DC Animated Superhero Retrospective Series - Batman: Year One (2011)

Written In January 2014

Unpopular Opinion: I like Dark Kniht Returns WAY better than Year One. In fact I find the Batman half of this story is extremely boring, the Gordon half however, that’s where this story REALLY sings!

Plot Summary Taken From Wikipedia:

Bruce Wayne returns home to Gotham City from training abroad in martial arts, man hunting, and science for the past 12 years, and James Gordon moves to Gotham with his pregnant wife, Barbara, after a transfer from Chicago. Both are swiftly acquainted with the corruption and violence of Gotham City, with Gordon witnessing his partner Detective Flass assaulting a teen for fun.

On a surveillance mission in the seedy East End, teenage prostitute Holly Robinsonpropositions a disguised Wayne. He is drawn into a brawl with her pimp and several prostitutes, including dominatrix Selina Kyle. One of the two reporting police officers shoot him without provocation and take him in their squad car, but a dazed and bleeding Bruce maneuvers his handcuffed hands in front of himself, and demands the police get out. The cops try to subdue him, but the ensuing struggle causes the police car to careen out of control, and flips. Bruce flees, but not before dragging the police to a safe distance. He reaches Wayne Manorbarely alive and sits before his father’s bust, requesting guidance in his war on crime. A bat crashes through a window and settles on the bust, giving him inspiration.

Gordon works to rid corruption from the force, but on orders from Commissioner Gillian Loeb, several officers attack him, including Flass, who threatens Gordon’s pregnant wife. In revenge, Gordon tracks Flass down, beats and humiliates him, leaving him naked and handcuffed in the snow.

As Gordon becomes a minor celebrity for several brave acts, Batman strikes for the first time, attacking a group of thieves. Batman soon works up the ladder, even attacking Flass while he was accepting a bribe. After Batman interrupts a dinner party attended by many of Gotham’s corrupt politicians and crime bosses, including Carmine “The Roman” Falcone, Loeb orders Gordon to bring him in by any means necessary.

As Gordon tries in vain to catch him, Batman attacks Falcone, stripping him naked and tying him up in his bed after dumping his car in the river. Assistantdistrict attorneyHarvey Dent becomes Batman’s first ally.

Detective Sarah Essen suggests Wayne as a Batman suspect and she and Gordon witness Batman save an old woman from a runaway truck. Essen holds Batman at gunpoint, but Batman disarms her and flees to an abandoned building. Loeb fraudulently orders a bomb dropped on it, forcing Batman into the fortified basement. A trigger-happy SWAT team led by Branden is sent in, whom Batman attempts to trap in the basement. Branden manages to climb out of the trap through a collapsed chimney, and joins in the gun battle. Enraged as the team’s careless gunfire injures several people outside, Batman beats the team into submission. Using a device to attract the bats of his cave, Batman escapes amid the chaos. Selina Kyle, after witnessing him in action, dons a costume of her own to begin the life as costumed thief Catwoman.

Gordon has a brief affair with Essen, while Batman intimidates a drug dealer for information. The dealer goes to Gordon to testify against Flass, who is brought up on charges. Loeb blackmails Gordon with proof of his affair against pressing charges. After taking Barbara with him to investigate Wayne’s connection to Batman, Gordon confesses the affair to her.

Batman sneaks into Falcone’s manor and overhears a plan against Gordon but is interrupted when Catwoman, hoping to build a reputation after her robberies were pinned on Batman, attacks Falcone and his bodyguards, aided by Batman. Identifying Falcone’s plan as the morning comes, the un-costumed Bruce leaves to help Gordon.

Gordon tries to rebuild the relationships with his family after Essen leaves Gotham. While leaving home, Gordon spots a motorcyclist enter his garage. Suspicious, Gordon enters to see Johnny Vitti (Falcone’s nephew) and his thugs holding his family hostage. Gordon realizes if he lets them go, they will most likely kill his wife and son. Therefore, Gordon shoots the thugs and chases Vitti, who has fled with the baby. Bruce Wayne, on a motorcycle, also rushes to chase Vitti. Gordon blows out Vitti’s car tire on a bridge and the two fights, with Gordon losing his glasses, before Vitti and James Gordon Jr. fall over the side. Bruce leaps over the railing and saves the baby. Gordon realizes that he is standing before an unmasked Batman, but says that he is “practically blind without [his] glasses,” and lets Bruce go.

Gordon and his wife start attending marriage counseling, and he ends with a final monologue: “It turns out that Flass is smarter than he looks, took notes on every little talk he had with Loeb” … “there’s a real panic on, somebody has threatened to poison the Gotham reservoir,” who calls himself “The Joker.” Gordon, standing on a rooftop, anticipates a friend coming, whom he believes able to help, implying it is Batman.

