DC Animated Superhero Retrospective Series - Superman: Doomsday (2007)

Written In January 2014

Two things before we get into the review:

1. I have not yet read the Death of Superman story arc, but I am aware that this film deviates greatly from it. I may review this movie again on another day when I have read the book, but as of now, I will be reviewing this as it’s own stand alone film.
2. At one point in this movie we get a quick cameo from Kevin Smith where he makes a comment about Superman trashing a giant robotic spider, this is a little in-joke about how Kevin Smith was once hired to write a screenplay for the unproduced Superman movie, Superman Lives, which would’ve been produced by Jon Peters, directed by Tim Burton, and starred Nicholas Cage of all people as the titular Man of Steel. The guy even had a costume test!

Anybody else want to watch that movie, just to know how much a train wreck it would’ve been? Anywho, time to explain what the movie’s about.

Plot Summary Taken From Wikipedia:

The film opens with a narration by Lex Luthor (James Marsters), highlighted by images of Superman doing heroic deeds. Lex describes Superman as a god on Earth, but insists that “there comes a time when even gods must die.”

Lois Lane (Anne Heche) and Superman (Adam Baldwin) are romantically involved, but Lois is unsatisfied with the arrangements of their relationship. Superman insists that they keep it a secret from the public by limiting their encounters to the Fortress of Solitude, and he has not yet confided in her that he is actually Clark Kent, although she already suspects.

Workers from LexCorp unearth a spaceship while digging for one of Lex’s projects, inadvertently releasing a genetically-engineered supersoldier known as Doomsday. Doomsday kills the entire digging crew and begins a bloody rampage towards Metropolis. He kills a deer, a dog, the dog’s owner, and a truck driver (it is implied that other people fell victim to his homicidal fury, as well.) Superman meets the monster there and the two engage in a devastating cross-city battle. Superman ultimately kills Doomsday, but succumbs to his own injuries and dies in Lois’ arms.

The world collectively mourns their fallen hero, and Metropolis honors him with a memorial. Lex, having previously ordered his assistant Mercy Graves to cover up LexCorp’s involvement in releasing Doomsday, kills her to ensure that no one but he knows the truth. Superman’s friends cope with his death in various ways: Jimmy Olsen takes a job at a seedy tabloid newspaper called National Voyeur; Perry White becomes an alcoholic; and Lois visits Martha Kent for counsel.

In Superman’s absence, Metropolis is overwhelmed by emboldened criminals. At one point, Toyman uses a giant mechanical spider to hold a bus full of students hostage. Lois, still grieving, decides to get the children out on her own. As she does, Toyman tries to kill her and a little girl by throwing the bus over a building. As it happens, Superman apparently digs out of his grave, saves Lois, and apprehends Toyman. However, he does not seem quite the same, missing Lois’ apartment as he flies her home and acting surprised when she kisses him. She dismisses it as shock from his supposed “death”. When she receives a call from Martha wondering why Clark has not called home, Lois becomes suspicious.

The resurrected Superman is revealed to be a clone, created by Lex from a blood sample retrieved after Superman’s battle with Doomsday. As such, the clone’s knowledge is merely what Lex has programmed into him. Lex is keeping the real Superman’s body preserved in a tube for his personal amusement, unaware that Superman is still barely alive. He also periodically tortures the clone Superman in a special lead-lined red-sunlight room (to show the clone who is boss, and out of frustrated desire to have killed the real Superman). A robot from the Fortress of Solitude recovers the body and begins restoring Superman to health, a fact Luthor discovers when his surveillance monitors register a signal disruption of several seconds.

Meanwhile, the Superman clone’s attitude darkens when he hears about Toyman killing a four-year-old girl, and in retaliation kills Toyman as he is being escorted to jail. The city is stunned, and Lois suspects he is not Superman. The clone begins threatening the populace into abiding by the law, convinced that terror will prevent crime. The police can do nothing to stop him. Lois discovers Lex’s plan to clone Superman.

