Vixen: The Movie - Blu-ray Review

[Michael Scott]

Vixen: The Movie

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

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Movie

“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.”

It’s kind of strange to see Vixen getting her own comeuppance in the DC universe these days. It seems like DC is priming a couple of their minor heroes and giving them full on front line status. First it was Cisco Ramon as Vibe (Vibe was an exploitation 70s character with minimal powers in the comics), and now after her popular cameo on Arrow, Vixen has been given her own series. Well, KIND of a series. Vixen: The Movie is actually all 2 seasons of the seed series Vixen that ran from 2015-2016 as a test run. It’s a series 6 episodes per season that runs about 6 minutes each, something which isn’t made clear in the movie itself. The movie takes those 12 episodes and smashes them together to make a singular movie, and that’s where the problems lie. It’s a decently fun idea and the characters are pretty solid in a “Saturday morning cartoon” type of vibe (sorry Cisco, no pun intended)

The plot for the movie/seasons is pretty simple, but also a big congested. It starts out with young Mari McCabe (Megalyn Echikunwoke) getting out of jail for general mischievous. Meeting up with her adopted father Chuck (Neil Flynn), she crashes in his place in Detroit, but soon finds out that she’s got a little juice running through her. While she’s not a meta human, she carries an ancient amulet around her neck. An amulet that allows her sudden bursts of great strength and agility. This amulet soon puts her in the crosshairs of an evil African mercenary by the name of Kuasa (Anika Noni Rose), who is the catalyst for Mari unlocking the necklace’s full power.

It seems that Mari is actually a descendent of an African tribesman who was given a magical amulet by the god that allows her to summon the spirit of any animal she chooses, imbuing the powers of that animal on her for a short time. Deciding to copy the ways of The Flash (Grant Gustin), and Arrow (Stephen Amell), Mari tries to become the hero of her city, only to find out that superheroing is a bit tougher of a job than she expected. That means learning to control her powers as well as fine tune them so that she can be a true hero. If that’s not enough, an evil warlord comes over to visit from Africa after discovering that this is only ONE of FIVE necklaces that each control a different power. This maniac wants to control all 5 of them, and that means Mari (now known as Vixen) is in his way from obtaining them all.

Whew, if that seemed a bit congested then you’re not the only one. Since Vixen is really 12 six minute episodes, there’s actually quite a few plots crammed into the 75-minute movie. We have an origins story, a coming of power story, an ancient warlord story, and a little bit of filler too. The problem is that very few of these stories feel fleshed out. 6 minutes works for a few of the points, but most of the time I feel as if the movie running at the speed of the flash, jumping from story to story with barley a second to relax before the end credits roll. If you didn’t know that the movie is actually 12 mini episodes then you’d be left wondering if the show’s created were on speed and just crammed as much as they could into one movie without fleshing anything out.

While the show has some definite weaknesses, the main one being time, it also has some fun points too. The characters are all voiced by the same people as when they appeared on Flash and Arrow, meaning we get Grant Gustin as Flash, Stephen Amell as Arrow, Emily as Felicity, Carlos Valdes as Cisco etc etc etc. This adds to the distinctive universe sharing that the DC tv verse has enjoyed up until now, but there is a downside. The voice actors (besides Cisco and Felicity) feeling like they were just phoning it in between episodes of their own shows, so they feel a bit flat. Megalyn is the saving grace in the voice acting department, as she gets to flesh out her couple episode appearance on Arrow a bit more and has fun with it. The show is very much a “Saturday morning cartoon” type of show, and doesn’t get really meaty or dark like some of the other DC animated shows Warner has done recently. It’s a nice change of pace and is pretty solidly entertaining to boot.




Rating:

Rated TV-PG by the MPAA




Video:

Vixen follows the path of many other of WB’s DC animated films. It has good animation and actually looks a lot like the new 52 universe in terms of animation style. Colors are a bit dim, but well saturated thanks to the night time arena that our heroes fight in, and the cheaper animation actually looks well done. Dark greens, blues, golds and Flash’s maroon red show up nicely, and there are no jaggies or line issues that I can see with character designs. Fine detail is impressive and shows off quite a bit in close ups, but there is one issue that is almost ALWAYS present in the DC animated films. Banding, banding and MORE banding. This is one of the more aggressive ones in terms of how much color banding goes on, but if you’ve seen one of these DC animated films, you know exactly what you’ll get. A truck load of banding. Other than that nasty little issue, the Blu-ray itself is extremely well done.






Audio:

The 5.1 DTS-HD MA track is a nice upgrade though over the video. Loud, aggressive, and powerful, it roars onto the scene like one of Vixen’s spirit animals. There’s some down time with dialog heavy front loaded bits, but the show’s inability to stay still means that there is more than enough time for lots and lots of heavy action to get under way. The surrounds can be subtle, transferring the sounds of a buzzing beetle in the background, or blatantly in your face, such as when Mari is slamming villains through the wall as a gorilla or a rampaging bull. LFE is loud and powerful, and does justice to the made for TV/Web roots that it shares. Even though this was a barebones budget production, the sound design is top notch and left me thoroughly impressed.
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Extras:

• Vixen: Spirit Animal featurette
• Bruce Timm's Top Picks:
- Episode from Justice League Unlimited, "Hunter's Moon"
- Episode from Justice League Unlimited, "Grudge Match"

Final Score: ​

Vixen is a fun little side venture for the DC animated universe, and for once doesn’t tie into the New 52 shared universes that has been going on for the last several years. It’s fluffy, a bit congested and hops from story to story in WAY too short of a time, but it has a lot of energy and passion to it that is enticing. The Blu-ray isn’t given your normal slipcover, but given a full thicker slipBOX that makes it feel a bit more premium in my opinion. Sadly no collector’s edition with action figures like some of the other films that came out, but the video and audio are solid given WB’s track record with these entries. Extras are a tad slim, so I would say this one acts more of a rental than anything.



Technical Specifications:

Starring: Megalyn Echikunwoke, Anika Noni Rose, Emily Beck Rickards
Directed by: James Tucker, Curt Geda
Written by: Lauren Certo, Nolan Dunbar, Brian Ford Sullivan, Wendy Mericle, Keto Shimizu, Sara Tarkoff
Aspect Ratio: 1.78:1 AVC
Audio: English: DTS-HD MA 5.1
Studio: Warner Brothers
Rated: TV-PG
Runtime: 75 Minutes
Blu-ray Release Date: Own on Blu-ray and DVD 5/23/17

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• Michael Scott
• May 11, 2017

Recommendation: Rental