I feel about his movie mostly the same way about the movie as I do the comic it’s based. The Commissioner Gordon storyline is EXCELLENT! If this was just a story about Gordon fighting corruption with appearance of Batman being a minor subplot with no real mention of the secret identity, this movie and the comic it was based on would be FAR better! But no, this is as much a Batman movie as it is a Gordon movie. And the Batman story sucks so much. It’s all about him learning how to make crooks scared of him, and it’s not even like Phantasm where Bruce is frustrated by it, he’s just thinking “Hmmmm, how do I make them scared of me?” Or Batman Begins where getting crooks to be scared of him is secondary only to inspiring the good folks in Gotham to say “Hey! This is bullshit, let’s do something about!” It just comes off as generic undetailed and uninspired. The reason I feel the same way about this movie is because while it follows the same plot exactly, narration included, but it has Bryan Cranston as Gordon! And I fucking love Bryan Cranston! But the actor who plays Batman… Well… I’m sure you’re much better on screen than off it… Let’s just talk about Pros and Cons.

PROS:

• Bryan Cranston as Commissioner (here Detective) Gordon! Fox, I don’t care how much you have to pay, get him to be the Gordon on your Gotham tv series!
• There are no supervillains in this movie, just mob guys and corrupt cops!
• This Jim Gordon is SUUUUUUCH a badass!
• The fights in this movie are spectacular to watch!
• The animation is pretty good.
• The score is pretty cool.
• Eliza Dushku makes for a really good Catwoman!
• Katee Sackoff does good work as Sarah Essen.

CONS:

• Catwoman is shoehorned into this story and unneeded.
• The Sarah Essen story comes out of left field and really pointless.
• The Batman story in here is in no way shape or form improved upon from the comic.
• Ben McKenzie as Batman… I don’t know who this guy is but he should never do voice work again because he is TERRIBLE at it!

Overall, I’m gonna give this one a 6.25 out of 10. If you liked the comic, you’ll really like this movie. If you didn’t, this movie won’t change your mind. If you haven’t read the comic, this movie is a nice alternative to it. Bryan Cranston does great work, but the rest are take it or leave it.

DC Animated Superhero Retrospective Series - Green Lantern: Emerald Knights (2011)

Written In January 2014

And we’ve come to another anthology movie, but unlike Gotham Knight, all the shorts here have the same animation style and character designs… And it’s the same one from the last GL movie, First Flight. Also unlike Gotham Knight, the shorts are framed as flashbacks instead of just individual stories taking place back to back. So I’ll just give you all the full summary, then review each individual segment without summary, then review the whole thing. Sound good? Okay then, Mr. John Harrison, if you would please

Plot Summary Taken From Wikipedia:

The sun of the Green Lantern homeworld, Oa, is becoming a gateway for Krona, an evil anti-matter alien tyrant that once sought to destroy all life. As precaution the Guardians of the Universe decide to evacuate Oa of all valuables, such as the Central Battery. While in line to charge their rings before the Battery is taken away, Green Lantern Corps rookie Arisia Rrab converses with Hal Jordan and expresses her self doubts as the newest Green Lantern. In response, Hal tells her the story of the first Green Lantern:

The First Lantern

Avra, a scribe to the Guardians, is chosen by the final of the first four power rings despite having no skill or aptitude as a warrior. Avra and the other three original Green Lanterns, G'Hu, Wachet, and Blu, are immediately tasked with stopping the Dominators, an aggressive species which is invading solar system after solar system. Blu is the first Green Lantern killed in battle, whereupon with defeat apparently at hand Avra uses his willpower and imagination as a writer to continue the fight: He creates the first construct from his ring, a sword, which is used to wreak havoc amongst the alien war armada. Following Avra’s lead the other two Lanterns, G'Ho and Wachet, also create their own distinct power ring constructs, and the battle is won. The power to shape constructs from the power rings becomes standard operating procedure, and Avra rises in prestige among the growing Green Lantern Corps. After his death, Avra’s ring is passed down and ultimately comes into the possession of Abin Sur, who is then succeeded by Hal Jordan.

Back in line at the Central Battery, Hal and Arisia meet Kilowog, the head drill sergeant of the Green Lantern Corps. He antagonizes Arisia as a rookie, reminding her that she still has to attend boot camp. Hal tells Arisia not to fear Kilowog, and recounts the story of Kilowog’s own trainer.

Kilowog

Sgt. Deegan trains the rookie Kilowog and others by removing their power rings and putting them in deadly settings such as a volcano about to erupt. Kilowog confronts Deegan and accuses him of employing a reckless training method and of having no value for the lives of his trainees. They briefly fight until Sgt. Deegan is called to deploy with his recruits when a nearby planet comes under attack by the Khunds, as they are the nearest Green Lanterns in the sector. Deegan purposefully drops Kilowog’s ring before departing with the other recruits, and Kilowog picks it up. In the battle Sgt. Deegan orders the rookies to protect the refugees as he deals with the invaders. As Kilowog catches up, Sgt. Deegan is mortally wounded. Kilowog destroys the army and goes to Deegan’s side. Deegan tells Kilowog he never would have let his rookies die and that he did what was best for their training. He passes his authority to Kilowog, who completes the mission.