Upon returning to Lex, the clone is berated for his behavior. Lex orders him to find the real Superman’s corpse and threatens to kill him if he goes out of line again. Instead, the clone deduces the mechanism behind Lex’s threat — a lead-shielded kryptonite pellet in his brain — and removes it, then sets off to deal with Lex. At the same time, Lois discovers the true nature of the clone after tranquilizing Lex and searching his files with Jimmy’s help. She and Jimmy discover that Lex is cloning an army of Supermen. (Luthor’s cloning technology had undoubtably improved since the earlier attempt resulted in the creation of Bizarro). After Lex awakens and almost shoots them both, the original clone arrives. He saves Lois and Jimmy and destroys the cloning facility, killing all the yet-to-be- awakened clones. Unable to kill the clone, Lex tries to hide in the special room, hoping to lure him in, only to have the clone instead lock him inside and toss the entire room to the street. This latest presumed murder triggers military action. The military attempt to kill the Superman clone, but they fail as the entire force is eradicated by the clone’s heat vision alone.

The robot has revived Superman and has him undergo intensive rehabilitative exercises under concentrated solar energy to bring his power level back to max.

Hearing the news, the real Superman resolves to help, even though his powers are not yet fully restored. To improve his odds he dons a black sunlight-absorbing “Solar Suit” and brings a kryptonite gun (built by Lex Luthor) his robot retrieved from his archives. The two engage in a massive battle, with Superman’s kryptonite gun failing to hit the much faster clone. Jimmy and Lois grab the kryptonite gun to help Superman, though still unsure if he is the real deal or not. The fight culminates at Superman’s memorial, where Lois manages to hit the clone with a kryptonite blast. The clone destroys the gun, leaving only the kryptonite canister. As the two Supermen continue their battle, the canister sticks to the clone’s chest with mud, and Superman vaporizes it with his heat vision. The clone, overcome by the kryptonite vapor, falls under the memorial stone he was holding. Before dying, he tells Superman to protect the people. Lois is sure of the real Superman once he kisses her, and the crowd is similarly happy that Superman is back.

At Lois’ apartment, Superman sees that she misspelled “resurrection” in her article. He mentions winning a spelling bee at Smallville Elementary, revealing himself to be Clark Kent. Lois is caught off guard, but the two share a smile and she happily embraces him. At LexCorp, a critically injured but alive Lex narrates the ending, saying how history has proven that gods can die, but they can also return from the dead. He smiles to himself, musing that there may still be a way for him to destroy Superman.

Am I the only one who thinks that the ending was sequel baiting? I mean I don’t get the point of having Lex say “Maybe there’s a way to kill Superman and make him stay dead after all?” Especially not since this was the start of the DC Animated Original Films line, meaning that none of the movies would follow continuity with each other. With the exception of two pairs of movies, one of which was actually released with two different animation styles. That’s the one thing with this movie that genuinely leaves me scratching my head. Either way, let’s talk Pros and Cons.

PROS:

