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This was done so much better in SUPERMAN: DOOMSDAY, so what was the point ? This was just dumb.
Many very excellent scenes in it.
'Maybe he is just a guy trying to do the right thing' one of my favorite lines from the film.
There are some great call backs in BvS what impressed me was the effort they put in, the scenes were incredibly well done, the money is on the screen. That desert scene is brilliantly surreal.
This is one of the things Snyder excels at. His work on Watchmen was bang on.
Based on the classic Elseworlds tale of the same name, but taking quite a few liberties with the plot. What we have here is simpler, with fewer characters, but that allows them all their chance to have character. Even the early murder victim Pamela "Ivy" Isley is quite clearly painted. I believe I mentioned in my Justice League: The New Frontier review that I'm not all that fond of period pieces, and because of that I didn't really walk into this movie expecting to like it. It's a very basic movie, it gets to work immediately and tells its story very straightforward. I don't like it, I don't hate it, it's very much a "Okay, that was neat" kind of movie. I'm glad it doesn't fall into the trap of most period pieces and has a bright color scheme as opposed to the standard sepia tone that's constantly used to denote "This happened before color photo was invented" or some crap. I'd probably be a bit more kindly to period pieces if they were like this and didn't look like the world was painted with a brown and green brush. Bruce Greenwood returns to voice Batman here, and you can tell he's gained some experience in the role since Under the Red Hood. All that time on Young Justice did him good. Jennifer Carpenter plays a damn fine Selina Kyle and Scott Patterson actually steals the show as James Gordon, especially after the third act reveal. The movie packs in a nice reinterpretation of the Batman mythos into 80 some odd minutes of film, and though I was relatively lukewarm to it, I didn't hate it at all and I'll be very likely to watch it again in the near future.
Suicide Squad: Hell to Pay
Deadshot: Hell to Pay is an interesting movie. Amanda Waller wants a "Get out of Hell free" card and she enlists a new iteration of the Suicide Squad, led by Deadshot who does most of the heavy lifting, to get it for her from Vandal Savage. A series of betrayals on all sides eventually brings out the lead villain of the film, the Reverse Flash. And not just any Reverse Flash, no. We're talking the Reverse Flash from Justice League: The Flashpoint Paradox, who unstuck himself from the universe at a very key point in that film and ran here to this film in order to get that "Get out of Hell free" card. No surprises with the cast being perfectly suited to each role, with the standout here being Christian Slater as Deadshot. The animation seems a little janky at times, but I assume that's because this is the first R-rated film in the DC Universe Animated Original Movies line to truly make use of that rating. People's heads go bloowey in this movie and that's just the first five minutes. Not exactly the strongest film in the franchise, though not underwhelming and in every way better than the live action trash from a few years ago. The Suicide Squad is a crew that works pretty well in animation if I do say so myself. Maybe they should do this more often.
Batman Ninja
The writer of this movie was for some reason given access to the finest crack cocaine in all of Japan, and I say this because that's the only excuse I can fathom for the giant villain Voltron that fights the giant Batman made of a literal swarm of bats. This is a strange, strange movie, though it begins earnestly enough. Gorilla Grodd is doing some evil thing with technology and it ends up sending Batman, Grodd, Joker, Catwoman and a handful of other villains and Bat-Family members to Feudal Japan. It's quite lucky this rather large cast of white people and a gorilla can blend in with the locals at a time when Japan was relatively anti-immigrant. The animation here is breathtaking. It's mostly CG cel shading made to look hand drawn, and colored in such a way to look like painted wood block prints. There's one section of the movie that feels out of place, however, because it just straight up shifts to hand drawn for a short amount of time. It's jarring, and it immediately changes back to the CG right after. I don't get it, but it was their stylistic choice and not mine. Roger Craig Smith reprises his role as Batman from Arkham Origins and the Batman Unlimited films, doing a decent job. You can tell the animation was done to the Japanese voice acting, because the lips never match up, but that's very common for anime and not something that bothers me. The Joker is voiced by Tony Hale and I wish he wasn't because that voice just does not suit him. Everybody else? Fine. The final sword fight between Batman and Joker is just one of the most beautifully animated fight scenes in a film, and I highly doubt anything released since will top it, but I'll let the movies that follow prove me right. All in all, a pretty good little movie.
