Boss Baby (2017/DreamWorks/Fox 4K Ultra HD Blu-ray w/Blu-ray + Blu-ray/DVD Sets)/Elmo's World: Elmo's WONDERFUL World (2017/Sesame Street/Warner DVD)/Gifted (2017/Fox Blu-ray w/DVD)/LEGO Scooby Doo: Blowout Beach Blast (2017/Warner Blu-ray w/DVD)/Powerpuff Girls: The Last Donnycorn (2017/Cartoon Network/Warner DVD)

4K Ultra HD Picture: A- Picture: B+ & C+/C+/B & C/B & C+/C+ Sound: B+ & B & C+/C/B & C+/B- & C+/C+ Extras: B/C+/C/C/C+ Main Programs: C/C+/C/C+/B-

Sibling rivalry runs amuck in Boss Baby (2017), a coming of age CGI digitally animated film from Fox that's fine for kids, but nothing particularly new or groundbreaking for the rest of us. The 'talking baby' subgenre, in my opinion, has been quite played out over the years and even though Alec Baldwin is charming (even his voice is charming), it can't save how downright silly this movie is.

The all star voice cast for Boss Baby includes Steve Buscemi, Jimmy Kimmel, Lisa Kudrow, Miles Bakshi, Eric Bell Jr., ViviAnn Yee, and Tobey Maguire to name a few. The film is directed by Tom McGrath and Hendel Butoy.

Tim Templeton, a normal seven year old, finds his life turned upside down when his new baby brother The Boss Baby (Baldwin) arrives, stealing all of the attention from the parents that he once had. There's something off about this baby though... he wears a suit, carries a briefcase, and happens to like sushi and double expressos. Tim soon realizes that Boss Baby is on a secret mission to make babies more loved than puppies again. It'll take a group of Baby counterparts and a collaboration between Tim and The Boss Baby to see this mission to its end and expose a CEO of Puppy Co. before its too late.

Presented in The 2160p HEVC/H.265, HDR (10; Ultra HD Premium)-enhanced Ultra High Definition image with a widescreen aspect ratio of 2.35:1 and a great sounding English Dolby Atmos 11.1 lossless track, the home presentation here is top of the line. Animated films usually look good on disc, but this one particularly shines on 4K with a lot of small character details down to the last blade of grass and textures on the hair that bests Blu-ray. Also included, however, is the Blu-ray edition with the film in 1080p and the same audio specs. Also on the disc is a Dolby TrueHD 7.1 lossless sound mix if you don't have Dolby Atmos capabilities that mimics the theatrical presentation at home, the best soundtrack on the regular Blu-ray. The Blu-ray/DVD edition has the same Blu-ray, then adds a soft, passable, anamorphically enhanced DVD for convenience, but not much else.

Also included is a UV copy of the film.

Special Features:

NEW Mini Adventure

The Forever Puppy Infomercial

Babies vs. Puppies: Who Do YOU Love?

Cookies are for Closers: Inside BabyCorp

and The Great Sibling Competition

While cute, Boss Baby has such a ludicrous plot that it often has many jokes that will go over the heads of kids. While the film was a hit at the box office and a sequel on the way, it seems like the standards for digital animation are starting to go down in terms of storytelling.

Elmo's World: Elmo's WONDERFUL World (2017) is the latest in the long line of Sesame Street DVD releases with their huge latter-day star with 13 episodes never on DVD before, all running over two hours. It is a good collection, but ;loving the world around you; theme is so common to all Elmo releases, this one has trouble distinguishing itself from the many we've covered before. As a result, it is not a bad one, but far from the best. Fans will be happy.

Extras include three extra Elmo's World shows and two Furchester Hotel shows.

Marc Webb's Gifted (2017) is the director's worst film, a dud of an entry in the extremely tired cycle of child films where the pre-teen is a prodigy, with Chris 'Captain America' Evans as the father of a young gal (McKenna Grace) who has potential. You know she does when Octavia Spencer shows up telling this to us in an early scene. However, the script is thin on originality, ideas and I was never convinced of anything here despite an OK cast that also includes Jenny Slate and Lindsay Duncan.