• Terrific casting all around!
• Adam Baldwin is great as both the good and bad Supermen, knowing him from playing Jayne on Firefly, a character who has far more in common with the likes of Lobo, it was very surprising to find that he could play such a kindly and noble figure. Great job voicing the big man big man.
• Anne Heche, the actress who plays Lois, does a lovely job as well! I wasn’t quite fond of her at first, she sounded a tad off to me, but as the movie went on she grew on me quite a bit!
• James Marsters as Lex Luthor! Oh man, this guy gave me the creeps big time! I haven’t seen Buffy and Angel, so I don’t know a ton about his character on there, but I know him from playing Brainiac on Smallville and boy was he good there. This guy is an amazing actor! I especially loved the one scene where he’s beating the crap out of Superman’s Clone and we don’t know that he’s a clone yet, and the language he uses it feels so deranged because it doesn’t sound like a typical villain gets the upper hand on the hero type dialogue, it sounds like an angry house wife yelling at their husband for walking out on them or something. *shivers* It’s like that bit with the Joker constantly calling Batman “darling” in The Dark Knight Returns.
• The action is fantastic, of course!
• There’s a scene where Lois goes to visit Martha in Smallville so they can grieve Clark together. I actually really like this, because the entire world only lost their hero. But Lois and Martha lost more than that, they lost someone they loved as a person. They lost a man who was so deeply important to them. It’s like, say, when a kid at your school commits suicide, and everyone in the building sort of mourns collectively, but it’s just that sort of sentiment of “Oh God, poor kid!” But there’s people who that poor kid might’ve been friends with, or they might’ve been some Teacher’s favorite student, or something. There’s people who just see a person who’s gone and are as sad as anyone else would be, but there’s also people who actually knew who this person was. What made them laugh, what made them cry, what made them happy, what made them sad or angry or anything else. And that’s who Martha and Lois were to Clark. Everyone else just lost Superman, but they lost a loved one.
• The final scene between the original Superman and the cloned Superman, the latter’s parting words to the former were asking him to protect the people. I really like this because it shows that the “evil” Superman wasn’t truly evil, Lex said it himself, he has all of Superman’s morals but not his mind. He was still trying to protect the innocent and the weak, and making sure that the bad people get their comeuppance. He just went about it in the wrong way. And he just wants to make sure now, that the real Superman will still continue doing what Superman does best. Stand up for Truth, Justice, and the American Way.
• I really dig the idea that Lex would be angry that someone else got Superman before him. He’s always wanted the Man of Tomorrow head on a platter, but he wants that platter served up by and for himself. He doesn’t want him beaten to death by some raging engine of destruction.
• The scene where Lois makes out with Lex disturbed me more than actually seeing Superman die, and that’s saying something.
• There’s a bit in the fight with Doomsday where Superman looks clearly exhausted, I really dig that because Superman is rarely put up against a foe who is actually better than him physically. It reminded me a bit of the fight between Batman and Bane in Dark Knight Rises, where the hero who’s used to be the toughest fucking guy in the room, realizes that he’s actually losing a fight for once. Come to think of it, that makes sense since Rises was partially based on Knightfall, which came out the same time as The Death of Superman.
• The final scene with Lois and Clark is classic Superman!

CONS:

• Jimmy Olsen is made a douche for some reason.
• There’s not a ton of evaluation of what’s happened by the end, nobody’s really critical of whether or not this Superman can be trusted after what’s just happened.
• You have Doomsday in this movie and yet there’s very little blood, why? You want the PG-13, go and grab it by the balls! Doomsday ain’t gonna make for a very bloodless movie folks.
• This one’s more nitpicky, but I don’t get the choice they made with how they showed Lex killing Mercy Graves. He takes out a gun, aims at her head, then we cut to outside the building with a wide shot of Lex’s office from the outside, we hear the gun shot, and see a bright light surrounding a silhouette of Lex pointing the gun and Mercy’s body falling. I don’t get why they chose to do it that way. Why not just close up Lex’s hand holding the gun, show his hand jerk slightly with a gunshot sound and then pan over to Lex’s face for his reaction.

For the start of a new project, Superman: Doomsday is a BOLD place to start. Bruce Timm and Company likely had no idea this would work out- Well, they probably figured it would, based on the sales of their previous direct-to-video animated flicks, but regardless, it was ballsy of them to say “Okay, what story should we base our first animated film NOT based on any of our shows? I KNOW! THE DEATH OF SUPERMAN! THAT’S A REALLY COOL ONE, RIGHT?” It was gonna be big, and it IS big. I’m gonna give it, an 8.5 out of 10!