Hal and Arisia arrive at a border patrol of the sun and await Krona’s return. Arisia and other Lanterns hear a Delphic prophecy from a Lantern named Laira who is levitating in the Lotus position(about which she remarks “That was strange.”), whereupon Hal shares Laira’s own story:

Laira

Once a princess, Laira is sent on her first solo mission to her homeworld to deal with charges that her people are attacking the Khunds unprovoked. Standing in her way, Laira quickly defeats her father’s mistress and her belittling brother. But when she faces her father she is saddened to learn that the recent war crimes were his own decision. He has been driven into rage by the loss of honor that Laira’s ring chose her and not him. Laira is ultimately able to defeat her father who admits she has truly earned her adulthood. He then commits ritual suicide to maintain his honor.

Back at the border patrol of Oa’s sun, every Lantern extant has been called to await Krona’s return, with the notable exception of Mogo. Hal explains who Mogo is and why he is not present:

Mogo Doesn’t Socialize

Bolphunga the Unrelenting seeks to fight and destroy all the most powerful warriors in the universe. He is told, however, by his latest opponent (a volcanic being whom he dismembers) that he will never defeat the Green Lantern Mogo. Bolphunga’s computer contains no data on Mogo save for his whereabouts on a mysterious green planet. Bolphunga spends weeks there tracking Mogo’s plethora of power signatures, but never finds the elusive Lantern. He then sets explosives all over the planet in order to flush Mogo out, but is horrified when the planet extinguishes all the bombs and Mogo is revealed to be the entire planet itself. He attempts to escape, but Mogo easily captures him.

At Oa’s sun Hal and Arisia are attacked by Krona’s Shadow Demons and rescued by Sinestro. Sinestro then speaks of the prophecy that Oa will be destroyed and relates a story of Abin Sur and the Lantern view on destiny:

Abin Sur

Hal Jordan’s predecessor Abin Sur fights Atrocitus, an alien criminal speaking dark prophecies. Abin Sur is assisted by Sinestro in capturing the alien. Sinestro and Abin Sur then have a conversation relating to the warnings that Atrocitus spoke and Sinestro insists that he does not believe in destiny. Parting ways, Abin Sur takes the criminal to a prison planet where Atrocitus again speaks on Abin Sur’s imminent death. He also warns Abin that Sinestro will rise against the Green Lantern Corps and create his own lantern corps built on the power of fear. Abin Sur however refuses to believe his friend would betray his Green Lantern duties.

Emerald Knights

Krona finally arrives from the Oa Sun. All the Green Lanterns fight swarms of Shadow Demons as Krona, an enormous figure, rises from the sun. Many Green Lanterns are killed and all others fall back. It is Arisia who devises a plan: if Krona is made of anti-matter then an equal or greater amount of matter will destroy him on contact. The Green Lanterns fall behind the planet Oa and push it at Krona. Krona uses Shadow Demons to push back and the Corps finds itself stymied while taking casualties. However, Mogo the Living Planet arrives and uses its own mass and Lantern Power to assist his comrades. Oa and Krona are forced into the sun and both are annihilated. The prophecy of Oa’s destruction is fulfilled, but Krona is destroyed and the Corps is saved.

Mogo volunteers to be the Corps’ temporary base as they build a new Oa. Arisia is honored with an official entry into the Book of Oa for her heroic ingenuity, although she still has to report for Kilowog’s training.

The First Lantern

This one is written by Michael Green and Marc Guggenheim, the same guys who wrote the Ryan Reynolds movie this whole thing was meant to promote, who are also the head writers and producers on CW’s Arrow, a show I adore! Which really leaves me to wonder, why did that movie suck? These are guys are clearly good writers, Ryan Reynolds is admittedly not an ill fit for Hal, the rest of the Lanterns were perfectly cast, the CG was pretty good, the director was Martin Campbell who directed two of the best James Bond movies in recent memory (Pierce Brosnan’s first outing, Goldeneye, and Daniel Craig’s first outing, Casino Royale), and the two Zorro movies starring Antonio Banderas are darn good fun in their own right. Well, we’re not here to debate at that piece of crap movie, we’re here to talk about this piece of crap movie. Except it’s not that crappy, especially not this first segment!

PROS:

• This story is simple and to the point.
• The story is a nice little play on the idea that the pen is mightier than sword, in that a mere scribe is able to do without fear what three great warriors were not able to even with their incredible strength.
• I’m of two minds about Hal being the one who now uses Avra’s ring, on the one hand I think it really shows why Hal is so special. But the other hand, I’ll address in the cons.
• I also like that a writer is able to create the first energy construct with the green lantern ring, especially when earlier in the fight, a comrade says to him to “Just use your imagination.”

