This week’s home entertainment releases include the very funny LEGO Batman Movie, the very bloody John Wick, Chapter 2, a bunch of interesting TV offerings like the second season of Dark Matter and the final seasons of Grimm and The Vampire Diaries, plus a new high-def version of the classic outer space western anime series Outlaw Star.

Theatrical Movies

This week’s biggest release is The LEGO Batman Movie (Warner Bros., “PG,” 104 min., $29.98, BD $35.99), which earned a stellar 90% positive rating on review aggregator Rotten Tomatoes, as well as $310 million at the global box office.  While it may not be quite as good as the wonderfully subversive original LEGO Movie, which made $469 million and whose “President Business” was wonderfully prescient, The LEGO Batman movie is a whole lot of fun and a must for fans of the Caped Crusader. 

Fans of today’s bloody, warp-speed action films will get a chance to grab one of the better efforts in the genre with the release of Chad Stahelski’s John Wick, Chapter 2 (Lionsgate, “R,” 122 min., $29.95, BD $39.99, 4K $42.99), in which Keanu Reeves returns to dispatch even more bad guys than the six dozen or so that he drilled in Chapter 1.  Stahelski was a stuntman, and his films so far are all about staging action sequences—the narrative threads tying these set-pieces together might be a bit on the weak side, but that’s not the point of films like John Wick, Chapter 2, which was good enough to earn a sterling (for the genre) rating of 89% positive on Rotten Tomatoes.

This week’s other release, the comedy Table 19 (Fox, “PG-13,” $29.98, BD $39.99), stars the talented Anna Kendrick, as a woman who was supposed to be her best friend’s Maid of Honor until she was dumped by the bride-to-be’s brother and exiled with a collection of misfits to Table19 at the back of the hall.  What might have made for a hilarious half-hour episode of a good sitcom, fizzles out in the longer movie comedy format in spite of the efforts of a solid cast.

TV on DVD

There are quite a few releases of interest to geek viewers this week including the Canadian-produced SyFy series Dark Matter: Season 2 (Funimation, 560 min., $44.98, BD $49.98), an intriguing space opera based on the comic book series by Joseph Mallozzi and Paul Mullie; as well as the reliably satirical South Park: The Complete Twentieth Season (Comedy Central, $29.98, BD $39.99); plus the final seasons of three series, Grimm: Season Six (Universal, 558 min., $49.98, BD $59.98), Vampire Diaries: The Complete 8th & Final Season (Warner Bros., $39.98, BD $44.98); and Bones: The Complete 12th Season: The Final Chapter (Fox, $29.98). 

Also available are The Flesh & Bones Collection (Fox, 10,560 min., $169.98), which contains all 246 episodes of the series starring Emily Deschanel and David Boreanaz, The Vampire Diaries: The Complete Series (Warner Bros. $189.98, BD $234.98), which seems like a lot for just 39 episodes as well as Grimm: The Complete Collection (Universal, 5,298 min., $174.98, BD $224.98), which contains all 123 episodes of the police procedural based on the classic fairytales.

Not every series makes even the 30-episode mark.  The 1960 police drama Aquarius: Season 2 (Lionsgate, 780 min., $49.98) includes the final 13 episodes of the period (1960s) SoCal police procedural show.  A better series, which also died after season 2, is Rob Corddry’s Adult Swim satire Newsreaders: The Complete 2nd Season (Warner Bros. $21.99), which savages the media like Corddry’s Children’s Hospital took apart the medical genre.

A better period drama is the Renaissance-set The Borgias: The Complete Series (Paramount, $35.98), which contains all 39 episodes of the show headlined by Jeremy Irons as Rodrigo Borgia.

The only other new series out this week is the USA sniper series Shooter: Season 1 (Universal, 416 min., $34.98), which is based on the 2007 Mark Wahlberg movie.

The only animated offering of any consequence this week is the single-disc Shaun the Sheep: Animal Antics (Lionsgate, 45 min., $9.98).

Vintage TV releases include the reunion movie, The Andy Griffith Show: Return to Mayberry (Paramount, 95 min. $14.98); the World War II aerial combat show Baa Baa Black Sheep: Season 1 (Universal, 1171 min., $24.98); the Dennis Weaver fish-out-of-water detective series McCloud: Season 1 (Universal, 340 min., $22.98); the classic private detective series The Rockford Files: The Complete Series (Mill Creek, 6,120 min., $69.98); and the ground-breaking 1970s sitcom That’s My Mama: The Complete Series (Sony, $38.99).

Anime

This week’s top release is the Pandora in the Crimson Shell: Ghost Urn Complete Collection (Funimation, 300 min., BD/DVD Combo $64.98), a sexy sci-fi comedy based on a concept by Ghost in the Shell creator Masamune Shirow and featuring a “full-bodied” female cyborg protagonist.  The 12-episode series from Studio Gokumi and AXsiZ aired in 2015 and was simulcast (with English subititles) by Funimation, which has been streaming the dubbed version (available on the disc along with the subtitled version) since February.

For fans of classic anime this week’s big offering is the Outlaw Star: Complete Collection (Funimation, 650 min., BD/DVD Combo $64.98, Collector’s Edition $99.98), which presents the first high-def BD edition of 1998 outer space western from Sunrise that will certainly appeal to fans of Cowboy Bebop and Firefly.  The Collector’s Edition comes in a chipboard box (with a metallic finish) inspired by the design of the Outlaw Star spaceship with a hatch that opens plus a 100-page artbook.

Also of interest the Chivalry of a Failed Knight: Complete Collection (Sentai Filmworks, 300 min., $59.98 BD $69.98), which contains the 12-episode 2015 action/fantasy/romance series from Silver Link that is based on a series of light novels by Riku Misora that have sold over 1.8 million copies in Japan.

Just in time for the release of a new Transformers movie, all of the Japanese Transformers episodes have been collected into Transformers: The Japanese Collection (Shout Factory, 2520 min., Subtitles Only, $59.97).  The collection includes the 3 Transformers series created for the Japanese market by Toei (Headmasters, Super-God Masterforce, and Victory), which were previously only available here individually.