DC Animated Superhero Movie Retrospective Series - Batman Beyond: Return of the Joker (2000)

Written In December 2013

Plot Summary Taken From Wikipedia:

Many years back after Nightwing (Dick Grayson) moved to a new city to fight crime on his own, the Joker and Harley Quinn kidnapped Tim Drake, Dick’s successor as Robin, and disfigured him to look like the Joker, and tortured him to the point of insanity over a period of three weeks. In the process, Tim revealed Batman's secret identity—and the secret of what drives him to be Batman. When Batman and the Joker fought their final battle, the Joker got the upper hand and subdued him. The Joker then tried to persuade Tim to kill Batman. Instead, the boy, due to a trace of his former self still active, turned on the Joker and killed him, and suffered a mental breakdown in the process. Batman and Barbara buried the Joker’s body deep beneath Arkham Asylum, while Harley fell into a pit after she was fighting Batgirl and was presumed dead as her body was never found. The only other person who knew about what happened that night was Barbara’s father, Commissioner James Gordon, who promised to keep that night a secret. One year after the incident, Tim was rehabilitated, but Bruce forbade him from being Robin again, blaming himself for what happened and vowing to never again endanger another young partner. The event puts a strain on the relationship between Bruce and Barbara, leading the latter to retire as Batgirl to join Gotham City Police Department and in time follow her father’s footsteps as police commissioner. Tim eventually settled down with a wife and family, and a career as a communications engineer.

In Neo-Gotham City, the Joker resurfaces after having disappeared 40 years earlier. He has taken over a faction of the Jokerz, and on his orders, they steal high-tech communications equipment. One heist happens to coincide with Bruce Wayne’s formal announcement of his return to active leadership of Wayne Enterprises, as the Joker reveals himself to the world. Despite Terry McGinnis’ intervention, the Joker escapes. Bruce insists that the Joker must be an impostor, as he claims to have witnessed the real Joker’s death decades before, yet all evidence suggests otherwise. Bruce, unwilling to let Terry face the Joker, impostor or not, demands that he return the Batsuit, to which Terry reluctantly complies.

Later, Terry and his girlfriend Dana are attacked by the Jokerz at a nightclub. At the same time, the Joker ambushes and attacks Bruce in theBatcave, leaving him for dead. Terry defeats the Jokerz, and Dana is taken to the hospital for her injuries. Terry rushes to Wayne Manor, and finds Bruce near-dead from Joker venom. Terry quickly administers an antidote, and tends to Bruce with the help of Barbara Gordon.

After Terry insists on being let in on what really happened to the Joker, Barbara reluctantly tells him what happened. Terry decides to question Tim, who denies any involvement and bitterly says he had grown sick of his past life as Robin. Terry then suspects Jordan Pryce, who would have taken control of the company were it not for Bruce’s return. Jordan Pryce, thinking he will become CEO, plans to hold a private party on his yacht with his girlfriend Amy. However he finds Dee-Dee in her place, Amy having been tied to a pole and gagged at the port. Terry finds the Jokerz on Pryce’s yacht, who reveal that Pryce had hired them and given them access codes. However, the Joker has sent them to kill Pryce, as he is no longer needed. Terry rescues Pryce before a satellite laser destroys the boat, and then turns him in to the police with a recording of Pryce’s conversation with the Jokerz.

Back in the Batcave, Terry deduces that Tim must be working with the Joker when he discovers that the high-tech equipment the Jokerz have been stealing can be combined to form a machine that takes control of any satellite, even an orbiting military satellite with an automated defense system and fire it at will, thus explaining what happened on the yacht—and it can only be built by an engineer of Tim’s caliber. Bruce is skeptical about this claim, but nonetheless sends Terry to question Tim again. Terry tries to confront Tim, but is lured into a trap by the Joker, who confirms that he and Tim are indeed working together. Escaping in the Batmobile, he is then chased through Gotham by the laser-armed satellite.

Terry tracks the Joker to the abandoned Jolly Jack candy factory. After fighting off the Jokerz, he finds Tim, who transforms into the Joker before his eyes. The Joker explains that when he kidnapped Tim and during the three weeks of his torture, he secretly implanted a microchip (revealed later to have been stolen from Project Cadmus) into the boy’s brain that carries the Joker’s consciousness and genetic material, allowing him to physically and mentally transform Tim into a clone of himself at will, eventually becoming strong enough to permanently control his body. The Joker prepares to fire the satellite again to kill Dana, Terry’s family and Bruce, but before he can fire the laser, Terry sets Bruce’s dog, Ace, on him. Terry knocks the Joker's joy buzzer into the controls, destroying the beam’s guidance system, causing it to head to the factory.

