DC's Legends of Tomorrow: The Complete Second Season - Blu-ray Review

[Michael Scott]

DC's Legends of Tomorrow: The Complete Second Season

Movie:
Video:
Audio:
Extras:
Final Score: ​

“Warner Bros. Home Entertainment provided me with a free copy of the Blu-ray I reviewed in this Forum Post. The opinions I share are my own.”
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Movie
Anyone who has read my reviews in the past knows that I have a deep love for the new DC TV universe. Arrow took me completely by surprise and the first 2 seasons were some of the best comic book TV I had ever seen. The Flash spun off that same universe and actually is my favorite of the combined universes at the moment, but last year the powers that be decided to cannibalize some of the heroes and villains of those two shows and create ANOTHER spinoff. Which would be Legends of Tomorrow. Using the classic time traveler, Rip Hunter, they combined Sara Lance, Heatwave, Firestorm, Captain Cold, The Atom, Hawk Girl and and a few others to track down the rampaging super time villain, Vandal Savage. As a rabid supporter of Greg Berlanti and his universe, I was more than eager to binge watch the first season and was preparing for a fun time. Color me more than a bit shocked when Legends ends up being a COLOSSAL disappointment. Vandal Savage was a great villain, but heavily underutilized. The direction and character interactions were horrible, and I ended up laughing at the screen more than I really wanted to. The only saving grace of the entire show was Vandal Savage, and Dominic Purcell as Heatwave/Mick Rory (his one liners were hilarious, and the highlight of the show). I’m one who actually watches the DC shows as they come out and then rewatch on Blu-ray to review here, but I was so put off by fledgling TV show that I just ignored it completely on broadcast TV, instead deciding to only watch it once on Blu-ray. Well, I was surprised yet again, as the second season is a big step up from the anemic freshman year, and while there’s still some of that awkward cheese going on, the second season of Legends is a lot of good comic book fun.

Sorry for the spoiler alert. Last time we left off, The Legends had defeated the time lords and Savage, only to have a bit of a problem. Captain Cold sacrificed his life, and a time traveling member of the 1942 JSA has come forward in time to tell them of a problem in that time period. Jumping back in time once more, the rest of the Legends come face to face with a new problem. Eobard Thawne (or at least a time remnant of him) has been upsetting time and causing mayhem, including bring Malcolm Merlin (John Barrowman) and a previous time version of Damien Dahrk (Neal McDonough) to form the legion of doom (yes, comic nerd me was dancing for joy at the mention of that name). With the help of a historian by the name of Nate Heyword (Nick Zano), and JSA member (from 1942) Amaya (Maise Richardson-Sellers) the Legends have to once again save time.

Legends of Tomorrow did not start out on a high note. I liked many of the characters, but the suspension of disbelief and stupidity that each character would display was mind boggling. Not to mention the handling of time travel is always tricky, and REALLY easy to leave the audience going “wait, that shouldn’t happen” (the curse of using a highly theoretical scientific theory that no one knows would even WORK in fiction). However, Berlanti and crew seemed to have learned a few lessons from the previous year. The characters are the same, and some of the bickering is still there, but the 17 episode season feels a lot tighter and more cohesive. It also helps that the team is battling some of the best acted villains from Arrow and Flash by a LONG shot (well, personally I preferred Tom Cavanaugh as Eobard Thawne, but Matt Letscher is quite good as the malevolent speedster). With Damien, Malcolm and Eobard at each others throats the whole time, it makes for awesome mustache twirling villain time.

Also, the show seems to realize the cheesy nature of the premise, and just has fun with it. They don’t take themselves too seriously and they actually play with some of the cheesier elements of comic books and have tongue firmly planted in cheek. We have Malcolm Merlin chiding Damien for making the famous “bad guy speech” (which is hilarious) and there’s a scene with Damien and one of the legends almost high fiving before breaking it off mid swing and going “nope, this isn’t happening”. I still think Sara Lance as the leader of the crew is annoying as all get out, and her bisexuality got pushed REALLY hard in the first couple of episodes, but luckily they tamed that pretty dramatically going forward. As usual, Mick Rory/Heatwave is the life of the party and his one liners are what I look forward to each episode. As if they realized how popular he was from the first season, Mick plays a much more important role this year, and becomes one of the lynch pins for defeating the Legion of Doom.




