Storm Hawks: Hawks Rise Again (review)

The kindly folk of the planet Atmos are in constant danger from the evil Cyclonian Empire, because that’s what bad guys do: they prey on people who are nice. The only defense the nice people have are the Sky Knights, squadrons of jocks who fight the Cyclonians on flying motorcycles, and now one gawky teenager, Aerrow, has taken it upon himself to start up his own Sky Knights squadron, manned by teenagers and named after a long-lost legendary one: the Storm Hawks. This is when I would move to another planet. It’s clear this simplistic Cartoon Network series -- this disc includes five episodes -- is aimed at very young children: the animated action, and it’s all action, looks like Quidditch played on one of young Anakin Skywalker’s pod-racing courses with Transformers. Oh, didn’t I mention? The flying motorcycles can transform. Of course they can. The only special features are two collections of clips from the episodes that highlight the individual characters and their weapons, plus a tiny eight-page comic book, but it’s not like second-graders would be looking for a commentary track here. [buy at Amazon]

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