The Joker attempts to escape, but Terry seals the factory. A fight ensues between the two, but the Joker is easily able to overcome Terry since he knows all of the original Batman’s moves and tricks. Terry then decides to improvise by using his expertise in dirty street fighting moves and mocking his obsession with Batman and his inability to make him laugh. An agitated Joker throws bombs at Terry, sending him crashing to the floor. The Joker then pins him to the ground and begins to strangle him. Terry, having covertly retrieved the Joker’s joy buzzer, delivers a shock to the Joker’s neck, destroying the chip, reverting Tim to his old self, and destroying the Joker forever. Terry escapes with Tim and Ace before the satellite destroys the factory and the satellite jamming device. The satellite gets deactivated and floats into outer space.

In the city jail, two of the female Jokerz, Deidre and Delia Dennis, are bailed out by their grandmother, an elderly Harley Quinn, who laments what disappointments they are. Meanwhile, Terry and Barbara meet Tim in the hospital. Bruce arrives just as Terry leaves, telling him that it is not being Batman that makes him a worthwhile person, but the other way around. Bruce then joins Barbara and Tim in the hospital room. The film ends with Terry donning the Batsuit and flying off into the heart of the city.

You know how my last review I got up on my soapbox about a controversial fandom issue? Well today I’m going to step back up to it to talk about a real life issue; censorship. This film prior it’s December release back was HEAVILY edited and recut, this was done so because of the Columbine High School shooting in April of 1999. In my humble opinion, these cuts and edits are fucking ridiculous. The film was meant to be rated PG-13, that means it was meant for kids who are old enough to understand the difference between reality and fiction and can understand that the kind of thing that Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold are wrong and sinister. This movie does feature teenagers/young adults doing depraved things as part of a gang that worships and names itself after a homicidal maniac, but they are quickly shown to only be doing there acts for thrills and cash. When exposed to the Joker’s ways of committing cold blooded murder and laughing his ass off about it, they all react in fear, and from then on are more following along out said fear. The film shows a boy the target audience’s age being horribly tortured and then to preserve the life of his true father figure kills his torturer. The film is clear to show that these actions are not okay, and alludes to an adult Tim Drake having many sleepless nights about his actions here. It also makes it clear, that the main character of Terry McGinnis was a gangbanger who busted shops and hurt people, who does what he does now out of a hope to redeem himself in his own eyes. The point of censorship is to show to prevent kids from getting the wrong idea about the world, to prevent them from knowing that crime doesn’t pay, but it does is decrease the impact of that message. So I beg of you, when purchasing this film on DVD (or Blu-Ray, I don’t if it’s available on that format) please buy the version that is it rated PG-13 by the MPAA, do not purchase the version labeled either “unrated” or just PG. By buying either of the other two versions, you are encouraging executives that it’s alright to undermine the message of the artists behind films. Of the MPAA, all I can say is this;

Now let’s get to the pros and cons of the actual PG-13 cut.

PROS:

• Mark Hamill kills it again as the one and only clown prince of crime! It’s a bit different than his usual take on the clown, but that actually serves the material.
• The Joker is probably his most manic and sadistic during the course of the DC Animated Universe.
• The scene where the Joker kills Bonk is a great example of the Joker’s dark comedy and also parallels with a lot of real life folks who associate themselves with symbols of hate and violence out rebellion without actually thinking of what they’re true meaning is.
• This is Will Friedle’s BEST performance as Terry McGinnis, possibly even the best performance of his career.
• Bruce’s initial refusal to let Terry fight the Joker is great for a couple of reasons. One, it makes sense because while Bruce has been more than happy to let Terry go head to head with plenty of rogues, Terry has never once been up against someone as sinister as the clown. Two, it builds the clown for people who only ever watched Batman Beyond. It doesn’t build up the Joker in general, because if you know Batman outside Beyond, you KNOW the Joker is a major threat and someone to be feared.
• How the Joker is back is actually rather brilliant and genuinely horrific.
• How Terry defeats the Joker is great, and I always enjoy seeing bad people mocked and shown to be as pathetic on the outside as they are on the inside.