CONS:

• I kinda don’t care for the fact that Avra even manages to create a construct, I think it would’ve been much more interesting for him to have just used bursts of energy blasts to defeat the bad guys (forgot what they were called).
• Bringing this back to Hal, I kinda take the fact that he has the very first Green Lantern’s ring as kind of a “fuck you!” to the other Green Lantern’s of Earth. Like Hal’s better than John, Kyle, Guy, and Alan because he has the first Lantern ever’s ring.

Overall, I’m gonna give this one a 4 out of 6! It’s pretty good, but not quite great. If you end renting this movie, I recommend you don’t skip this one.

Kilowag

Directed by Lauren Montgomery who directed the first GL movie here, and Wonder Woman and Superman/Batman: Apocalypse, and co-directed Justice League: Crisis on Two Earths with Sam Liu and Superman: Doomsday with Bruce Timm and Brandon Vietti, and has gone on to direct Batman: Year One and Justice League: Doom. Now if you’ve actually gone and read those reviews already or just did, then you’ll know I really like this lady. But, you know what’s even better? This story was written by none other than Peter Tomasi, the gentleman responsible in part for this beautiful image here, following the death of Damian Wayne.

I’m sorry about your heart. Anywho, what I’m saying is, this is a good team for this short, and the only thing that makes it better is

1. Kilowag, my favorite non-human Lantern, is the main focus of the story.
2. He’s voiced by punk rock legend, Henry Rollins.
3. It follows Kilowag at bootcamp being abused by an awesome drill sergeant.
4. Said Drill Sergeant is voiced by Wade Williams, who we all remember as Black Mask in Under The Red Hood.

Does the story live up to the hype I just gave it? Yes, yes it does!

PROS:

• Wade Williams is perfection in this role! I adore him and his character! It kinda makes forget that he was a complete douchenozzle in Prison Break, but that’s not important.
• Henry Rollins does great work as Kilowag in this short, I’m not a huge fan of his as a voice actor, I think he kind of falls into that trap of not being distinct enough, but he was really good as both the hardass and the nice guy in this movie.
• The action is terrific throughout this short!
• The dynamic between Kilowag and Drill Sgt. Deegan is so perfect! When Kilowag calls him out, you can tell Deegan’s trying to control himself because he knows this guy is just a rookie who doesn’t understand what he’s trying to do. And Kilowag doesn’t even care that he’s being an ass to him specifically, he cares that he seems so cold about the recruits, like he doesn’t even care if they live or die. And when Deegan kicks Kilowag’s ass, it’s not only delightful because Kilowag is getting beat by a guy only a third his size, but you really believe it when Deegan says that what is most important is that these rookies do their job to the best of their ability, because the innocent people out there who are counting on just that. And when Deegan says this again and explains that he would never let them actually come to serious harm after Kilowag just defended him while dying, you really hear that he respects this big guy so MUCH! That son of a bitch Tomasi had to make it even worse though with Deegan drawing the green lantern symbol on Kilowag’s chest with his blood as his last act. That final scene just left my heart in pieces, I was just sitting there like
  
  You’re an asshole Tomasi! Thank you!
• Kilowag immediately goes hardass on the other recruits, I get the feeling that it was partially out of anger because “Those assholes just killed Deegan!” but partially out of respect for him because, this guy pushed us to the limit because he believe in us, so I’ll continue pushing all of us because that’s what he’d do

.CONS:

• I don’t have any, this short was perfect!

6 out of 6! Easily! I’ll admit I’m overselling it with that ranking, but it’s for Deegan!

(PS, the voice actor is still very much alive, I just really loved this character, alright?)

Laira

This one was directed by a guy named Jay Oliva, I think DC are starting to like him because he just directed 3 of the last 4 four animated movies they released, and he’s directing JL: War…

This short doesn’t inspire much hope in me either, in fact, it left me with dread. I’ll explain why now.

PROS:

• Kelly Hu, who played Lady Deathstrike in X2: X-Men United, China White in Arrow, and voiced Black Mask’s secretary in Under The Red Hood, does good work as the titular character of this short. You really feel for her conflict as she is forced into conflict with her own family.
• An actor I really love, Tony Amendola, who I know best from playing Bra'tac in Stargate SG-1, another mentor figure, does a really good job as Laira’s father. A man who did what he felt he had to for his family and his people, but in the process lost his way, and in the end seeks a way to honorable amend his mistakes. Nice work Mr. Amendola, good to hear from you!
• You know that giant floating head you occasionally see pop up in Green Lantern related stuff?
  
  This guy right here? Well apparently his name is Galius Zed, and and he makes a quick appearance in this short while the enemies of Laira’s planet are being attacked, and he shows himself to be quite the badass! This is a pro for no other reason than it made appreciate a character I otherwise don’t normally think about.
• The action here is particularly good, I think we may have DC Animation’s Michael Bay in the form of Jay Olivia. An incompetent storryteller, but a hell of a fight director!

