Movie Review: DC Animated Movies

[W.E.B. Du Bois]

All-Star Superman

The name sounds really cheesy, sounds like the Justice League posing with the wind blowing beneath their capes. It's not that.



It's actually a very enjoyable and satisfying animated movie and only 75 minutes long. The movie has an epic feeling in it towards the end and it doesn't disappoint (if you prefer realism even in your fantasy). The animation is very good and as a side note it looks to be completely done by Koreans, even though its backed by Warner Brothers and DC. I would say that this version of Superman easily beats the revamped movie with live actors that came out a few years ago, as well as the animated rendition of Superman Doomsday, and the last episodes of Superman the animated Series and Justice League Unlimited.

What really makes it great is that Superman is dying throughout most of the movie. This occurs within a few minutes after the movie starts, so I'm not giving too much away there. Superman is just so noble, so it's really touching watching him live out his last day of life. I think him dying (not in a sick bed) but like having one day left of life is what really makes the story so interesting. Lex Luthor proves himself to be a very worthy adversary to Superman and Superman proves himself to be not just all muscle, but very wise and clever too. There was one other thing which I noticed the second time around: which is how the beginning of the movie starts off with Luthor saying how much he hates Superman because his greatness diminishes Luthor by comparison (Luthor is incredibly vain) and all these great things would have been possible without Superman. This actually seems somewhat plausible half way through the movie, but in the end you see how full of shit he is and it's done in a fairly clever way.

Nonetheless, it's still Superman's nobility, imminent demise (or will he live?), epic fights, superb animation, great voice acting and fairly good music which make this such a great movie, and dare I say even moving.

If I have any complaints it would be that the pair of bad guy Kryptonians who show up does not have a sufficient fight and the movie could have used one more good Super-brawl. I don't know who from, maybe Dark Adam, or maybe a quick ass-wuppin' on Brainiac, or maybe a big fight with Doomsday with some elements of the Justice League thrown in for the assist (as it was in the comic). It would have to be a worthy foe for Superman and tied in to the plot.

* High Quality Animation
* Luthor is a worthy adversary in this one and Superman shows off more than muscle
* Epic feeling that doesn't disappoint
* Perhaps a bit too many villains, some of which are defeated without any effort by Superman, perhaps fewer villains but more developed would have been better

4/5 (Somewhat biased here considering that I love the Justice League and animation in general)

[W.E.B. Du Bois]

So I've renamed this thread to "Movie Review: DC Animated Movies" because I found out that they made a lot more than just one. I've watch a couple since I made this thread, including some animated movie based on the 1950's version of the Justice League, I believe it was called "New Frontier." That one was interesting since it had less of Superman in it and more of Green Lantern. It was kind of cool to see the 1950's costumes, as opposed to the modern costumes. It was entertaining, maybe I'll give it a full review later.

What I do wish to give a fuller review is: Batman Gotham Knight.





As you can tell from the screen shots, the animation and computer animation quality is insane. It's the best animation I've ever seen from an American film (although I'm sure some kind of outsourcing [aka South Koreans]) were used. So yes, the animation is absolutely gorgeous, especially the depiction of cars and the train scene.

As far as other elements of the film, the movie was too short and lacked a crescendo or true climax and a true purpose. There is a little climax at the end and some kind of purpose given to the movie but it was a hill and not a mountain. There were also some parts that didn't make a whole lot of sense, like Batman things which I will vaguely describe (to avoid making spoilers) as ridiculously defying the laws of physics and some very obvious inconsistencies with the abilities of a villain.

* Amazing animation
* Lots of riveting action sequences
* Plot is a series of short stories, rather than a unified story with a major villain and other major themes, which is a let down at the end and a weakness in and of itself, it makes the movie lack depth and purpose
* Huh? The movie's over? at the end.

For fans of the genre: 4/5
For others: 3/5

[W.E.B. Du Bois]

Green Lantern: First Flight



Green Lantern, the story of Hal Jordan, a wild test pilot who becomes endowed with a power ring that allows him to create whatever he can think of. He thinks of a race car, the ring makes a race car, and so on. The ring doesn't give him the power to make things like planets though, or countries.

This is a movie just for the nerds and the kids. It has no appeal to anyone else. There is no real art in story telling, no real human element, no allegories of moral, philosophical or ideological struggles. The movie is good for nerds who want to see a comic book come to life with a story that's relatively close to the comic books and people who like to see flying men with super powers beat each other up.