The Death of Superman
11 years earlier when this line of DC Universe Animated Original Movies began, it did so with an adaptation of The Death and Return of Superman called Superman: Doomsday. In 2018, those crazy mofos did it again, this time splitting it in two and making it a part of the DC Animated Movie Universe that began with Justice League: The Flashpoint Paradox. This review is only covering the first part, though down the line I might review the compilation release at some point. The first half of the movie could accurately be called Justice League: The Death of Superman or something because everybody gets involved. This is a packed movie, but it sadly highlights things I've had a problem with during the DCAMU's existence. This franchise, as told, is about 90% off-screen. While I have zero problems with how Justice League: War began with all the Leaguers already well into their heroic careers and simply just meeting for the first time, we've had since that movie a romance between Superman and Wonder Woman that's simply disappeared between his last appearance (Justice League Vs. Teen Titans) and this film, all so that he can end up with standard love interest Lois Lane. There's little mention of the break up between the characters, though you get some slight animosity toward Lois from Wonder Woman, and it just feels disjointed. Similarly, this movie paints Lex Luthor like he's been a constant thorn in Superman's side (as well as gives him a new voice actor in Rainn Wilson, who definitely plays the character better than Steve Blum did, and I happen to like Steve Blum), when all we've seen of Lex in these films was a brief appearance at the end of Justice League: Throne of Atlantis where he attempted to recruit Ocean Master into his future Legion of Doom, and then an appearance of the Legion of Doom at the beginning of Justice League Vs. Teen Titans. Hardly an archnemesis, if you ask me. Yes, I know, we're all fans of DC and know these character relationships, but it still robs us of interesting takes on stories we already know in favor of basically saying "Yeah, it happened and we didn't see it". This hurts not only this movie but several others as well, because it effectively states that the heroes have had years upon years of adventures before their first meeting in Justice League: War, and the only pre-established character relationship in that film is that Green Lantern and Flash knew one another. Son of Batman began with Ra's Al Ghul being killed, so we missed out on several great Ra's-related stories that could have been told beforehand (and allowed Giancarlo Esposito the opportunity to have some time as the character). Getting back to the subject at hand, The Death of Superman isn't a bad movie, not at all. It's a superior telling of the fight with Doomsday than Superman: Doomsday could have hoped to be, and it makes effective use of the rest of the League, but all the negative space between films just hampers what could have been the best film in the DCAMU and DCUAOM.
Constantine: City of Demons
Originally a web series released via CW Seed, this is a prequel to Justice League Dark, though the links between the two are just that Constatine is in both of them and he's played by Matt Ryan. Here, we have a story of Constatine's old friend Chas showing up for the first time in over ten years to get the (in Constantine's own words) arrogant sod to get Chas's daughter out of a coma. Turns out the cause is a blast from Constantine's past, a demon called Nergal, who wants to make his own little Hell in downtown Los Angeles (hence the City of Demons). Nergal believes Constantine will help him with this so long as he gives Chas's daughter back her soul, and of course Constantine agrees to do that for that very reason. Much like Gotham by Gaslight, this doesn't really have many twists or turns, the story is relatively straightforward and imagining it any other way would likely add about 25 minutes to the runtime of a movie that already stretches its incredibly thin premise across 90 minutes when it could have been told in 65. Aside from Matt Ryan once again stealing the show, the cast here isn't particularly memorable. I've already forgotten who played Chas despite the credits literally just finishing up as I type this, but I know he played Constantine in Justice League Action (a decent show if you give it a chance, honestly). Average is probably the highest compliment I can give this film, really, though I honestly don't know if they were going for anything else. It's unnecessary toward the ongoing plot of the DC Aniamted Movie Universe, so you could easily skip it if you chose to, no one would blame you.
Yet five years ago, when I tried to defend the film, I was accused of not "getting" Batman, of not being a "true" Batman fan. Several meters of Batman comics, graphic novels, DVD's, BluRays, video games, action figures, ... and over 30 years of Batman worshipping (for lack of a better word) disagree with that. People were picking examples of individual comic issues and TAS episodes to "prove" that Snyder's take on the whole thing was somehow not legit. (As if Burton's was...) Since then, many on the Internet have done the same thing to demonstrate that Snyder's take on Batman, on Luthor, on Supes, ... actually does follow existing examples in other media. But since this isn't an exact science, I don't want to enter such debates. My gut feeling tells me that BvS, especially the 3-hour cut, is a pretty decent film!