CONS:

• The conflict here is poorly explained.
• Laira really isn’t shown any true development here, since she acts as cold in this short as she does throughout the rest of the movie.
• Kentor’s (Laira’s father) ritual suicide is really random, and doesn’t make any real sense.
• It doesn’t work when he puts it on, but it really bugs me that Kentor could take off Laira’s ring and wear it all. It made more sense in First Flight wear the Lantern had to remove the ring themselves in order to use it.
• The douchebag older brother, I don’t get the point of him.
• Also, the “whore” wife, why is she here? Why do we need to see members of Laira’s family who seem to hate her?

All in all, I thought this short was okay, but it really had wasted potential behind it. It would’ve been cool to see Laira be a little bit looser as a Lantern but forcing herself to become colder and more hardassed because of having to face her family and then witnessing them take their own life. So that being said, I’m gonna have to just give this a 1.75 out of 6. Your move Jay!

I’ll believe that when I see it, but that’s not the Jay I was talking about. Next!

Mogo Doesn’t Socialize

Huhn… Well then… Good move Jay!

I’m still not buying it, and that’s still not what I’m talking about! Onto the pros and cons!

PROS:

• A return to simple story telling!
• There’s a green lantern that is entire living planet! That is fucking awesome! Although it does beg the question, where does he put his ring?
• Apparently WWE alumni, Roddy Piper, voices the thug "warrior,“ Bolphunga in this short… I don’t watch wrestling but I think he does a good job playing up this cocky tough guy in over his head.
• The comedy in this short is great! I love how angry Bolphunga gets when he can’t find Mogo, and how freaking terrified he is when he finds it’s the entire planet!

CONS:

• This isn’t really a con within the short, but Mogo’s existence within this universe kind of leads to a problem I’ll end having in another one later, but I’m not gonna hold it against this particular part of the movie.

All in all, this one was kind of fun, but I’m still keeping my guard up about you Jay!

Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, shame on me. Fool me thrice? I don’t think so!

Anywho, I liked this short, but I still don’t trust you Jay Olivia, I’ll give you a solid 4 out of 6 for it, but I’m willing to bet this is writer (and Alan Moore artist) Dave Gibbons’s doing than yours.

Abin Sur

What I find neat about this one, is while the last four stories were told from Hal’s point of view, this one we’re told by Sinestro, played delightfully by the returning Jason Issacs. Wait a minute…

What did they just jack the supporting cast from Under The Red Hood for these shorts?

PROS:

• Well again, Jason does great work as Sinestro, although feels a bit odd hearing his voice coming from a design that fit Victor Garber’s like a glove.
• I have no idea who this Arnold Vosloo fellow is, but he does very good work here as Abin Sur! I really like him as this character, in fact I generally like the character period, what with her persistence on waiting until the last minute to recharge his power ring.
• Apparently the actor who voices Atrocitus, Bruce Thomas, is the forgotten Batman, having played the Caped Crusader in both the unaired pilot for WB’s Birds of Prey and the actual pilot for that show, along with a number of GM’s OnStar commercials that featured the Dark Knight, which ran from 2000 to 2002. Wait, does that make those commercials canon with the Birds of Prey show? Anywho, I have no idea what to make of that, but I think he does a good job in this short. He comes off as clearly sinister and angry, but actually rather intelligent. I give him a pass!
• The actual story of this short is take it or leave it, but the final scene with Atrocitus telling Abin Sur that his death is imminent and that one day Sinestro, his best friend, will betray his oath of loyalty to the core, and form the Yellow Lanterns is great stuff!, especially when we the audience know this is true, but Abin Sur doesn’t buy it. He has total faith in his friend and doesn’t believe he’d ever do wrong against the core.

CONS:

• I really have no complaints about this short, I just wish more of it was as good as it’s ending.

This story was apparently written by Geoff Johns which explains this story felt so "Take it or leave it” for most part, but am left with a shining bright spot. I’m gonna go ahead and give Abin Sur a 4.25 out of 6. It’s slightly better than above average, but it’s still not the best these shorts have to offer.

Emerald Knights

And we’re back in Lauren’s wheelhouse! And this time we have Batman: TAS writer/producer Alan Burnett behind the wheel for this script, with his copilot being Todd Casey, who has written for episodes of Batman: The Brave and The Bold and the recent reboot of the Thundercats series. I gotta say, they all do pretty good work here, minus a very glaring Deus Ex Machina which I’ll get into in the cons, but first let’s get to the stuff I liked!

PROS:

• The idea of just letting Krona have Oa is a surprisingly smart one, given that everyone’s evacuated and if they do give it to him, it’ll kill him!
• It’s a pretty nice touch putting Asiria’s name in the Oa book of heroes.
• Asiria herself is voiced very nicely by Elizabeth Moss.
• It makes sense that Mogo would allow everyone to use himself as a base of operations while they look for a new Oa.
• The final joke with Asira being told she still has to report to Kilowag for training is fun.
• I was gonna call bullcrap on the movie for throwing a planet at a sun because a creature made of antimatter is in there and the only thing that can destroy is the same amount of actual matter in terms of mass. I was gonna call bullcrap on that, but then I found out that the Earth itself, while tiny in actual size ratio, is extremely massive compared to the sun. So I commend the short for actually being able to stand up to the bullcrap test!

