DC League of Super-Pets – News Media Play

John Latcham

November 20, 2022

4K ULTRA HD BLU-RAY REVIEW:

Warner;
Animated;
Box office – $93.6 million;
$34.98 DVD, $39.98 Blu-ray, $49.98 UHD BD;
Rated “PG” for action, mild violence, language and crude humor.
Voices of Dwayne Johnson, Kevin Hart, Kate McKinnon, Jonah Krasinski, Vanessa Bayer, Natasha Lyonne, Diego Luna, Marc Maron, Keanu Reeves, Thomas Middleditch, Ben Schwartz, Olivia Wilde, Jamila Jamil, Jemaine Clement, Jonah Early, David Diggs, Dasha Polanco, Yvette Nicole Brown, Dan Vogler, Busy Phillips, Keith David, Alfred Molina, Lena Headey.

In the annals of film history, DC League of Super Pets may be the first superhero movie in which the main character’s bowel movement saves the day.

The animated film follows the adventures of Krypt, Superman’s pet dog, who traveled with a young Kal-El to Earth when both were babies (which would make Krypt really old for a dog, but since he’s an alien dog with superpowers, we don’t have to worry about that parts). Voiced by Dwayne Johnson, Krypto now helps an adult Superman fight crime in Metropolis, but begins to feel left out of Superman’s life due to his relationship with Lois Lane.

Superman (John Krasinski), Krypto and the rest of the Justice League stop Lex Luthor (Marc Maron) from obtaining the orange kryptonite (just go to Wikipedia for the history of colored kryptonite, it’s a whole story) that would give Earthlings a deadly superpower. Unbeknownst to them, the magical stone is instead drawn to Lula (Kate McKinnon), an evil guinea pig from Luthor’s lab who now lives in an animal shelter. While she gains superpowers to aid in her plot for world domination, bringing kryptonite to the shelter also inadvertently gives the other animals strange powers.

Meanwhile, Krypto loses his powers due to eating a piece of cheese containing a piece of green kryptonite (the traditional kind). When Lulu captures Superman and the other members of the Justice League, Krypto is unable to save them, so he recruits super-powered animals from the shelter.

Among them is Ace, a violent dog voiced by Kevin Hart, making this another collaboration between Johnson and Hart. Since Ace is the traditional name of Batman’s dog in the comics, it’s not hard to see how the plot will unfold. All of course happens when Krypto is able to transfer the kryptonite from his system and regain his strength to join the fight.

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DC League of Super Pets is a vibrant animated adventure that continues Warner’s efforts to branch out its DC Comics characters into other media while it gropes for the creative direction of DC’s live-action franchise (which should get a boost thanks to the promotion of James Gunn and Peter Safran to lead that department). Focusing on the pets of the Justice League is definitely a new approach to presenting the DC world from a different perspective and targeting a younger demographic, even if it feels like an overpowered version at times The secret life of pets (also featuring Hart).

Of course, repeating popular trends from similar genres is nothing new DC League of Super Pets it’s certainly not the strangest example of recent DC adaptations. That title would go to the HBO Max animated series Batwheels, which brings Batman’s vehicles to life as if they came from Disney’s Cars.

Krypt the Superdog, at least, isn’t a new concept in DC, having been featured in comics since 1955. Obviously, his name comes from Superman’s home planet of Krypton, but recent events may give him different connotations (“Smallville” got around the silliness of this by simply naming the character Shelby).

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DC League of Super Pets comes with extras on Blu-ray and retail digital (the 4K combo pack only has them on regular Blu-ray).

There are approximately 20 minutes of deleted sequences presented as storyboards with the original audio timing.

Several short feature stories tell about the making of the film. The 15-minute “Behind the Super Voices” feature gives the cast a chance to discuss the film, while the eight-minute “Super Pets 101” features the filmmakers discussing how they developed the film, and the seven-and-a-half-minute “World of Super Pets” talks about how this movie fits into DC comics history.

In that sense, the four-minute “Find the Easter Eggs” film showcases some previous references to DC Comics lore.

Rounding out the fun is a seven-minute How to Draw Krypto tutorial with animation supervisor Dave Burgess.