I'm glad the film has since been met with some more agreeable reviews. There may come a time, in fact, when people realise that Snyder isn't the "incompetent", to-be-blamed-for-everything-bad-with-the-DCEU guy. I think most people simply weren't ready for something else than Nolan's Dark Knight films yet. I think many are still holding on to Burton and Donner as the ultimate templates for how to do it well. But in the end, the fun of the DC universe is that multiple iterations, versions, looks and tones can work. Burton's was my youth, Nolan's my adolescence and Snyder's my adulthood, so to speak, with Timm's a delightful constant. I still think Snyder is on to something. We're just impossibly fickle. Sometimes we don't know what we want. We don't want it when we get it and we crave it when we're given something else. Ugh! I wouldn't want to be in Snyder's place...
Terrible. Don't watch this, unless you want to witness first-hand how Disney is ruining itself with its OTT political correctness.
Nice little movies. Still a pleasure to see Sophie Aldred (and I knew what the resolution of her segment in the second movie was going to be as soon as her character mentioned the cooling fluid).
That one too, and it's still a pleasure to see John Levene. But it's a bit bizarre, I think.
I agree. But then, I prefer the animated film and both of the Bay produced films over the original three so my taste is questionable. 😉
The animated film isn't bad, actually. I only saw the first of the Bay produced movies and couldn't stand it, however. Good on you for somehow managing to like them.
@Agent007391
Megan Fox and Will Arnett may have something to do with that. :)
I suppose she is the only real reason I like the first Transformers movie.
I admire that. :)
5.8 on IMDb? Nonsense. This is very good, with several interesting plotlines that intertwine in satisfying ways, and plenty of enjoyable satire. The standouts of the cast for me are Belinda Bauer as Dr. Faxx and Gabriel Damon as that mobster kid (brilliantly played entirely as if he was an adult), but everyone else is terrific nonetheless (fun to see O'Herlihy get more screentime). Great score by Leonard Rosenman, as well. In hindsight, the tone of this film is halfway between 1 and 3. It's lighter than 1, but darker and bloodier than 3.
RoboCop 3
This is a "sanitized", family friendlier version of RoboCop. Once I accepted that, I enjoyed it. Robert John Burke is solid in the lead part, though credit must also be given to Moni Yakim, who returns to choreograph RoboCop's movements. I've only seen Burke in a substantial capacity in this film and in Thinner, and both are movies with unusual acting circumstances for him. John Castle is pretty good as the villain (and then there's that accent...). I also liked the subplot of Japanese takeover --a subject that was topical back then-- and of course, the Japanese robots are much more advanced than RoboCop. As I said, I can accept the more family friendly vibe, but a few touches still annoy me, such as Nikko saying "You think it's him?" (RoboCop, that is), when the van is being chased by a police car. It still seems too cutesy in some spots.
The Rocketeer
This was top-notch in every way. I don't wish to single out any single part. Everything works.
I loved the film from day one, Batman was brilliantly realised IMO, Snyder I felt got Batman much more than he got Superman. Personally I rather see an artist generally speaking reimagine than just copy something perceived to be the standard (Even if I do love said perceived standard) . Though as you rightly point out there are numerous interpretations of both characters over the last 80 years.
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It's been decades since I watched this, enjoyable Film Noir with some masterfull direction by Orson Wells and good locations. It's easy to see why Rita Hayworth was the pin up she was, gorgeous woman. I must buy this on Bluray if possible.
You have impeccable taste, sir.
Masters of Universe (okay , the low budget but i still love it. People obsess too much about new characters , "why no Orko , Battle Cat , Merman , Trapjaw & Randor/Marlena")
Amsterdam Connection (2 drug dealers in Ams fighting each other and like with AVTAK its nice to see Paris featured. Many ma films are underrated if you ask me)
Delta Force (imo , beter than Rambo II , III and Commando. Like with OHMSS , Norris really benefits from the supporting cast and the soundtrack is true action movie , no doubt about that !)
Last time I forgot to mention, did anybody ever run into VHS releases of RoboCop 4 and 5? I saw them at a video store in a supermarket about 15 years ago, and I did a double take since I didn't know those films existed. Later, I found out they weren't actual films, but episodes of the 1994 TV series pasted together.
That's a good one.
I recently bought and watched the Bluray Boxset of Robocop will always love the first one, the second I like some of the score and Peter Weller kind of elevates the madness around him though far inferior the the classic original. The third is absolutely terrible. I watched a few episodes of the TV series though gave up on it pretty quickly when it originally aired. Palming episodes off as films certainly a blatant cash grab.