CONS:

• Having a living planet on your side is a HUGE Deus Ex Machina for me, I don’t think it detracts from the actual movie, but I really wish it wasn’t there.

I’m gonna give Emerald Knights, the short, a 4.5 out of 6! Again, only above average, but still pretty good! Nice work everybody!

Now to review the whole damn movie!

PROS:

• Nathan Fillion is perfectly cast as Hal Jordan in this movie! Although it’s still weird to see his voice coming from the same design as Christopher Meloni’s Hal.
• The voice acting is pretty good all around!
• The action is great.
• The story ideas are never without potential.
• The threat itself is a tad bit generic, but gets the job done.
• Each segment has nothing to truly get angry over.
• The movie introduces you to a lot of cool characters you hadn’t gotten to know last time.
• No one who gets to talk is left without a moment to shine.

CONS:

• It bugs me that they used the same designs from the last GL movie.

Ultimately, I’d say there’s more to enjoy about this movie than there is to not enjoy, but I wouldn’t say you need to see it. I’ll let it pass and say it’s above average with a 4.5 out of 6 overall!

DC Animated Superhero Retrospective Series - Wonder Woman (2009)

Written In January 2014

While watching this movie, for some reason my mind wandered off into a couple Transformers references. One was when the monsters are messing with the Lincoln Memorial and Steve Trevor is outraged by this, causing me to flashback to this scene in Dark of the Moon. And the other was when Ares and Persephone have to sacrifice one of their troops to open the gate to the Underworld, the flashback being this scene in Revenge of the Fallen. Or maybe more appropriately this scene from South Park.

Onto the review!

Plot Summary Taken From Wikipedia:

Centuries ago, the Amazons, a proud and fierce race of warrior women, led by their Queen, Hippolyta (voiced by Virginia Madsen), battled Ares(voiced by Alfred Molina), the god of war, and his army. During the battle, Hippolyta beheaded her son, Thrax (voiced by Jason Miller), whom Aresforcibly conceived with her, who is fighting for his father. Hippolyta then defeated Ares, but Zeus (voiced by David McCallum) stopped her from delivering the death strike. Instead, Hera (voiced by Marg Helgenberger) bound his powers with magic bracers so that he was deprived of his ability to draw power from the aura of violence and death he could instigate, effectively rendering him mortal, and only another god could release him. In compensation, the Amazons were granted the island of Themyscira, where they would remain eternally youthful and isolated from Man in the course of their duty of holding Ares prisoner for all eternity. Later, Hippolyta was granted a daughter, Princess Diana (voiced by Keri Russell), whom she shaped from the sand of the Themyscirian sea shore and gave life with her own blood.

Over a millennium later, an American fighter pilot, USAF Colonel Steve Trevor (voiced by Nathan Fillion), is shot down in a dogfight and crash-lands on the island, where he soon runs afoul of the Amazon population, including the warlike, aggressive Artemis (voiced by Rosario Dawson). Steve and Diana meet and fight, and she defeats him, taking him to the Amazons. After interrogating him with the use of the Amazons’ golden lasso, Hippolyta decides he is not an enemy of the Amazons and as such, tradition dictates that an emissary be tasked to ensure his safe return to his own country. Diana volunteers, but is assigned to guard Ares’s cell instead since her mother argues that she has not enough experience in dealing with the dangers of the outside world. Diana defies her mother and, her face hidden by a helmet and her guard duty covered by her bookish but kind-hearted Amazon sister Alexa (voiced by Tara Strong), participates in contests of strength and wins the right to take Trevor back to his home.

In the meantime, the Amazon Persephone (voiced by Vicki Lewis), who has been gradually seduced by Ares, kills Alexa and releases him. With the additional task of capturing Ares, Diana brings Trevor to New York City, where he volunteers to help Diana on her quest. An investigation uncovers a pattern of violence created by Ares presence that will lead to him given time, and the pair go out to a bar while they wait. After some heavy drinking, Trevor makes a pass at Diana. They argue outside, but are attacked first by thugs and then the demigod Deimos (voiced by John DiMaggio). Deimos kills himself to prevent being interrogated, but Diana and Steve find a clue on his body that leads them to a concealed gateway to the underworld guarded by members of a still-extant ancient cult of Ares.

