MSRP: £30.00
Titans Season 1 Review
The Teen Titans franchise drops the 'Teen' to go adult for this surprisingly brutal DC show.
It's a completely different creation from anything that has gone before, without the wise-cracks or the colourful comic book frivolity - without much to drag you out of the gloom and the gutter - instead, relying upon rich and meticulous character creation to offer up a foundation to its brutal exploits. And it works superbly.
Titans is so good that it makes you wish that Suicide Squad could have been done with this kind of mature tone
Indeed Titans is so good that it makes you wish that Suicide Squad could have been done with this kind of mature tone, replete with more swearing and violence than any other DC production to date. Although Disney closed the door on all of their more grown-up Marvel content from Netflix (the Punisher will be sorely missed), undoubtedly to create more family-friendly fare on their own channel, DC appears to be going darker and more weighty, making this a fine replacement on the streaming giant's international front, and a must-watch wherever you can hunt it down.
Titans Season 1 Blu-ray Picture
Warner brings Titans: Season 1 to Region Free UK Blu-ray, affording it a largely excellent 1080p/AVC-encoded High Definition video presentation framed in the show's original airing aspect ratio of 2.00:1 widescreen (the Netflix standard), and marrying up to its preceding US Blu-ray release.
Titans: Season 1 enjoys being steeped in shadows and darkness, but rises to the technical challenge with excellent black levels and shadow detail, affording some nice moments of primary pop and colour hues to seep through, and hinting that there may have been some decent material here for a full 4K release. From Starfire's distinctive hair to her even more distinctive fiery powers; and Beast Boy's almost radioactive green powers, to the darker magics of Raven - and of course Robin's plain old fisticuffs - there's plenty of room for vibrant tones within the dark and grim palette, without any hint of betrayal to the sobering tone.
Largely excellent
Titans: Season 1 enjoys being steeped in shadows and darkness, but rises to the technical challenge with excellent black levels and shadow detail, affording some nice moments of primary pop and colour hues to seep through, and hinting that there may have been some decent material here for a full 4K release. From Starfire's distinctive hair to her even more distinctive fiery powers; and Beast Boy's almost radioactive green powers, to the darker magics of Raven - and of course Robin's plain old fisticuffs - there's plenty of room for vibrant tones within the dark and grim palette, without any hint of betrayal to the sobering tone.
Titans Season 1 Blu-ray Sound
The accompanying DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1 track is a superior offering too, delivering impressive prioritisation over the core elements of dialogue, effects and score, and enjoying the sporadic action/effects sequences which light up the soundstage.
Dialogue remains well-delivered largely over the frontal array, whilst the score maintains the broody tone but gives a firm backbone to the piece. It's mostly all about the effects though, and there's some degree of bombast here, marrying up to the oftentimes brutal visuals with verve. Fight sequences thunder home painfully, and powers ignite with fury, impressing at every stage, and carrying more than a little LFE weighting. It's an impressive effort.
A superior offering
Dialogue remains well-delivered largely over the frontal array, whilst the score maintains the broody tone but gives a firm backbone to the piece. It's mostly all about the effects though, and there's some degree of bombast here, marrying up to the oftentimes brutal visuals with verve. Fight sequences thunder home painfully, and powers ignite with fury, impressing at every stage, and carrying more than a little LFE weighting. It's an impressive effort.
Titans Season 1 Blu-ray Extras
There are a multitude of background Featurettes here, albeit each a bite-sized couple of minutes in length
Conclusion
Titans Season 1 Blu-ray Review
A recommended Blu-ray release
Titans and - more recently - Joker, have proven that DC may have an edge when it comes to darker superhero efforts. This is one of the best superhero TV adaptations put together (especially considering the material they're playing with), a real coup for Netflix and a recommended Blu-ray release - complete with impressive video and audio, and a nice salvo of extras - for those who haven't seen it yet.
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