Batman vs. Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles

Gotham City reaches new levels of danger when Shredder joins forces with Ra's al Ghul to enact a nefarious plan – leading to the team-up of the Dark Knight and the Turtles to combat the combined might of the Foot Clan and League of Assassins!

Presented in its original 1.78:1 direct-to-video aspect ratio, Batman vs. Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles looks very good on Warner Bros.' Blu-ray. The animation feels a little cheap in several key areas -- character design details, movement, even composition -- but there are no problems with the disc authoring, aside from typical format limitations such as color gradient banding and a few jagged edges. Considering the title characters, it's no surprise that Batman vs. TMNT is very dark at times; some colors are purposefully muted and most areas are bathed in shadow. The good news is that this Blu-ray handles those dark areas fairly well (again, within format limitations), showcasing a solid amount of shadow detail and reasonably strong contrast levels when needed. Other colors pop out against the darker shadows, such as in the Batcave and establishing shots, but these are understandably a lot better defined on the separately available 4K edition. Overall, this 1080p transfer is basically on par with most recent DC animated productions and, aside from my subjective complaints about the character designs, there's really not much to complain about.

Normally the audio section of any disc review is a little tough to write about, since the large majority of action-oriented films mixed for surround sound are very similar in style: dialogue mostly up front, music all around, a few panning effects, and maybe even a few good moments of deep low end to keep the subwoofer awake. But Batman vs. TMNT doesn't always follow those rules to the letter, and I'm not sure if it was a conscious decision by the creative team or some kind of slight defect. Dialogue is completely up front -- and I mean completely -- in just about every scene, even in more spacious areas and regardless of character placement. Certain sound effects feel similarly cramped, although the music and some ambient noises do seem to drift into the rear channels on occasion. This odd audio mixing can't help but feel somewhat claustrophobic -- but while experimenting with my receiver settings seemed to massage the "problem" areas, I've still got to dock the overall score a half-point because it just sounds a little off at times.

Still, there are a few respectable highlights: I really enjoyed Kevin Riepl's original score (which uses a mixture of traditional instruments and throws in a good amount of synth along the way), while most of the hits and weapon clangs had a solid amount of weight behind them. At least one scene involving a pretty horrific hallucination also employed a few decent panning effects. Overall, this is a decent-sounding track more often than not...but due to the somewhat crowded dialogue mixing, would likely never be confused with a theatrical-quality production.

Optional English SDH subtitles are included during the film and extras, as well as a handful of foreign dubs and subs.