This week’s home entertainment releases include one of the very best Muppet movies ever, a documentary that traces the rise of Eastman & Laird’s Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, the first Blu-ray edition of the Young Justice cartoon series, and a direct-to-DVD Suicide Squad adventure that is one of the most entertaining DC Comics-based animated movies yet.
 
Theatrical Releases
 
The highest-grossing film due out on disc this week is Muppets Most Wanted (Disney, “PG,” $20.99, BD $26.99), a charming movie that scored an 80% positive rating on review aggregator Rotten Tomatoes, and yet inexplicably largely bombed at the box office where it made just $51.1 million.  Director James Bobin took the Muppets back to their Music Hall roots while Ricky Gervais and Tina Fey lent their witty presences to the proceedings, which was enough to make this eighth Muppet movie one of the very best.  If you missed it in theaters, be sure to check it out on disc.
 
Those who like horror movie comedies/parodies might possibly want to check out A Haunted House 2 (Universal, “R,” 87 min., $29.98, BD $34.98), but be forewarned that the film only earned an 8% positive rating on Rotten Tomatoes, and in spite of a wide release only took in $17.3 million at the domestic box office.
 
For those who enjoy art house films there is a trio of films from the UK due on Tuesday including Locke (Lionsgate, “R,” 85 min., $19.98, BD $24.98), which features a tour de force performance by Tom Hardy, who spends the film in his car on the phone desperately attempting to keep his life from totally unraveling, The Railway Man (Anchor Bay, “R,” 108 min., $29.98, BD $34.98), which stars Colin Firth as an Englishman trying to come to grips with the PTSD resulting from his service in a Japanese POW camp in Burma, and Filth (Magnolia, “R,” 97 min., $26.98, BD $29.98), a cynical saga from the writer of Trainspotting that features a mesmerizing performance by James McAvoy as a sociopathic police detective who is increasingly ensnared in his own elaborate web of deceit.
 
There are two documentaries of interest this week—Disneynature: Bears (Disney, “G,” 78 min., BD/DVD Combo $39.98), a superbly photographed saga of three brown bears (a mother and two cubs) in the Alaskan wilderness.  With its ultra-photogenic cast this documentary is perfect kids (SPOILER ALERT—No Bears Die).
 
Of even more interest to comic book fans is Turtle Power: The Definitive History of The Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles (Paramount, “Not Rated,” 98 min., $22.98).  Director Randall Lobb channels his own fascination with the Turtles as he traces their origins to the world of black-and-white self-published comics to the break through 1987 TMNT animated series that made the heroes on the half-shell a worldwide phenomenon.  TMNT fans will definitely want to add this title to their collections.
 
Direct to DVD
 
Batman: Assault on Arkham (Warner Bros., “PG-13,” 75 min., $29.98, BD $34.98) is the latest in the series of DC Comics-based direct-to-video movies that are aimed at older fans, not Saturday morning kiddie audiences.  Though Batman (and the universe created for the popular Batman/Arkham centric video games) play major roles here, this is really a Suicide Squad adventure, and it sports a bit of lighter tone than the typical Dark Knight saga, due in part to the fact that this is basically a caper film, and as such it has a lot of fun with the conventions of that genre.  Of course there is plenty of action (and violence), and the tonal shifts can be a bit jarring at times, but the lighter tone does help make Batman: Assault on Arkham one of the more enjoyable of the Warner Bros. direct-to-DVD efforts.
 
TV on DVD
 
The critically-acclaimed Young Justice cartoon series was unceremoniously dumped by the ruthless Cartoon Network in 2013.  The show has been released previously in single-disc format, but now Young Justice Season 1 (Warner Bros. 400 min., BD $24.95) is available on Blu-ray for the first time.  The show is not a direct adaptation of the Peter David Young Justice comic series, rather it focuses on the youthful years of a wide swath of the heroes and villains of the DC Universe. 
 
Also of interest is The Looney Tunes Platinum Collection: Vol. 3 (Warner Bros., BD $44.98), which includes 50 classic Warner Bros. cartoons presented in glorious high-definition.  Forty-seven of these classics have appeared before in the Looney Tunes Golden Collections, and only three are new to disc.
 
Contemporary live-action series of interest include The Blacklist: The Complete First Season (Sony, $69.98, BD $79.99).  One of the most popular dramas on NBC (the network is giving The Blacklist the coveted post-Super Bowl timeslot in 2015), The Blacklist is the saga of a wanted fugitive who helps the FBI take down a string of heinous criminals and terrorists; the gritty AMC crime drama Low Winter Sun: The Complete Series (Starz, 430 min., $49.98) set among corrupt cops in the desperate streets of Detroit; and Bitten: The Complete 1st Season (eOne, 572 min., $39.98, BD $49.98), the Canadian TV series based on the Women of Otherworld novels of Kelley Armstrong about a female werewolf torn between maintaining a normal life with her boyfriend in Toronto or protecting the pack of werewolves in Upstate New York that includes her ex-boyfriend Clayton, the one whose bite turned her into a werewolf.
 
The only vintage series due out on Tuesday is Gunsmoke: The 10th Season, Vol. 1 (Paramount, 930 min.,  $49.99) and Gunsmoke: The 10th Season, Vol. 2 (Paramount, 929 min., $49.99).
 
Anime
 
This week’s top release is Fantasista Doll Complete Collection (Sentai Filmworks, “14+,” 300 min., $49.98, BD $59.98), which collects the 12-episode anime TV series produced by Hoods Entertainment that aired in Japan in 2013.  The anime, which has spawned 3 manga series and several games (including a featured turn in Bushiroad’s Five Qross online TCG), focuses on a young girl, an elite card player who receives a strange device that allows her to summon artificially intelligent female warriors known as Fantasista Dolls.
 
Also new this week is From the New World Collection 2 (Sentai Filmworks, “14+,” 300 min., $59.98, BD$69.98), which contains episodes 14-25 of the 2012-2013 anime series from A-1 Pictures that is based on the science fiction novel by Yusuke Kishi about a future society ruled by people who discovered and honed their telekinetic powers.
 
--Tom Flinn
 
The opinions expressed in this column do not necessarily reflect those of the editorial staff of ICv2.com.