A great line up of lesser-known character shorts to go along with the Constantine: House of Mystery short. If you're a fan of DC in general, you'll find some enjoyment in these shorts.
Disclaimer: Warner Bros. Home Entertainment provided us with a free copy of this Blu-ray/DVD that we reviewed in this blog post. The opinions we share are our own.
“After rewriting time and preventing the Apokolips War from happening, John Constantine finds himself imprisoned in the House of Mystery, facing a punishment he does not yet understand. As he explores the House’s labyrinths, he soon finds Zatanna and many friends, but these meetings repeatedly end in his brutal death. Facing an endless loop of his own demise, the ever-brilliant Constantine begins to unravel the path that led to his hellish confinement. Can he outwit his captor and escape, or is he destined to serve his eternal sentence?”
Warner Bros. Animated Studios and DC put out another fantastic release today, including four short animated features, focusing on relatively unexplored and lesser-known characters.
The DC Showcase Animated Shorts set may be a bit confusing to those taking a look at the case, as it prominently features and is titled: Constantine: The House of Mystery, which is a 27-minute short film that takes place after Justice League Dark: Apokolips War. The confusing portion comes in the fact that you don’t know if these shorts have any connection whatsoever to each other. It took me watching three of the four shorts to realize that they didn’t, and spent the majority of my time trying to figure out the connection rather than getting to enjoy the story for what they were: simple short features of DC characters many may not be familiar with, spanning different decades and crafted to look and feel like the original artists intended.
The Constantine: House of Mystery short comes first, with the repercussions of him changing the past catching up to him when he’s sentenced to an eternity in the House of Mystery. His sentence quickly turns into a nightmare after his closest friends turn into demons that kill him in every way imaginable. Only his cleverness can help him find his way out of this eternity of terror. Ironically, I felt that the most prominently featured short was the weakest of them all. The voice acting is fantastic, with Matt Ryan provided the voice of Constantine, who has played the character since the television show and reprised his role across all of the DC incarnations of the character. Not having seen Apokalips War, I may have had a deeper appreciation for this small epilogue for Constantine, but with him being the only character for the majority of the short, save for the mindless demons that only want to kill him, not much character development or interaction happens. Still, it was interesting enough that I did want to see more, so I would welcome another series of shorts that included Constantine and what happens to him at the end of this story.
Kamandi: The Last Boy on Earth!, the second short, featured a character and story that I personally had never seen or read before. Created by Jack Kirby in the 1970s, this short’s biggest accomplishment is making the animation look like it was taken straight from the page and drawn by Kirby himself. Being a fan of Sci-Fi apocalyptic stories, this one was easily a favorite of mine, as it had such interesting characters and a story with a surprise ending you may not expect.
The third short features The Losers, following the group of rag-tag soldiers on an island in heated battle with dinosaurs that threated a research station studying a strange anomaly. Out of all the shorts, this one may have the least amount of information attached to it, as its pure adrenaline-filled action from start to finish. For fans of the comic series, it has the look and feel of the original comics, which should bring that feeling of nostalgia, and for me, made me want to go back and revisit the live action film.
The last of the shorts may have been my favorite: Blue Beetle, with a very retro-60s vibe to it that is very reminiscent of the type of animation you’d see in the old Scooby Doo cartoons. The creators of the short even throw in a lot of mistakes and defects on purpose to give it that same kind of feel. I had an absolute blast with this one, especially with The Question and his objectivism philosophy that provides a lot of laughs between him and Blue Beetle.
Video
DC Showcase Shorts: Constantine – The House of Mystery is presented in 1080p High Definition Widescreen 1.78:1. The animation is excellent, and colors coming through very bright and vivid. The dark lines of the animation are well-defined. The shorts all have vastly different looks, and the deep blacks look great on this Blu-ray disc, especially contrasted with some of the brilliantly bright colors in certain sequences.
Audio
The audio is presented in DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1. Although the animation is impressive in its own right, the audio is where this really shines. Sound effects especially sound incredible, bouncing from speaker to speaker, immersing you entirely in the action. From the catchy opening sequences to the gunfire and dinosaur screeches, this set has it all in terms of audio.
Special Features
This set includes a digital copy of the shorts, and an in-depth and interesting look at all the shorts and what went in to bringing them to life.
- DC Showcase: One Story at a Time
Despite the bit of confusion at the set title and how the stories connected to each other, I really enjoyed these shorts, especially exploring some lesser-known characters from the DC Universe. The DC Showcase Shorts have a ton of potential, and I would love to see more, especially on a larger scale, perhaps more than just four to a set. If you’re a fan of the WB/DC Animated features, you’ll enjoy every bit of this release.