Mike Spring
What’s New in Home Video & Pop Culture – May 12, 2026
Animation, graphic novels, and documentaries, that’s the bulk of the releases this week. (Plus one adult-themed movie!) Check out the full slate of reviewed titles below!
In This Week’s Column:
- GOAT (4K Ultra HD + Blu-ray + Digital)
- The Legend of Hei 2 (Blu-ray)
- Girls (4K Ultra HD + Blu-ray)
- Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles Compendium: Volume 1 (Graphic Novel)
- Star Trek: Red Shirts (Graphic Novel)
- Max a Little Axolotl #1 and #2: Breaking Out (Graphic Novel)
- Dr. Cliff: Worldwide Vet (DVD)
- After The Rain: Putin’s Stolen Children Come Home (DVD)
GOAT (4K Ultra HD + Blu-ray + Digital)
Official Synopsis:
From Sony Pictures Animation, the studio behind Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse and the artists that made KPop Demon Hunters, comes GOAT, an original action-comedy set in an all-animal world. The story follows Will, a small goat with big dreams who gets a once-in-a-lifetime shot to join the pros and play roarball – a high-intensity, co-ed, full-contact sport dominated by the fastest, fiercest animals in the world. Will’s new teammates aren’t thrilled about having a little goat on their roster, but Will is determined to revolutionize the sport and prove once and for all that “smalls can ball!”
The Movie:
Sony Pictures Animation has really started to develop a particular house style – and I mean that as a compliment. As the marketing made very clear, GOAT is from the same studio that brought you the Spider-Verse films and K-Pop Demon Hunters, and the visual style here and overall feel of GOAT is definitely in the same realm. It has that same sort of frenetic energy and dynamic animation that really gives it a modern, cutting-edge feel.
Produced by NBA superstar Stephen Curry, GOAT is about a hopeful “roarball” player who is considered too small to play the game but has heart and talent. Not only could he be THE GOAT (greatest of all time), but he’s also a literal goat, hence the reason he’s too small to play against lions and rhinos and other huge animals.
Ultimately, the film works – and suffers – because of its familiarity. This is a sports movie, after all, which means we get all of the familiar cliches: an underdog player/team, heated rivalries, training sequences, etc. It works because everyone loves a good sports movie, and the animation, writing, and pace of the film are all net positives. But it also feels a little too familiar, with few surprises along the way. But the movie has more heart than I expected, and overall it won me over. Kids – the target audience – should definitely enjoy it.
The 4K Video/Audio:
Not surprisingly, GOAT looks and sounds great in 4K Ultra HD. The colors are off the charts and really bring the film to life, while the unique animation style looks crisp and clean. Black levels are deep and inky, and the film just really pops. The surround soundtrack is constantly active and all of the speakers get a full workout between music, crowd noise, sports ambience, sound effects, and dialogue. All in all, this is a terrific A/V presentation.
The Bonus Features:
- Game Recognizes Game
- All-Star Lineup
- Courts Come Alive
- Animal Aesthetic
- Easter Egg Replay
- Deleted Scenes with Filmmaker Intro
- Make Your Own Pick & Roll Roarball Pizza Bites with Ayesha Curry
Digital Copy Included: Yes
The Legend of Hei 2 (Blu-ray)
Official Synopsis:
When an attack shatters the fragile peace between the spirit world and humanity, cat spirit Hei teams up with Luye, the last disciple of his Shifu Wuxian, to expose a conspiracy that threatens both realms—and the bond they’ve sworn to protect.
The Movie:
The first Legend of Hei film came out in 2019, and as far as I can tell, I never reviewed it, nor have I seen it, you know, just for fun. So I came into The Legend of Hei 2 at a little bit of a disadvantage. Thanks to a pretty comprehensive opening montage, I felt caught up and understood the dynamic between the two main characters… who then spent most of the film apart from each other. That’s a trope that always rubs me the wrong way, but having not had an attachment to these characters, I was mostly okay with it.
The film sees the peace between the human and spirit world threatened and our young protagonist Luye having to join forces with (what I presume to be a new) ally, the titular cat spirit Hei. The film then moves into an adventure filled with magic and fantasy and action. While the story didn’t always fully track for me, the largely 2-D traditional animation style was quite evocative and there are a few dazzling action sequences.