CONS:

• While I think Kristopher Carter does a good job with the score, personally, I would’ve gone for a different musical cues at certain moments, and left the music out entirely for others. For example, the scene where the Joker explains what he did to Tim should’ve been left silent until he reveals that he knows that Batman is Bruce Wayne, at the moment we shoudl’ve gotten that sort of dramatic drum roll, then the music should’ve slowly risen from that point forward until Bruce crashes through the window and attacks the Joker.
• We don’t see enough of the Jokerz being afraid of the Joker, I think it would’ve been good if Terry caught one after a fight and managed to pry the info of the Joker’s location from them.
• Harley at one point is thought dead in this film but is then revealed to be the Dee Dee twins’ grandmother, personally, I think she should’ve been left dead in spite my love of her.

This film is very much the precursor to the type of movies we’re gonna get to later in this series, particularly Under The Red Hood. So what did I actually think of the movie, well how about a play by play from the doctor himself;

The first scene:

 

the Joker’s reveal:

 

the Joker’s second reveal: 

Bruce asking Terry for the suit back:

 

Barb’s flashback about Tim:

 

When Terry talks to Tim about the Joker: 

When Terry and Bruce find out that Tim IS the Joker: 

Me during Terry’s fight with the Joker:

 

At the ending when Tim is reunited with Barb and Bruce and Bruce and Tim both tell Terry he’s a good Batman:

 

So all in all, the movie entertained me, entranced me, broke me, and left me very happy, I’ll be giving Batman Beyond: Return of the Joker a 9.2 out of 10.

The DC Animated Superhero Movie Retrospective Series - Batman: Mask of the Phantasm (1993)

Written In December 2013

Plot Summary Taken From Wikipedia:

10 years before the events of the Batman: The Animated Series, Bruce Wayne meets a woman named Andrea Beaumont in a cemetery while visiting his parents’ grave. That night, Bruce foils an armored car robbery while disguised in a black ski-mask and leather jacket. He does succeed but is discouraged to find that the criminals did not fear him. Bruce starts a relationship with Andrea and decides to propose marriage to her rather than become a crime-fighting vigilante.

Unfortunately, Andrea finds out that her father, Carl, owes a large amount of money to crime lord Salvator Valestra. Carl and Andrea flee Gotham City to hide in Europe, with Andrea ending her engagement to Bruce. This rejection spurs him into training to become Batman. Seven years later, Carl is murdered by the assassin, Jack Napier, under orders from the Valestra gang.

Andrea returns to Gotham. During a conference of crime bosses held in a Gotham City skyscraper, a Valestra enforcer, Sol, is killed by a mysterious cloaked figure - the Phantasm. Due to the Phantasm’s resemblance to Batman, the Dark Knight is blamed for Sol’s death. Councillor Arthur Reeves tells the media that Batman is a public menace (despite Commissioner Gordon’s protests), then attends a party at Wayne Manor.

The Phantasm finds and murders another Valestra enforcer, Bronski. Batman soon finds evidence linking Andrea’s father with Valestra. The Phantasm later targets Valestra, who turns to the Joker for help. The Phantasm arrives at Valestra’s house, and finds the gangster already dead at the Joker’s hands; the house then explodes, with the Phantasm barely escaping. Batman pursues the killer, but is interrupted by the police, who believe that Batman is responsible for the murders. Andrea rescues Batman in her car, and they spend the night together. Andrea explains to Bruce why she and her father left Gotham. Batman comes to suspect that Andrea’s father may be the Phantasm, but later gets Reeves (who has been poisoned by the Joker) to confess that he told the Valestra mob where Beaumont was hiding in return for campaign contributions, and that the mob ordered Beaumont’s death.