For being so visual adept in his underrated Spider-Man films and Music Videos, Webb surrenders his talents to a safe, lite commercial film as an unfortunate retreat from so much good work. His superhero films did better than people think, so he could not find something more challenging or watchable? Sad.

Extras include Digital HD Ultraviolet Copy for PC, PC portable and other cyber iTunes capable devices, while the discs add six Making Of featurettes, Deleted Scenes and a Stills Gallery.

LEGO Scooby Doo: Blowout Beach Blast (2017) is on of the better LEGO, CGI and Scooby revival projects going straight-to-video, but it is a bit short at only 77 minutes as the gang goes to a three-day party event by the beach. Oddly, we keep getting musical numbers out of nowhere, not only NEVER a staple of the show (any music from that was amusing Pop/Rock during chase sequences that worked), but why not just do a full musical?

Needless the say the music almost dies when 'ghost pirates' crash the party, but we don't get anything new we have not seen before (musical numbers notwithstanding), though I enjoy the little touches of LEGO-world logic that saves this from being a dud. Not bad, but not very memorable either, fans should still enjoy it.

Extras include Digital HD Ultraviolet Copy for PC, PC portable and other cyber iTunes capable devices, while the discs add three episodes from two previous Scooby TV shows, including the newer 'Party Like Its 1899' and from the original, classic first series, 'Go Away Ghost Ship' and 'A Clue For Scooby Doo'.

Powerpuff Girls: The Last Donnycorn (2017) is the latest from the revived Cartoon Network TV series to hit DVD. Color is good and the stores and humor are the same as the old show, but I noticed that this time out, there is a slightly different tone and slightly less energy than in the original show. Why? Who knows. Its hard to pick up from a break that was probably not even expected, but that's the way it is here. We have 12 main episodes and the disc runs 143 minutes all in total. It is fine for what it is, but the revival is not 100% successful, yet, what were they going to do?

Extras include 30-minutes of Minisodes.

The 1080p 2.35 X 1digital High Definition image on Gifted is a passable digital shoot with little special about it, but it is at least consistent, as is the 1080p 1.78 X 1 digital High Definition image transfer on the all CGI Scooby Doo, but they are both just marginally passed up in regular Blu-ray form by Boss Baby, which should give you an idea how good the 4K 2160p version of Baby looks. Gifted and Scooby include anamorphically enhanced DVDs that are softer than their Blu-ray counterparts, but Scooby is too soft and the softest DVD on this list.

The anamorphically enhanced 1.78 X 1 image on both DVDs (Elmo is credited as Standard aka 1.33 X 1 framing, but is also 1.78, even in a fee supplements where older 1.33 X 1 has been centered in a 1.78 X 1 frame and bookended with black sidebars) are fine and colorful for what they offer and represent, in keeping with previous releases in their respective series, so no troubles here.

As for sound, Boss Baby's 4K disc has the 11.1 Dolby Atmos that nothing here can beat, but its DTS-HD MA (Master Audio) 7.1 lossless mixdown is matched somewhat by the DTS-HD MA (Master Audio) 5.1 lossless mix on Gifted, but the DTS-MA 5.1 mix on Scooby Doo is a bit awkward at tomes and has a slightly problematic soundfield, which carries over to the lossy Dolby Digital 5.1 in its DVD. The lossy Dolby Digital 5.1 on Gifted is slightly clearer, if trite in its own dialogue-based way. That leaves Powerpuff and Elmo with lossy Dolby Digital 2.0 Stereo, but Elmo is a little lower in volume (and not just on the older extras clips) so be careful of volume switching and loud playback levels.

- James Lockhart (4K Set) & Nicholas Sheffo

https://www.facebook.com/jamesharlandlockhartv/