (11:00), Hardy and Theron discuss their alter egos;  The Tools of the Wasteland (14:00), a look at the props and more on the production design; The Five Wives: So Shiny, So Chrome (11:00), Huntington-Whiteley, Keough, Kravitz, Lee, and Eaton fill us in on their characters, filming in the chill of Namibia, and how the rehearsal and skimpy outfits led to  a sisterly bond; Deleted Scenes (4:00), a mere three scenes; Crash & Smash (4:00), a selection of pre-production tests before CGI, which shows you how much was real.

I cannot recommend the film enough, whether you’ve seen the first three or not because there’s a lot to enjoy and think about.

Space Dumplins
By Craig Thompson
320 pages, Scholastic Graphix, $14.99

Craig Thompson’s versatility is to be admired as he goes from Coming of Age romance with his Harvey award-winning Blankets, and then his more adult and fanciful Habibi. Now he is taking aim at the young adult market with his first offering for Scholastic’s Graphix imprint. Space Dumplins is an imaginative work about a plucky young girl and a band of misfit alien lifeforms trying to survive in a sector of space plagued by whale poop.

You see, there are creatures that exist in the vacuum of space, the largest of which are the space whales with their energy-rich excrement. The problem is that too much in a concentrated portion of space messes up the traffic, communications, and their hermetically sealed way of life. The economy is a rough one. We may have achieved the stars and found other races out there, coexisting to one degree or another, but people still struggle to keep jobs, do right by their families, and eke out an existence.

This is where we meet the Marlockes. Dad’s a lumberjack, plying the spaceways, collecting the poop, cutting it down to size, and transporting it. Mom is a talented fashion designer who is fortunate to be selected to work with the premier designer Adam Arnold on Shell-Tarr, the main space station in the region. They are fighting over money and the time apart. When a space whale attack destroys her school, Violet tries to transfer to the school on the station but is rejected because of her dad’s criminal past. More stress.

Then dad goes missing and things get murky. Thompson implies more than he ever reveals about the space station and the governing body of the region. Still, we get the sense the job dad went on is extralegal and they disavow knowledge of him and restrain mom from going in search. (And yes, if there’s a space whale, we will have our Jonah, not Jo-Nah, moment.) Of course, Violet is overlooked and she flies off to rescue him, accompanied by Elliot, a brilliant, sentient chicken suffering from abandonment issues and the amorphous, comic relief Zacchaeus. Each deal with issues of rejection and loss but clearly, we’re rooting for them to succeed.

Thompson switches tones often and sometimes propels the story at such a breakneck pace that keep track of who, what, where and why is a little obscured. But he makes up for that with humor and heart. Visually, the book is stunning thanks to filling every square inch of the page with details, reminiscent of Wally Wood’s EC SF stories. Dave Stewart’s color is a wonderful match for the visuals making this one of the most satisfying titles coming from the Graphix imprint in a long time.

Aimed at all ages, this book is a treat and well worth your time and attention.