The movie tried to have some kind of art in the way it told the story, and some kind of moral story: the slow frustrating path of justice and due process vs the quick and easy way of dictatorship and security. I guess two big things were missing: a human element and powers that are interesting. The missing human element is the lack of any kind of biography on Hal Jordan, personality or characteristic, or interaction, romance, some personal driving force or something to overcome or prove. He's just a guy with awesome powers and gets sent to be galactic cop. He barely even has a personality, let alone the deeper stuff. Contrast this with Superman who struggled with the death of Lois Lane in the first movie and had to choose between his powers and Lane in the second. Or contrast it with Batman who has to strike the balance between justice, being a vigilante, and a murderer.

Secondly, the powers of the Green Lantern is really just something for the kids. What kind of fight can there be, when a guy can just make up whatever he wants? A guy with super strength is coming. I materialize four ropes to hold him in place and two giant arms to wail on him. Did that do it for you? There's no real suspense when a guys powers are so undefined. He's never really in danger, and his victories are pulled out of the thin air.

The ending of this particular movie was rather lame.

* Animation is above average but not that far above average
* Story is rational
* Main character has little personality, there is not much human element in the movie
* There's no "oh snap!" moment, at no time will you be in suspense or riveted
* The ending was pretty lame

For fans of the franchise: 3/5
For everyone else: 2/5

[W.E.B. Du Bois]

Wonder Woman (2009)



I watched Wonder Woman, another of DC's Animated movies. The audience for this is two kinds of people: nerds and kids. I fall into the former category. The movie goes into the origins of Wonder Woman and her adventure fighting Ares, the god of war. I usually avoid talking plot, and I will do so again and go straight into my opinion and observations.

I thought it was kind of dumb how Wonder Woman is shaped like a model. She is very skinny just as she is in the Justice League cartoons. She should have been drawn in a more bulky, muscular kind of way, even at the expense of making her look less attractive. That would have made it believable when she's fighting these hulking creatures she goes up against. It was also dumb how the guy who tries to get in her pants by getting her drunk becomes her romantic interest in the movie. It's dumb on two different levels: both as giving a free pass to something immoral, and definitely not the girl power thing Wonder Woman is supposed to be all about. It was an entertaining movie. The ending was not great, but acceptable. The animation was fine.

One thing that REALLY amazed me was that one of the opening scenes features a dogfight between a wing of CHINESE J-20 stealth fighters vs American YF-23's. This is HIGHLY amazing since the movie was made in 2009, and the Chinese fighter did not make its first appearance till 2011. The Chinese fighter looks just like it does in the movie which is just uncanny.

* Entertaining plot and battles
* Good for DC Comic nerds
* Good animation
* Nothing special by way of intellectualism, drama, character or moral
* Ending was a bit disappointing

DC Comic fans/Kids: 7/10
General Audience: 5.5/10

[W.E.B. Du Bois]

Green Lantern: Emerald Knights



Another in the series of DC Animated Movies. This one is told through the perspective of new Green Lantern recruit Arisia (the blonde pointy-eared girl) and the stories told to her by Hal Jordan (the first Green Lantern from Earth) for a total of 6 stories including the present mission that the whole Corps is deployed on. The stories go through the first Green Lantern, then Kilowog's introduction to the Green Lantern Corps, then Laira (the red head), then an adventure of Abin Sur, Bolphunga, and the final showdown between the entire Corps and the anti-matter entity Krona.

This movie does not have general appeal and is for comic books fans and kids. Some of the stories that are covered are interesting, though the first Green Lantern and his crew look pretty lame. His story would have been more interesting had they drew him and his crew to look less cartoonish. One of the crew looks like a PopTart. The same can also be said of the guy who is Kilowog's drill instructor looking cartoonish.

Unlike Superman and Batman, I don't really find the powers or stories of most of the Green Lanterns to be interesting. The powers of the Green Lanterns always seems hard to define, and often times they use the ring like a laser, which is not much fun as a superhero power. The most interesting story of all the Green Lantern comics is when Sinestro becomes evil and takes out not only a ton of Green Lanterns, but eventually somehow the immortal Guardians get killed. That's really interesting. This movie in so far as it was deprived of both Hal Jordan as the main character, and deprived of Sinestro as the main villain has weak story content to work with. Also, the capabilities of a Green Lantern are really made to look weak in some of their fights, even though you would think that with a power ring that enables you to materialize anything you can think of, you would be able to kick an enormous amount of ass.

