The DC Universe has had a lot of success on TV and with their straight to home release animated features. In addition they have had numerous animated web series on the CW Seed including Vixen and Freedom Fighters: The Ray spinning out of their live action shows. The latest, Deathstroke: Knights & Dragons isn’t connected to the TV universe, but still released as an online web series and much like the previous ones has now been brought together as feature film. Could this film capture the essence of the character and bring the pain or will it fail to hit its mark?

 

Deathstroke: Knights & Demons follows Slade Wilson-aka the super-assassin called Deathstroke who made a tragic mistake ten years ago and his wife and son paid a terrible price. Now, a decade later, Wilson's family is threatened once again by the murderous Jackal and the terrorists of H.IV.E. Can Deathstroke atone for the sins of the past-or will his family pay the ultimate price? I love all things Deathstroke and started watching this web series when it first debuted, but sadly got sidetracked and never got the chance to finish it. Thankfully it got this treatment as expected and works way better that way for me.

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Right out the gate it wastes no time letting you know that this is the Deathstroke we all know and love. There is blood and body parts flying freely as he slices and shoots his way through those in his way. Once past the initial set up the story shifts to blend some familiar tropes in his history including some origins and of course stuff with Jericho. The story moves fast and action packed delivering some bad ass kills and fights. The attention to detail via animation in these action sequences is really well done.

 

The animation is great and looks like most of the other features that have come along from them. I was both surprised and glad that it bypassed any guest appearances by other DC heroes allowing it to be its own thing. Like most of these animated stories there are tons of liberties to create a new story that isn’t completely the same as the original stuff, but deal keeps it at the heart and works great. I loved this film and thought it did a great job at capturing the essence of Deathstroke instead of just making him the villain like they tend to do.

 

Grab your copy of Deathstroke: Knights & Demons when it hits Blu-ray and DVD on August 18th from Warner Bros Home Entertainment.