Once there, Diana attempts to subdue Ares, but he summons harpies that knock her unconscious, prompting Trevor to save her instead of stopping Ares. Meanwhile, Ares performs a sacrifice to open a gate to the Underworld where he persuades his uncle Hades (voiced by Oliver Platt) to remove the bracers, though Hades does not tell Ares that the ultimate cost of removing the bracers would be Ares’ own death in combat. Later, Diana regains consciousness in a hospital and is furious that Trevor saved her rather than stop Ares. Trevor argues against her abuse with his own criticism of the Amazons’ self-imposed isolation and their generalizations about men, and reveals how much he cares about her.

Ares and his army attack Washington, DC. Trevor and Diana arrive to battle Ares and are soon joined by the Amazons. While Ares manages even to summon the Amazons long dead from the Underworld to fight their own sisters, his scheme is stopped by Alexa, a member of the undead host, who reveals to Artemis a chant which nullifies Ares’s control over them. The undead then turn on Ares but are destroyed by his powers. Hippolyta faces Persephone in combat and kills her, but in her dying breath, Persephone makes the queen realize that in shutting the Amazons away from the world of men, she has denied them the chance to live their lives as women.

Meanwhile, the President (voiced by Rick Overton) is influenced by Ares’s power and orders a nuclear missile against Themyscira, presuming the island nation to be the source of the attack on Washington. This act of supreme aggression increases Ares’s power, but Trevor takes the invisible jet and shoots down the missile just before it hits the island. Finally, after a brutal beating at Ares’s hands, Diana finally outwits and kills him. Subsequently, Ares is condemned to the underworld to attend Hades as a slave alongside his son.

Later on Themyscira, in memory of Alexa, Artemis takes up the hobby of reading (with severe difficulty). Hippolyta realizes that Diana misses both the outside world and Trevor, and to make her happy again, she gives her daughter the task of being a channel for ‘communication between men and women’. Diana accepts and returns to New York, where she enjoys the company of Trevor. Their relationship comes with the understanding of her larger duties, such as when Diana sees Cheetah robbing a museum and she excuses herself to stop the supervillainess as the newly christened Wonder Woman.

Before I get into my lists of pros and cons, let’s talk about something real quick. Why does Wonder Woman not have a live action theatrical film yet? It’s not because she’s a comic book character, those movies have been making bookoo bucks since ‘78 when they released Superman: The Movie with Christopher Reeve, Gene Hackman, Margot Kidder and Marlon Brando. It can’t be because studios aren’t sure if female led action films are profitable, the Resident Evil series has had 6 installments and made just under a billion dollars total against a total of 280 million for budget. The Underworld series consists of four films and has made just under 500 million on a budget of 177 million. And I doubt it’s because she’s based on Ancient Greek Swords and Sandals style films, because the studios and audiences eat that shit up. Look no further than the fact that we have TWO, count ‘em, TWO, Hercules movies.

I suppose you can make the argument that movies like Catwoman and Elektra tanking at the box office and just generally not being very good movies is to blame. But those movies were made long after the wake of Superman and Batman movies we had. The popular consciousness seems to say that each half the world’s finest had one great movie, one good movie, one not-so-good movie, and one shitty movie. The first movie to hit theaters for either party that was not considered a serial, was the George Reeves pilot back in 1951, titled Superman and the Mole Men. 15 years later, we were all amazed with the campy glory that was Bill Dozier’s Batman starring Adam West and Burt Ward as the icons that are the Dynamic Duo. Then 12 years later we started to believe a man could in fact fly thanks to Richard Donner and Alexander & Ilya Salkind. That soon enough went to shit by the time 1986 came around, but luckily, Michael Keaton, Tim Burton and Jack Nicholson quickly came around three years later to resurrect the once proud and grim series that was Batman. Which also went to shit thanks in no small part Warner Bro’s interference but also thanks to Joel Schumacher, Val Kilmer and George Clooney. That series finally went and died in 1997 until Christopher Nolan, God bless his soul, came in and breathed new life into it.

Where was Wonder Woman in all of this? Stuck on the small screen in the form of the Linda Carter series on CBS, where she was accompanied by a collection of Marvel characters, including most famously Lou Ferrigno’s Incredible Hulk and Bill Bixby’s David Bruce Banner, and much less famously Nicholas Hammond’s Spider-Man/Peter Parker, and even less famously Reb Brown’s Captain America/Steve Rogers. What’s my point, you ask? WHY THE HELL ISN’T SHE ON THE BIG SCREEN ALREADY?!?!?!? How come we don’t have a beloved actress who came from being an absolute unknown to the biggest star on the planet, who got that way for playing Wonder Woman? How come we don’t have an already well liked and respected actress that everyone gained a new found appreciation for after seeing their incredible range as a performer after being cast against type as Wonder Woman? How come we don’t have a respected method actress who had a cult following before being cast as Wonder Woman, who is now one of the most famous, beloved and respected actresses in Hollywood?