I will say this for the movie though: I liked it better than Green Lantern: First Flight. The last four of the six stories are good.

* For comic book fans, fans of DC animated DC comics and kids, not for a general audience
* Interesting to learn about the origins of the GL Corps that you see but never really hear about
* Has one really cool scene on the future of Sinestro and his evil Yellow Lantern Corps
* Half of the stories are interesting and there are some pretty cool visuals in some scenes
* Most stories don't draw you in
* Silly looking characters kill two of the stories
* The fighting is largely based upon who shoots the bigger beam of light - which is not very satisfying

5/10 Entertaining, if you like this kind of thing. Worth watching if you are a DC Comics fan.

[W.E.B. Du Bois]

Superman Doomsday



The Man of Steel meets his match: Doomsday. The movie is loosely based off of the hit comic book series where Superman encounters Doomsday and is killed in the battle between them. I thought the movie did an unsatisfactory job. The fight does not correspond to the comic book. In the comic book, Doomsday plows through a coalition of superheros trying to beat him, until they all get the tar beat out of them too badly and it's just Superman left fighting him. In the comic book, the fighting is more savage and you get more of Superman's thoughts and worries as collateral damage is being inflicted and he is being worn down. I haven't seen the movie in a while, but I don't remember it containing that.

I was also highly bothered at how Superman was drawn:



He looks like shit. Those lines on his face are ugly and unnecessary. Superman is the worst drawn character in the whole movie. He's nothing like what he looks like in Superman All Star, which incidentally I liked a lot better.

The second half of the movie is entertaining but, again deviates from the comic book totally. In the comic book there are four replacements Supermen. Just shooting from the hip there is: The Steel, Superboy, Cyber Superman and another Superman imposter. You get none of that here. I won't ruin what you do get, but it's not the comic book which is annoying and it's not satisfying on its merits either.

Go ahead and watch this if you are a DC Comics fan or you're a kid with some time to kill. Otherwise, it's a less than "meh" movie.

For the fans/kids: 5.0/10
For the general audience: 4.0/10

[W.E.B. Du Bois]

Justice League: The New Frontier



In this movie the Justice League takes on "the Centre" which is an ancient being that has been around since before the extinction of the dinosaurs. It is a small island size lifeform with fairly gigantic powers that can disguise its image as an island. It has observed mankind and after we detonated atomic weapons, it has decided that it would wipe some of us out.

Overall, I found this movie to be entertaining, interesting and informative to me as a DC Comics geek. The story is based on a comic book and as I read only a few X-Men comic books as an adolescent, it was all new to me. The heroes are dressed in retro 50's outfits which was also interesting.

With that being said I'm going to give this movie a similar rating to the above Superman Doomsday, although I think it was a little better it gets a "less than meh".

My problems with the movie include:

* Not enough background given on the Centre, nor on how he got to have all those dinosaurs (according to the comic book he took them in before the extinction and then he mutated them), nor not enough background given on what the Centre's intention was: he wanted to kick a lot of ass and then leave on a NASA shuttle to leave the Earth and never return (this was not stated in the movie)

* The final assault against the Centre is entertaining but amounts to Hal Jordan flying around aimlessly inside of it

* Superman gets taken out early and it was not really satisfying in terms of execution

* The ending sucked. It boils down to: I'll bet you can't get off the ground and push the button. Person gets off the ground and pushes the button. That's not what actually happens, but it's a metaphor for what does.

One thing I liked about the movie was that it had my man Keith David voicing the Centre. David has an excellent bad guy voice. Did you know he was also the voice for Disney's Goliath in Gargoyles? Pretty cool.



DC Comics Fans/Kids: 5/10
General audience: 4/10

[W.E.B. Du Bois]

Superman/Batman: Public Enemies



In this movie Lex Luthor is President of the US and he plots to take over the world and take down Superman and Batman in the process. He sets up Superman by goading him into attacking Luthor and Metallo, I believe with the use of Metallo's kryptonite. Metallo dies at some point and Luthor pins the blame on Superman. A large kryptonite meteor is headed for the earth and Luthor says that it's causing Superman to go crazy. He labels him and Batman public enemies and sends superheros and villains after him. This movie is the first time Powergirl appears in a cartoon. She's actually Supergirl from a different earth, which I believe was destroyed by some villain.

