I grew up watching the Batman television series starring Adam West with a lot of big-name actors playing the screen villains, including Burgess Meredith as Penguin, for a mainly comedic role. In 1992 Danny Devito played the Penguin in Batman Returns and was a grotesque character. The Penguin has again returned time and time again in other Batman cartoons and recently in another movie and mini-series.
For those of us who have seen the 2022 film The Batman, you will recall one of Batman’s major antagonists having a role in the film, which was Penguin. He was popular enough to have a spin-off series, called The Penguin. This miniseries was developed for television by Lauren LeFranc and is basically a crime-drama. Created by Bob Kane and Bill Finger, Penguin has been given new life and perspective to go with the character being darker thanks to screen legend Colin Farrell (Minority Report, Daredevil), who has returned to play Penguin one more time!
This is an origin tale spun by four directors, Craig Zobel, Helen Shaver, Kevin Bray, Jennifer Getzinger. We learn more about the life of Penguin, aka Oswald ‘Oz” Cobb, how came to be and rose to power. Among the characters in this series are the psychotic Sofia Falcone / Gigante (I grew up watching the Batman television series starring Adam West with a lot of big-name actors playing the screen villains, including Burgess Meredith as Penguin, for a mainly comedic role. In 1992 Danny Devito played the Penguin in Batman Returns and was a grotesque character. The Penguin has again returned time and time again in other Batman cartoons and recently in another movie and mini-series.
For those of us who have seen the 2022 film The Batman, you will recall one of Batman’s major antagonists having a role in the film, which was Penguin. He was popular enough to have a spin-off series, called The Penguin. This miniseries was developed for television by Lauren LeFranc and is basically a crime-drama. Created by Bob Kane and Bill Finger, Penguin has been given new life and perspective to go with the character being darker thanks to screen legend Colin Farrell (Minority Report, Daredevil), who has returned to play Penguin one more time!
This is an origin tale spun by four directors, Craig Zobel, Helen Shaver, Kevin Bray, Jennifer Getzinger. We learn more about the life of Penguin, aka Oswald ‘Oz” Cobb, how came to be and rose to power. Among the characters in this series are the psychotic Sofia Falcone / Gigante (Cristin Milioti, The Wolf of Wall Street), who is the daughter of crime boss Carmine Falcone (Mark Strong, Zero Dark Thirty, Shazam!). Sofia was ally of Penguin to some degree for a short while. Also, Rhenzy Feliz(Marvel’s Runaways) plays Cobb’s right hand man Victor “Vic” Aguilar. Vic was a homeless teenager that crosses paths with Cobb and winds up being his driver and enforcer!
The main crux of the story is about a gang war in the Gotham City underworld between the Falcone’s and Maroni’s with “Oz” Cobb seemingly playing both sides.
The Penguin is a fantastic series and a far cry for the better in both the comic and the various television series and even in Tim Burton’s Batman Returns film. The Penguin in this series a much darker, arguably more realistic character without much of a hint of the character being a bit too corny or tongue-in-cheek. The other actors in the series hand in tremendous performances with Cristin Milioti nearly stealing the show as Sofia. The series has lots of gangster-style action to support the story with good pacing. All the characters held my interest for the entire series.
The Penguin receives a UHD release courtesy of Warner Home Video. The package is a 3-disc set. The image quality for this release is magnificent as one would expect from a recent movie. The use of HDR10 and Dolby Vision bring out the very best in the colors, scenery, and characters. Colors are strong and on the darker side of the palette. You will not see too many cheerful colors, with reds, greens and browns having a murky, dingy kind of texture. The Native 4K 2160p image results in the cinematography by Darran Tiernan, Jonathan Freeman, David Franco and Zoë White looking exceptionally good with dark and dirty streets deep in the heart of Gotham City. Skin tones look lifelike, and details to the scenery look well resolved looking fine to go with crisp texturing throughout the presentation. Must of the series takes place at night which is no problem as evening scenes you can clearly see the characters and activities due to strong black levels and excellent shadow detail.
For the audio, the English: Dolby TrueHD 7.1 soundtrack is robust with clear with easy-to-follow dialogue, with action noises such as gunshots and musical score by Mick Giacchino coming in crisp with a perfectly balanced fidelity. I didn’t find any of the noises coming in overly dominating or too passive for that matter. There were no audio issues detected. Everything was basically loud and clear. Optional English subtitles are available for this release
Extras are a bevy of featurettes with interviews with the cast and crew who give us much insight to the series.
The features are spread across the three discs and include the following:
Inside Gotham 1-8
Introducing The Penguin
The Origin of Oz
Welcome to Gotham
Gotham Re-Envisioned
Becoming The Penguin
Who Is the Hangman: Portrait of Sofia Falcone
Hearts of the Penguin
A tale of Two Gothams
Victor Aguilar: The Making of a Henchman
The Penguin is certainly worth your time if you haven’t yet seen it. It is well written, shot well, and with outstanding performances. The audio and video quality are top-notch to go with the extras produced for this series makes this a highly recommended 4K offering!
The Penguin
Directors– Craig Zobel, Helen Shaver, Kevin Bray, Jennifer Getzinger
Cast- Colin Farrell Cristin Miliot, Rhenzy Feliz
Country of Origin-USA
Distributor – Warner Home Video
Number of Discs –3
Reviewed by – David Steigman
Date – 3/9/2025