I can’t say I was blown away by The Legend of Hei 2, and maybe some of that comes from my unfamiliarity with the first film, but it feels like a really strong entry in the franchise if you’re a fan. I suspect anime die-hards will find a lot to like here.
The Bonus Features:
- Behind the Scenes with the Animation Team
- Behind the Scenes with the Voice Dubbing Cast
- Animation Breakdowns
- Teasers & Trailers
Digital Copy Included: No
Girls (4K Ultra HD + Blu-ray)
Official Synopsis:
From influential director Just Jaeckin (Emmanuelle), a coming-of-age cult classic of the 1980s featuring a young Anne Parillaud (Luc Besson’s Nikita)
Three girls: Susanne (Charlotte Wailer), Annie (Zoé Chauveau) and Catherine (Anne Parillaud) have just finished high school, meet every night in discos and cinemas to meet boys. Susanne’s younger sister Betty (Isabelle Mejias) often joins them and copies their behavior, and believes everything they say. Soon she ends up with projectionist George – although she doesn’t take the pill yet. From influential director Just Jaeckin (Emmanuelle), a coming-of-age cult classic of the 1980s featuring a young Anne Parillaud (Luc Besson’s Nikita) and soundtrack by Eric Stewart (10cc). Cult Epics presents Girls in a new 4K restoration and with new bonus features.
The Movie:
Interestingly, I randomly happened to watch Luc Besson’s La Femme Nikita right before I sat down to review Girls, so I was surprised to see Anne Parillaud, who rocketed to stardom thanks to Nikita, also starring in this film. What I wasn’t surprised to see, though, was that she gives the strongest performance in a pretty well-acted film to begin with.
Writer/director Just Jaeckin will probably always be best known for directing Emmannuelle, perhaps one of the most famous erotic art films of all time, but Girls is a bit of a break away from that style of filmmaking. This coming-of-age story follows three girls as they’re moving into young adulthood, hopping bars and nightclubs and moving through guys with ease. When one of the girls’ younger sister decides to follow in their footsteps, it shifts the dynamic of things.
The film has a strong visual style, but the story is unfocused. Is it a drama? A comedy? Something else? It’s hard to tell, because it never really commits to one narrative or one tone. As a result, it feels a little disjointed and unsure of itself, even though that’s not an adjective you hear applied to Jaeckin’s works very often. This is a very nice restoration and the disc comes in beautiful packaging with nice bonus features, so it’s unfortunate that the movie itself is the weak link here.
The 4K Video/Audio:
Girls has been restored in 4K Ultra HD, marking one of its first home video releases that is widely available on disc. (I’m not an expert on this, but my preliminary research shows that this was not an easy movie to come by for many years.) Picture quality is widely very good throughout, with only a few occasional specks of dirt or dust noticeable at rare intervals. Image clarity is sharp, colors are vibrant, and contrasts are strong. The soundtrack is presented in 2.0, reflective of the filmmaking origins, and it is about as good a mix as you could expect, especially considering that the movie is 45 years old. All in all, this is a very strong audiovisual presentation of a film that I’m sure Just Jaeckin or Anna Parillaud fans will be happy to finally have in their collections.
The Bonus Features:
- Audio Commentary by Jeremy Richey and Peter Verstraten
- Who is Just Jaeckin – Essay by Jeremy Richey
- Last Interview with director Just Jaeckin (2022)
- Interview with actress Isabelle Mejias (2025)
- Archival interview with Just Jaeckin, Anne Parrilaud, Zoé Chaveau, Charlotte Walior (TFI, 1982)
- Girls: The German Cut
- Trailers
Digital Copy Included: No
Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles Compendium: Volume 1 (Graphic Novel)
Official Synopsis:
Read IDW’s entire epic TMNT ongoing comic series in three easy-to-collect volumes for the first time! Each volume will contain over 1,000 pages of content! In 2011 IDW launched an ongoing series that would go on to be the longest in Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles history, spanning 150 issues. Now is your chance to start from the beginning with these massive omnibuses that will collect 50 issues each! From the beginning, this series told a sprawling tale about family, heroism, and tragedy of epic proportions. TMNT co-creator Kevin Eastman plotted out storylines with original series writer Tom Waltz and then Sophie Campbell, who took over on issue #101. Joining the writers were artists Dan Duncan, Andy Kuhn, Ben Bates, Mateus Santolouco, Cory Smith, and more, who crafted a new style that distinguished it from previous iterations while at the same time adhering to what made the original comics so great.