Why has Wonder Woman not enjoyed the same amount of love and respect as Superman and Batman? I am of course aware that Israeli actress-model, Gal Gadot, has been cast as the Amazonian Warrior Princess, but let’s consider something. Wonder Woman was created in 1941 and brought to television in 1975. And she’s finally going to make her big screen debut in February of 2014, in the form of an animated lego mini-figure voiced by How I Met Your Mother’s Cobie Smulders in Phil Lord and Chris Miller’s The Lego Movie, a movie where she’s likely going to be the equivalent, to a small celebrity cameo. And only two years later, she’ll make her first appropriateappearance in the currently untitled sequel to 2013’s Man of Steel. A movie also not about her, where she’ll be a relatively smaller role, that may or may not be entirely plot relevant.

This movie was made in 2009. It took Wonder Woman 68 years to have her own feature length film, and it’s only a direct to video animated movie written by an admittedly brilliant comic book writer, but still not someone who get a ton of respect in mainstream Hollywood. I don’t feel like saying, I’ll have John Goodman say it for me.

Thank you John. Sorry for the ranting people, I didn’t mean to talk up that for so long, I just needed to get something off of my chest.

Anywho, onto the actual review.

PROS:

• I don’t really know much of Kerri Russel’s work, but she really did a great job as Wondy in this movie.
• Malcolm Reynolds as Steve Trevor! Oh wait no, that’s Nathan Fillion! My mistake!
• Ares is a delightful villain and an intimidating presence, especially with Alfred Molina’s wonderfully slimy delivery. I’m surprised Bruce and Andrea could get a hold of him.
• Hades makes a couple quick appearances in this movie and he is the perfect asshole. He brings in Ares’s dead son in and treats him like garbage, just to humiliate Ares. And to top it all of, he’s voiced by Oliver Plat, who I am again, very surprised to see here.
• The animation and character designs in this movie are all really great, with some wonderfully directed action scenes handled by Lauren Montgomery, who handled the second act of Superman: Doomsday.
• The screenplay written by Gail Simone is fantastic! It’s got a lot of Tumblr Feminist style punches in it, with a few fedora wearing dudebro esque quips, but with just enough intelligence to cut strait through that bullshit and say, both parties are morons and need to work together like smart people.
• Christopher Drake’s score is delightful, although he noted in his Fat Man on Batman interview with Kevin Smith, that they were initially going to go for something in the vein of Queen’s Flash Gordon theme, which I would’ve loved as well.
• I didn’t buy Persephone’s reasoning for betraying her fellow Amazons at first, but then I realized, Diana is the ONLY woman on the island who has never met and/or seen a man. All of these women at one point had fathers, brothers, uncles, grandfathers, cousins, maybe husbands or even sons! Persephone longs to be a wife and mother, in fact I get the impression she once was that, but lost it.
• Tara Strong voices a bookworm Amazon named Alexa, who seems to be the only woman int his movie who doesn’t want to kill something. I kinda like her.
• While Artemis is a frequently a bitch throughout this movie, she’s also quite awesome!

CONS:

• The way Ares is killed is rather Deus Ex Machina like, and I really don’t care for that.
• I don’t get why everyone seems to hate Alexa because she’s a bookworm who can’t really fight. Especially not when Athena, one of the goddesses they likely idolize is known to be a philosopher and quite the reader in general.
• I also hate that Artemis, Alexa’s sister, expresses such animosity toward her. Even in death! I’m not terribly fond of my sister and I’ve cursed at her more times than I’d care to admit, but if something happened to her I’d horrified and heartbroken. Artemis, on the other hand, upon discovering her sister is dead, assumed she just fucked up. And when she meets her on the battlefield as a zombie, she says that she’s continuing disgrace their family name (which we never actually learned).
• Diana’s mother Hippolyta feels too cold. I really question how much she cares about people, she had to kill her own son on the battlefield but she never really shows any concern about it. I get that Amazons are supposed to be really hardcore and stuff, but even the biggest of badasses have their moments where they let their emotions go. In Saving Private Ryan, Tom Hanks, who in the movie is supposed to be the perfect commander, goes off on his own for a minute and outright CRIES for his fallen soldiers. In the first Die Hard movie, when Bruce Willis starts to think he’s not coming back from his current predicament with Alan Rickman, he talks to Reginald VelJohnson and admits that he regrets never actually trying to apologize to his wife, who he is currently in the process of being divorced from. OPTIMUS FUCKING PRIME, apologized to a dead Megatron for it having to be the way it is now in the first Transformers movie. A CHARACTER GRIEVED HIS ENEMY! IN A MICHAEL BAY MOVIE! And not just any character in a Michael Bay movie, a MACHINE! A MACHINE GRIEVED ANOTHER MACHINE! Why do I keep going back to Transformers?

Okay, all that being said, this is a great movie. I don’t think it’s quite as good as a lot of folks say, but it is still a very good movie, that I think could’ve worked as a template for a live action movie, but we’ll see what David Goyer, Zack Snyder, Chris Terrio and Gal Gadot will being giving us in 2016. Until then, I’ll be providing Wonder Woman a 7.9 out of 10.

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!