The movie starts off decent but ends badly. There's a lot of action, and even a fight between Captain Marvel and Superman is snuck in (although it's lame that Batman is able to injure Marvel with a bomb; Marvel is as strong as Superman) and Powergirl serves as eye candy for the duration of the movie. The fight with Luthor is anti-climactic, the Superman/Batman rocket ship is dumb and the outcome with the meteor is predictable.

Overall the movie is less about a good plot than it is about having fun and kicking butt along the way. The movie is aimed at teenagers, but you'll enjoy it if you like DC Comics or action cartoons in general.

DC Comics fan/kids: 7.0/10
General audience: 5.5/10

Gratuitous Powergirl Cosplay pics:

http://www.gamersbin.com/cosplay-f13...-thread-29536/

[W.E.B. Du Bois]

Justice League: Crisis on Two Earths, CTE is another in the series of DC Animated Movies. It was originally intended as a movie which bridged the two animated series Justice League and Justice League Unlimited, however the movie was delayed due to insufficient staff to work on all three projects simultaneously. The story is very similar to the Justice League episode with the Justice Lords, or the bad guy version of the Justice League in a parallel universe. In this story, the bad guy Justice League is known as The Syndicate and is led by Ultraman (Superman), Owlman (Batman), Super Woman (Wonder Woman) and other polar opposites of the heroes. All the bad guys in the Justice League are actually the good guys in the alternate universe including Lex Luthor and the Joker.



I think this is one of the best movies in the series and I highly enjoyed it. I wanted the movie to take me in, I let it, and since it was a good movie without a bunch of crap (unlike the Green Lantern series) nor was it mediocre (like the Wonder Woman movie), nor did it suffer from crappy animation (the Superman Doomsday movie), it was really a lot of fun. The movie has a lot of good action and parallel universe stories are always fun (X-Men, Spiderman, etc). I spotted James Woods' voice as Owlman right away and I thought that was really cool.



I have to give a split rating for this one since it was pretty good by cartoon standards:

Animation, Cartoon fans: 8.25/10
General Audience: 6.5/10

As for complaints, well there's not a lot. The movie doesn't try to be as realistic as the Batman movie so it can't reach the heights of a serious movie. I thought that the plot really didn't make a lot of sense towards the end, but what was really good about the movie was that the conclusion was a proper climax: the stakes were high and the hero is at the DISADVANTAGE, and you could actually see him losing. I thought it was kind of silly how they made Ultraman look and act like some kind of Italian gangster and that's really all I have to complain about. I also thought that the diversity of characters (not racial-wise, but the sheer amount of different characters) was really cool. Definitely had fun with this one.

[W.E.B. Du Bois]

Batman: Under the Red Hood is another in the DC animated series. It's about a mysterious guy wearing a red hood who shows up and starts kicking everyone's ass including all the criminals and Batman. There will be spoilers after the image.

I liked this movie somewhat. There were a times when I was going along with the story and there were a few good action scenes. On the whole though I have to give the movie more a: meh, it was entertaining though kind of rating.

Animation fans: 6.5/10
General Audience: * shudders * Let's not go there.



Spoilers
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Complaints: didn't like the voice casting of The Joker AT ALL. His voice was too low or something. It was probably a good idea the way they redrew him so he didn't look like he does in the Warner Brothers animated series, but the voice or something like the WB voice needed to stay. The ending sucked in my opinion. The last fight was crap. Red Hood got his ass kicked and it didn't even seem like much of a contest. The drama was cap too, overly emotional, and under logical. Some parts of the plot, like the crowbar and the bomb was not creative enough. Then also: what the fuck is up with Batman not getting old? He's got to be in his mid 40's at the very very best. Also, I did not like the way they beat Amazo. Amazo is supposed to be so strong that he can beat THE ENTIRE expanded Justice League. Batman and Nightwing take him out: BULL CRAP. Then there was a lot of crap about Batman surviving exploding fuel tanks a few feet away from him, and just falling like 100 feet and landing on his feet. No gliding or anything, just straight down and land on your feet. Batman is human; he can't take shit like that. The lack of a conclusion sucked and I found Robin's boy outfit to be uncomfortably gay.