Rating:

Not Rated by the MPAA




Video:

The Arrowverse is kind of incestuous in how it deals with the visual looks of their shows, with the exception of DC's Legends of Tomorrow. Instead of dark and brooding, with superheroes living in shadows only to come out at night, the series likes to thrive in the sunlight. Jumping from time to time to time and allowing the use of disguises means the series can actually live in the daytime and the show benefits greatly from this. The bright and sun drenched tone allows for great amounts of fine detailing to be shown, with the sci-fi colors and textures on the Wave Rider showing off an amazing amount of details. Faces can be the most revealing, and backdrops a bit soft (usually because of all the CGI or the low budget physical backdrops needing to be blended in), but the black levels are deep and inky, and the show itself is rather colorful, with neon powered super blasts, deep blues of the Wave Rider, and the luscious greens of the Canadian shooting locations giving us some serious eye candy







Audio:

The 5.1 DTS-HD MA track is another go getter, with a highly aggressive sound design that lends itself well to the action oriented super hero show. Explosions rock you back in your seat, and gunfire is loud, abrasive, and heavy as can be. Blows feel incredibly impactful, and the whole surround stage usage is varied and full of vibrant life. The “superhero” scores are as loud as the action, and the whole experience is well mixed. The vocals are never drowned out by the loud action, and the dynamic range can be quite wide at times. LFE is punishing and brutal, and I can really find no fault with the invigorating mix. It’s of the better superhero tracks out of the 4 shows on DC’s lineup (which includes Supergirl as of this last year) and a great listening experience.
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Extras:

• DC’s Legends of Tomorrow: 2016 Comic-Con Panel
• Allied: The Invasion Complex (DC’s Legends of Tomorrow)
• Deleted Scenes
• Gag-Reel

Final Score: ​

Dc’s Legends of Tomorrow may not be as epic or compelling as the first couple seasons of Arrow and Flash, but this second season is actually really rather good and a HUGE step up from the previous year (season one hovered at around a 2.5/5 for me). The characters seem comfortable with their roles, and the action is quite a bit of fun. It still has some problems and issues here and there, but I enjoyed the 16-17 episode nature of the show, as it left little time for dilly dallying, which has become a big thing for Arrow, Flash and Supergirl. Audio and video are fantastic as are most of the DC TV shows from Warner, but sadly the extras are a bit lacking. Recommended as a fun watch for super hero fans.



Technical Specifications:

Starring: Victor Garber, Brandon Routh, Katy Lotz, Franz Drameh
Created by: Greg Berlanti, Marc Guggenheim, Phil Klemmer
Aspect Ratio: 1.78:1 AVC
Audio: English: DTS-HD MA 5.1
Studio: Warner
Rated: NR
Runtime: 681 Minutes
Blu-ray Release Date: Own on Blu-ray and DVD 8/15/17

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• Michael Scott
• May 11, 2017

Recommendation: Fun Watch

 

[tripplej]

Thanks for the review. I didn't catch this when it was on.. Will check it out.

 

[mechman]

I've been watching this series since it came out. It's getting a bit long in the tooth though. It's probably going to get dropped from my watch list.

 

[Michael Scott]

interesting, I felt the opposite. It was horrible when it started, but started getting good about 6 episodes into season 2... season three could be horrible though, but I had fun.

 

[mechman]

It was the terrible start that sunk me. It was always the last show that I would watch in my queue. If there was anything else recorded, I would watch that. The whole time travel and time aberration stuff got hokey with me. It seemed like all they were doing was fixing stuff they messed up when they time traveled earlier.

IIRC, I didn't watch the last few episodes. I think I gave up on it by then. And I don't see it in my recording list ether.

 

[Michael Scott]

haha, yeah I don't blame you. the first season was BAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAD, but the 2nd season actually has a really good ending. not epic, but very solid.