Necessary Evil: The Super-Villains of DC Comics Blu-ray Review

Necessary Evil: Super-Villains of DC Comics is a well made documentary featuring a wide array of participants chatting about the importance and substance behind the numerous villains in the DCU.

 

 

 

Necessary Evil: Super-Villains of DC Comics (1992)

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Genre(s): Documentary
Warner Home Video | NR – 99 min. – $19.98 | October 25, 2013

MOVIE INFO:
Directed by: Not Available
Writer(s): Not Available
Cast: Various

DISC INFO:
Features: UltraViolet Digital Copy
Number of Discs: 1

Audio: English (Dolby Digital 2.0)
Video: 1080p/Widescreen 1.78
Subtitles: English, Dutch, Finnish, French, German, Italian, Korean, Norwegian, Portuguese, Russian, Spanish, Swedish
Disc Size: 17.7 GB
Codec: MPEG-4 AVC
Region(s): A, B, C

THE MOVIE – 4.0/5

There’s no doubt that the villain more often than not is more interesting than the hero and in comic books and the variety of outputs, it is so true. You look at Batman (1989), Batman Returns, The Dark Knight and the Superman movies (save for Returns), and the super-villains were far more fascinating to watch although we like seeing the hero win the day.

Necessary Evil: Super-Villains of DC Comics takes a deeper look at the villains featured in the DC Universe from the perspective of a variety of folks in the industry and in a couple instances, within the psychological realm giving their perspectives on why the villains can be popular.

This slick yet simple documentary participants include Guillermo del Toro, Zack Snyder and Richard Donner, artist Jim Lee, actors Clancy Brown (voice of Lex Luthor), Kevin Conroy (voice of Batman), Claudia Black (voice of Cheetah in Justice League: Doom), Michael Shannon (probably part of the promotion for Man of Steel) and Scott Porter (who has nothing to do with the DCU but voiced Cyclops on the “X-Men” animated series), DC’s Chief Creative Officer Geoff Johns, Producer Michael Uslan, comic book writer Scott Snyder, Producer Alan Burnett and many others.

The documentary, while well made and fairly interesting, does move towards advertisement for DC Comics tail ending with what’s upcoming for the comic books including making the villains the focus for the different titles for the next year, which is what Necessary Evil is about, an introduction and focused look at super-villains for the purpose of promoting the new line of comic books. That said, it’s still good and the participants are mostly engaging, though the ones I was interested in (like Guillermo del Toro, Richard Donner and Kevin Conroy) are limited and only appear for a couple of minutes at the most.

SPECIAL FEATURES – 0/5

Other than a code for the UltraViolet Digital Copy, there are no features included.

VIDEO – 4.0/5

Necessary Evil arrives on Blu-ray courtesy of Warner Home Video presented with a 1080p high-definition transfer and a 1.78 widescreen transfer. Colors are bright and detail levels nice and for a documentary. It’s nothing that will astound you, yet good enough.

AUDIO – 3.25/5

The back cover states this has a DTS-HD MA track, it’s in fact only Dolby Digital 2.0 but for this movie, having it being lossless could be overkill considering the bulk is dialogue with some bits of sound effects and, of course, Christopher Lee’s deep voice narrating. Everything is flat but still understandable and perfectly adequate for the material.

OVERALL – 3.0/5

Overall, Necessary Evil: Super-Villains of DC Comics is a well made documentary featuring a wide array of participants chatting about the importance and substance behind the numerous villains in the DCU. The Blu-ray released by Warner Home Video doesn’t have any bonus features but the audio/video are both adequate.

 

 

The Movieman
Published: 10/27/2013