Rating summary

Movie		3.5
Video		3.5
Audio		4.0
Extras		0.0
Overall		3.5

Jonny's Golden Quest / Jonny Quest vs. the Cyber-Insects Blu-ray Movie Review

Two Quests for the price of one.

Reviewed by Randy Miller III November 3, 2024

Multiple attempts have been made to update Hanna-Barbera's iconic original Jonny Quest for a new generation, with the first being The New Adventures of Jonny Quest in 1986. A short-lived series that only ran for 13 episodes, it paved the way for a slightly more popular reboot called The Real Adventures of Jonny Quest in 1996... but between those two shows lied a pair of made-for-TV animated movies, Jonny's Golden Quest (1993) and Jonny Quest vs. the Cyber-Insects (1995), produced respectively for the USA Network and TNT. Previously available separately on DVD, these full-length adventures have now been paired together as a handy new "Double Feature" Blu-ray from Warner Archive.

Jonny's Golden Quest (88 minutes) is the better of the two, a decently-paced adventure with international appeal and a solid roster of new and familiar characters. Team Quest (Jonny, Dr. Benton C. Quest, his wife Dr. Rachel Quest, Race Bannon, Hadji, and Bandit) are on assignment under the international spy operation Intelligence-One to darkest Peru, where a series of mutated animals and plants have been appearing. Also along is Race Bannon's ex-wife Jade Kenyon, a civilian contact on the mission. Their perennial nemesis Dr. Zin, who's behind both the mutations and a few other nefarious deeds including clone experiments, is able to kidnap Drs. Benton and Rachel, but a sudden tragedy and death nearly splits Team Quest in two. They eventually work together to uncover the truth about a mysterious mask of synthetic goal brought to them by an American girl named Jessie, whose father Dr. Victor Devlon has been kidnapped and taken to an undisclosed location that takes Team Quest to Tokyo, Paris, Rome, and beyond.

Though a bit unwieldy at almost 90 minutes even with plenty to do, Jonny's Golden Quest is a fairly watchable and entertaining adventure that stays fairly true to the spirit of its source material while branching out in a few new and unexpected directions. Interestingly enough, this made-for-TV movie is actually tied into a specific episode of The New Adventures of Jonny Quest ("Deadly Junket") and repurposes a few portions of its narrative, specifically Jessie and her kidnapped father. It's also nice to see a bit more female representation this time around, as previous iterations of the Jonny Quest franchise (especially the original 1960s series) felt like too much of a boys' club.

Jonny Quest vs. the Cyber-Insects (91 minutes) is a more colorful effort (more on that later) and enjoyable in an over-the-top manner, but lacks a lot of the grounded themes present in most Jonny Quest adventures. Also known as Jonny's Global Impact. Featuring many of the same characters including Jessie (who's revealed in Golden Quest to have a real identity tied to one of our heroes), it opens in South America where Jonny and Hadji are captured after trying to steal a seemingly unguarded sapphire. However... their entire heist and capture is revealed to be a native test of honor that they've obviously failed, but tribal leader Chief Atacama reassures young Jonny before a violent storm interrupts the lesson. All at once, Team Quest is back in action to uncover the truth behind bizarre weather events all over the continent and beyond, which they eventually investigate from space with the help of Jonny's personal robot, 4-DAC. With further help from Dr. Eve Belage, Commander Harris of Intelligence-One, and others, they look deeper into the mystery and find the familiar culprit to be Dr. Zin and his horde of cybernetic insects. Obviously.

I wasn't as big a fan of this one. It has its moments and is nothing if not ambitious in that usual Jonny Quest way, but any typically Earth-bound series that decides to venture into space is probably out of good material to work with. The characters also aren't as grounded as usual and make decisions that seem even more out of turn than a select few in Jonny's Golden Quest, and the reintroduction of Dr. Zin just seems a bit lazy here. Jonny Quest vs. the Cyber-Insects isn't a total loss and features typically solid voice work, but this franchise has seen better days.

Jonny's Golden Quest / Jonny Quest vs. the Cyber-Insects Blu-ray Movie, Video Quality 

With one major difference briefly covered below, Jonny's Golden Quest and Jonny Quest vs. the Cyber-Insects have much more in common than not. Their shared hand-drawn animation is a bit stiff and not of the highest quality, though character models are simple and easily identifiable with colorful backgrounds and an overall look that fits in nearly with most animated shows from the 1980s and 1990s. Warner Archives' separate 1080p/SDR transfers are of decent quality with crisp line detail, mostly decent color representation (see below), no obvious filtering, and solid black levels with good contrast. Bit rates typically hover in the mid-20Mbps range with no glaring compression artifacts, though it's fairly obvious that at least a fair amount of noise reduction has been applied here. It's nothing too serious, though, and again likely far outpaces the older DVD editions and of course whatever you saw on TV in the mid 1990s.

For whatever reason, though (source material differences), Jonny Quest vs. the Cyber-Insects has a noticeably more colorful appearance that's slightly prone to bleeding on the warmer end. It's enough that I felt compelled to dial back the color level on my TV a few notches, which I rarely do. This isn't a deal-breaker of course and could be inherent to the movie's source material or even intended visual design, but it certainly stands out in direct comparison.

Jonny's Golden Quest / Jonny Quest vs. the Cyber-Insects Blu-ray Movie, Audio Quality 

Both of these DTS-HD 2.0 Master Audio mixes do a capable enough job with the modest but very serviceable original stereo mixes, rarely aiming for big-screen theatrics but nonetheless opening up during sporadic action scenes and of course the frequent music cues. Dialogue is always clean and well-recorded which highlights the great voice work by noted professionals including Don Messick, JoBeth Williams, Frank Welker, Rob Paulsen, Jeffrey Tambor, Anndi McAfee, BJ Ward, Héctor Elizondo, Tim Matheson, and more. Overall, it's a solid pair of mixes that gets the job done.

Optional English (SDH) subtitles are included during both films.

Jonny's Golden Quest / Jonny Quest vs. the Cyber-Insects Blu-ray Movie, Special Features and Extras 

This one-disc release ships in a standard keepcase with split cover artwork and no inserts. No extras either, sadly, but there's still a good amount of bang for your buck with this double feature release.

Jonny's Golden Quest / Jonny Quest vs. the Cyber-Insects Blu-ray Movie, Overall Score and Recommendation 

Produced in the years between two different attempted relaunches of its parent franchise, Jonny's Golden Quest and Jonny Quest vs. the Cyber-Insects were two made-for-TV movies made for the USA Network and TNT. The latter is a colorful effort and enjoyable in an over-the-top manner, but it lacks a lot of the grounded themes present in most Jonny Quest adventures. Warner Archive's new double feature Blu-ray might be testing the waters for a future collection of either The New Adventures of Jonny Quest (1986-87) or The Real Adventures of Jonny Quest (1996-97), but for now this at least makes a decent companion piece to the boutique label's terrific treatment of the original series.