The first arc begins with Raphael alone wandering the streets of New York City while his brothers and Splinter search for him. As the story progresses, the new origin of the TMNT is revealed! See the first appearances of April, Casey, Old Hob, Baxter Stockman, Krang, Shredder, and more! Read major storylines like “Krang War,” “City Fall,” “Northampton,” “Attack on Technodrome,” and “Vengeance,” which concludes the first 50 issues of the series with a battle that changes the world of the Turtles forever! These omnibuses offer the perfect opportunity for new readers to catch up on the series and give fans an easy way to collect all the ongoing issues in just three volumes!
The Book:
I love the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles and I love compendiums. So it’s pretty hard not to love this new compendium from IDW that collects the first 50 issues of the IDW series that started in 2011. (A compendium, by the way, is like an Omnibus, but it’s paperback instead of hardcover and thus costs about $50-$75 less.)
I’ve made no secret about the fact that the IDW iteration of TMNT has never been my favorite. The book leaned super heavily into the mutant side of things, introducing tons of new characters that were anthropomorphic animal mutations. For my money, what always made the Turtles so cool was that they were outcasts in a human world, not that they are just a couple more mutants in a world populated by endless mutants.
That said, I’ve also read most of the IDW series in dribs and drabs, reviewing odd collections and trade paperbacks here and there. This is my first chance to sit down and read the series in order right from the start. (The compendium, unlike the IDW Collection hardcover library series, wisely omits any of the spin-off series and one-shots and just focuses on the main series issues.) And while I maintain that my criticism of the series remains valid – while I will fully admit that it’s a matter of personal taste – I will say that reading the book in the way it was meant to be read certainly improves the experience.
I may never be the biggest fan of the IDW TMNT universe, but I can certainly say I appreciate it more fully now, and this gorgeous behemoth of a book was the road to getting there.
The Specs:
- Publisher: IDW
- Format: Softcover
- Page Count: 1240 pages
- Cover Price: $59.99
Star Trek: Red Shirts (Graphic Novel)
Official Synopsis:
The doomed Starfleet crew members, the red shirts, must track down spies on an isolated planet in this graphic novel. Stranded on the snow-ridden planet Arkonia 89, the crew of the U.S.S. Warren has a small window in which to pin down spies seeking to steal classified secrets and keep Starfleet data out of their nefarious hands. They face threats not only from their faceless enemies but from the brutalizing elements and wildlife of a planet far from home. In this complicated story of betrayal, loss, and redemption, the red shirts’ lives and Starfleet’s sanctity are on the line…and no one is safe.
This heartrending story by writer Christopher Cantwell (Star Trek: Defiant) and artist Megan Levens (Star Trek) marks a new beginning for the Star Trek universe, featuring Starfleet’s most intrepid and doomed crew members: red shirts. Now, finally, they get their own story. Collects the complete miniseries Star Trek: Red Shirts #1–5.
The Book:
I absolutely loved Star Trek: Red Shirts! (Okay, so I’m a huge Star Trek fan, but I think it’s safe to say most people reading Star Trek comics are already Star Trek fans.) Red Shirts is a dark, gritty, thrilling Trek story that both feels completely fresh and new while still feeling like part of the Trek universe.
The story features almost zero previously-known characters. As the book is literally called Red Shirts, which is Star Trek shorthand for ‘cannon fodder,’ you might be able to figure out why that’s the case. I don’t want to spoil anything here, but suffice it to say no one is safe in this book. The story is part spy adventure, part survival thriller, and still deeply rooted in Trek lore, with certain alien antagonists showing up at a certain point. (Again, I don’t want to give away any spoilers.)
The tone is definitely darker than most Trek books, but not in a way that feels exploitative or gratuitous. It feels like it’s both honoring Red Shirts and, in a way, almost parodying them, or at least their place in the Trek universe. (But in a serious way; this isn’t a comedy book.) All in all, it might be hard to write about but it was a joy to read!
The Specs:
- Publisher: IDW Publishing
- Format: Softcover
- Page Count: 128 pages
- Cover Price: $22.99
Max, A Little Axolotl #2: Breaking Out (Graphic Novel)
Official Synopsis:
Say hello to Max, a Little Axolotl! He’s back for another silly and sweet story. This young graphic novel is perfect for fans of Narwhal and Jelly!
