Eight years after the animated series debuted on TV, 2021’s PAW Patrol: The Movie brought its animal heroes to the US big screen. With a mere $26 million budget, its $144 million worldwide gross proved more than sufficient to greenlight a sequel via 2023’s PAW Patrol: The Mighty Movie.

In Adventure City, a team of daring canines called “PAW Patrol” keeps the citizens safe. Their abilities leap to another level when a meteor crashes into the town and imbues them with super-powers.

Which they’ll need when their archenemy Humdinger (voiced by Ron Pardo) breaks out of jail. He teams with mad scientist Victoria Vance (Taraji P. Henson) to attempt to steal these new skills from the Patrol and cause havoc.

As I noted in my review for the 2021 film, PAW Patrol clearly doesn’t aim for my demographic, as the series exists to entertain pre-adolescent kids. However, that doesn’t mean it can’t work for older folks as well.

Which the prior flick did – sorta. While watchable and painless, the 2021 film fared better than feared, even if it never threatened to really delight me as an adult.

This didn’t mean history needed to repeat for Mighty, though. I felt the sequel might well throw more bones – ha! – at older viewers as well as the core audience.

Nope. If anything, Mighty seems even more heavily oriented toward kids than the prior film.

Not that I view this as inappropriate. There’s nothing wrong with entertainment made explicitly for children – not everything needs to appeal to a wider range of ages.

That said, the best “family fare” manages to satisfy this broad variety of audiences. While I don’t really fault Mighty for its essential lack of appeal to anyone over the age of 10, I think it could’ve expanded its possibilities without much effort.

My biggest complaint with Mighty stems from its essential lack of imagination. It touches on well-worn themes and uses the superhero concept as a cheap plot device.

This means that the Patrol’s new powers act as the cart that leads the horse. The filmmakers feel they add enough life to the property that Mighty doesn’t need to find anything else creative about it.

As such, we wind up with a stale tale of megalomaniacs and characters who need to find their paths. Mighty fails to find fresh ways to explore these themes.

Every once in a while, Mighty attempts some slightly clever dialogue and concepts. However, much of the content lacks real zest and seems generated by AI.

Mighty does come with a cast of notables, mainly in small roles. In addition to Henson, we find names like Chris Rock, Serena Williams, Kim Kardashian, Kristen Bell and James Marsden.

They add some credibility to the project, but their performances don’t seem noteworthy otherwise. Non-famous voice actors would fare just as well.

I don’t want to come down too hard on Mighty, as again, I reside well outside of the target audience. In addition, it seems well-intentioned and never insults the potential child viewers.

Still, I can’t help but wish those involved aimed a little higher. Mighty Movie offers decent entertainment for youngsters but seems unlikely to deliver much charm to older folks.

PAW Patrol: The Mighty Movie appears in an aspect ratio of 2.35:1 on this Blu-ray Disc. No issues materialized here.

Sharpness satisfied. As expected from an animated flick, the image showed nice clarity.

I noticed no issues with jagged edges or shimmering, and edge enhancement appeared to be absent. No source flaws came with the transfer, as the movie lacked any form of defects.

Colors went with a somewhat subdued pastel feel much of the time. Within those parameters, the hues looked positive, so the various tones came across as clear and well-developed.

Blacks also seemed dark and firm, while low-light shots offered good delineation. Across the board, this became a satisfying image.

As for the movie’s Dolby Atmos soundtrack, it opened up the film in a satisfying manner. Downconverted to Dolby TrueHD 7.1, the mix didn’t give us wall-to-wall theatrics, but it managed to use the spectrum well.

As expected, the film’s action sequences boasted nice breadth and activity, and the street and city elements created a fine sense of involvement. While the soundscape didn’t stun us on a frequent basis, it provided more than enough to succeed.

Audio quality seemed consistently solid. Speech appeared natural and distinctive, and no edginess or other issues marred the dialogue.

Music sounded warm and full, while effects showed good clarity and accuracy. When necessary, bass response came across as deep and tight. All of this lifted the track to “B+” status.

The disc includes two featurettes, and Paw-somely Powerful Pups runs five minutes, 58 seconds and provides an overview of the Patrol, their base/vehicles/outfits/gadgets and their new powers. It offers a cute summary with a few details viewers might miss.

A Totally Paw-some Cast goes for five minutes, 15 seconds. It comes with remarks from actors Mckenna Grace, Lil Rel Howery, Taraji P. Henson, Christian Convery, Marsai Martin, Alan Kim, and Brice Gonzalez.

“Totally” examines cast, characters and performances. Though fairly fluffy, a few decent nuggets emerge.

After a decent first film, I hoped PAW Patrol: The Mighty Movie might improve on its framework. Unfortunately, the sequel seems even less engaging and becomes a forgettable adventure. The Blu-ray boasts strong picture and audio but it lacks substantial bonus materials. While fine for a pre-teen crowd, Mighty probably won’t entertain anyone older than that.