The Phantasm tracks the Joker to his hideout — an abandoned world’s fair amusement park — and removes its ominous costume: the Phantasm is Andrea, intent on avenging her father’s death at the hands of the Joker, who is revealed to be Jack Napier, who batman dropped into a vat of acid months earlier. Batman arrives and saves Andrea from the Joker, and begs Andrea to give up her quest for revenge. She refuses, stating that the mob ruined her life by taking away her future with him; she then tells Batman that he himself is driven by revenge before disappearing. Batman battles with the Joker, a struggle that ends in stalemate. Moments later, Andrea returns and seizes the Joker, bidding Batman goodbye before vanishing with the maniacally laughing clown in a cloud of smoke as the entire amusement park erupts in a series of rigged explosions. Batman barely escapes by falling into a waterway and being swept away to safety by the current.

Alfred later consoles a heartbroken Bruce, telling him that no one could have helped Andrea. Bruce finds a locket containing a picture of himself and Andrea left behind in the Batcave. Meanwhile, Andrea is shown standing alone on the deck of a departing ocean liner. In the final scene, Batman stands alone on the top of a Gotham building; when the Bat-Signal appears in the sky, he swings off into the night to continue his war on crime.

There are three really great moments in this movie, that hit me right where I live:

1. The scene where Bruce goes to his parents’ grave and begs them to let him walk away from the promise he made, and he explains that he didn’t see himself ever becoming happy enough to not become Batman. Lightning roars as rain pours, you can see that he believes that his mother and father, whom he swore to avenge, are angry with him. And he’s pleading with them, “Can’t I just walk away now? Please I need it to be different now!” Did you hear that sound? It’s the sound of my heart exploding into a million pieces.
2. This scene right here:
   Andrea has left Bruce, it’s official now, he has to become the Batman. He dons the mask, and for the first time (chronologically) we see those intense white slits for eyes. Alfred reacts in shock and discomfort, proclaiming “My God!” And that moment, what he and I had the same realization. Bruce Wayne is dead.
3. And then there’s this scene
   Andrea has fled Gotham and is on a cruise, some guy stumbles out of the party and spots her. He attempts to start flirting with her, but quickly gets the idea, so he politely asks “Did you want to be alone?” Andrea replies with “I am.” Her entire identity was based in the Phantasm, now that she’s lost that and the love of her life, she’s empty inside. And ultimately, as she says, alone.

Now let’s get to the Pros and Cons:

PROS:

• This animation kicks ass, and I won’t hear from anyone who disagrees.
• Kevin Conroy is Batman and Mark  Hamill is The Joker, what more do you need?
• Stacy Keach and Abe Vigoda are in this movie, how does an animated Batman movie based on a kids show get fucking Stacy Keach and Abe Vigoda in it’s cast!?!??!
• Andrea Beaumont is a genuinely interesting character and Bruce Timm & Paul Dini were so impressed by Dana Delany as Andrea, that they cast her as Lois in Superman: TAS
• During the party at the begging of the film Arleen Sorkin (the voice of Harley Quinn) is briefly heard, this made me smile.
• The story has genuinely emotional moments that really made you feel bad for the characters.
• This. Fucking. Score! I’d argue it’s even better than Zimmer and Newton’s score for the Nolan films!

CONS:

• This is a nitpick, but when we first see the Phantasm, they’ve just killed Sol and Bronski, but when we first see Andrea she’s on the plane to Gotham. Those scenes don’t really match up.
• The crime boss in this movie’s name is Salvatore Valestra, wouldn’t just be so easy to just change his last name to Maroni?
• They hint at the Joker’s origin here, and to me, that’s never alright. I like Joker’s backstory to be a point blank mystery that no one can ever really solve.

My ultimate thoughts are… This is REALLY good, but not great. It’s missing something I think, it just feels too cold to me. I’m not sure why. But my overall ranking shall be, an 8.5 out of 10.