Max has been attending school for a few months now and has really settled in at the aquarium. He absolutely loves his new friends and teachers! When a new axolotl arrives at the tank, Max jumps at the chance to show her around. The new axolotl is shy and is having trouble adjusting to this new life away from home. When Max discovers she’s gone missing one morning it’s up to him and his friends to journey through the aquarium and find her.
This silly and sweet graphic novel explores themes of friendship, nature conservation, and so much more!
The Book:
I actually received both books 1 and 2 in the Max, A Little Axolotl series to write this review, but the new one is Book 2: Breaking Out. Let’s start with the first book first, though. Max is a little Axolotl who gets transplanted from his endangered home, Lake Xochimilco in Mexico, to a conservation aquarium habitat. There, he makes new friends while trying to overcome his shyness. (And for those of you who aren’t familiar with axolotls, they’re those super cute underwater lizard-like creatures who look like they’re smiling a lot.)
Book 2: Breaking Out sees Max having settled into his new home and enjoying life. When a new axolotl joins the aquarium, Max befriends her, but she soon goes missing, so Max and his friends have to search the aquarium to find her.
Both books are extremely fun and cute adventures that will be perfect for younger readers. Not only are axolotls cute, but artist (and writer) Joey Spotto’s simple yet charming art style is bright and colorful and makes all of the undersea creatures look friendly and accessible to younger readers. The books also have a strong animal conservation theme as well as fun facts about axolotls. Parents, definitely check these books out for your smaller kids.
The Specs:
- Publisher: Graphix
- Format: Softcover or Hardcover
- Page Count: 128 pages
- Cover Price: $12.99 (SC) or $25.99 (HC)
Dr. Cliff: Worldwide Vet (DVD)
Official Synopsis:
Globe-trotting veterinarian, Dr. Cliff Redford, and his daughter, Emily Redford, fight for animals’ lives, anywhere in the world. After a young fox nearly dies in the surgery room, flat-lining not once but twice, Emily and her father long for wildlife rescue work and travel abroad.
The Movie:
This award-winning documentary is an engaging and charming look at a veterinarian who truly goes above and beyond when it comes to helping animals. Canadian veterinarian Dr. Cliff Redford started out as your typical vet, treating cats and dogs, before he started volunteering at a wildlife rehab center, where he treats all manner of wildlife. (The film’s opening scene sees him helping a fox with a broken leg.) Soon, he and his daughter are traveling to India to treat animals during that country’s Diwali celebration, which sees a high amount of animal injuries.
Dr. Redford is the kind of person you want to watch a documentary about: knowledgeable, personable, and caring. He explains what he’s doing and why, and we see him in a wide variety of environments. It’s a fascinating documentary and a good reminder that there are people out there who care about more than just themselves.
The Bonus Features:
There are no bonus features on the disc.
Digital Copy Included: No
After The Rain: Putin’s Stolen Children Come Home (DVD)
Official Synopsis:
Deep in a forest by the Baltic Sea, a group of Ukrainian families come together to start the healing process with the help of golden retrievers and Palomino horses at an animal therapy retreat. In the safety of the forest, the children’s memories of being illegally deported to Russia and their families’ struggles to rescue them are unraveled with the help of skilled and sensitive counsellors. The joy and humor the children discover during their time in the forest make it easy to forget that their stories are the reason the International Criminal Court issued an arrest warrant for Vladimir Putin.
The Movie:
I generally try to avoid really heavy documentaries involving children, because it’s just such an intense subject that it’s hard not to get emotional when watching them. You can imagine with a title like After The Rain: Putin’s Stolen Children Come Home, this isn’t exactly a lighthearted documentary. The film focuses on children scarred by war and the families they’re reuniting with, and the counseling they undergo to return to some semblance of normalcy.
But the film isn’t depressing, either. It is heart-wrenching, because of what these kids went through, and there are very emotional moments, but the film doesn’t linger on the bad more than necessary. The documentary largely focuses on two particular girl, who are entry into this world, and their stories are equally moving. There’s a current of hope and redemption and positivity that underlies everything as well. It’s not the kind of movie I would watch again, but it certainly is a powerful viewing experience.
The Bonus Features:
There are no bonus features on the disc.
Digital Copy Included: No