Butt-head : You said "number two" , huh huh huh ;)
I agree 100%, the first two acts really worked well; but in the end they could not resist, yes, jumping the shark.
I would have preferred an ending where she barely escapes the jaws of the shark; that moment would have been the big victory . I could see he standing, battered and bloodied on the rocky shore as the shark heads back out to sea without it's tasty meal . As with many Hollywood films, more spectacular does not necessarily mean more satisfying.
The follow-up to The Death of Superman is oddly enough a great deal more straightforward. Somehow only the citizens of Metropolis accept Cyborg Superman as a legit rebirth of the Kryptonian hero, nobody else does in the slightest. The plot doesn't really thicken here, though we get confirmation that Darkseid is behind the events of both Death and Reign, which was hinted at when Doomsday arrived on Earth out of a boom tube. For a 90 minute movie, this thing runs at such a brisk pace it's insane, but despite that we get a good look at all four of our surrogate Supermen. Cyborg Superman, in no way the villain of this movie; Steel, the genius billionaire, playboy, philanthropist in a suit of powered armor; Superboy, the teenaged clone yearning to be something he's not; and the Eradicator, who is maybe the second closest to Superman but still not a damn thing like him. The movie mostly follows Lois as she goes through the five stages of grief and stops somewhere around the second stage. Unlike the last movie where the League took up a good chunk of it, here they only pop up a little bit, get thrown out of the plot, and then come back later. Not at all a problem, honestly, because the movie should and does center around the four Supermen. Of them all, Superboy is probably the one who gets the biggest amount of development, though Steel is the one we spend the biggest chunk with, and Cyborg Superman is 100% not the villain. Eradicator doesn't get a whole lot of screentime devoted to him, but he was kind of a flat character in the comics, too, so I'm not begrudging them what they couldn't really turn into something better. I don't really have a whole lot to say about this one, because it's a continuation of the last movie, but overall, it's pretty damn good.
Justice League Vs. the Fatal Five
The second DC Animated Universe related film in the DC Animated Original Movies lineup, this one takes a step away from Batman (though he's still a key player) and instead brings us back to the world of Justice League Unlimited. We jump in balls deep with several members of the Fatal Five attacking the Legion of Superheroes in order to gain access to a time machine. Right away we meet one of our main leads, Star Boy, as he chases the Five back to the present day. Things immediately go awry for him when his epipen gets busted in the journey and he starts to have memory troubles. He's eventually stopped by Batman and sent to Arkham Asylum, where we get a nice little ten month time skip. From here, we meet our other main lead, Jessica Cruz, a recent addition to the Green Lantern Corps and currently the only Lantern in the League no busy fighting some great offscreen war. Shame, too. Woulda been nice to see John Stewart again. Jessica suffers PTSD from some trauma that involved her family being killed on a camping trip, so she feels she's pretty useless both to the Corps and the League, though both of them do their best to get her to step up. The majority of the Fatal Five eventually crop up again to give the League a bit of trouble and force Jessica to act. In an unrelated part of the movie, Star Boy damn near causes a mass breakout at Arkham Asylum. The many heroes eventually come together and things only escalate from there. This is a pretty damn good movie, almost as good as every three part episode of Justice League (which this would basically be). Jessica and Star Boy are both interesting protagonists who eventually bond over their shared inabilities to be what people want them to be, and both shape up and become more. The Fatal Five aren't really fleshed out greatly, but there's five of them and this movie is only 75 minutes long. You get a good gist of them, and that's more than can be said for their previous appearance in the JLU episode "Far From Home". Speaking of that episode, like this, the Legion was heavily involved and the Fatal Five were the villains, but there's barely any connection between them. I can understand the desire to avoid confusing any audience members who (for whatever incorrect reason) didn't watch that show, but just a little bit of a nod would have been nice. On the League's side of things, we get the Trinity - Superman, Batman and Wonder Woman - and Mr. Terrific. It's nice to see him doing more than simply being the replacement for Martian Manhunter that he was during JLU's final season. Speaking of Martian Manhunter, aside from a brief cameo as a statue, he doesn't appear in this movie, but Miss Martian does, and she's fantastic. Despite her limited screentime, this is easily my favorite version of Miss Martian, and that's saying something. All in all, this whole movie was a stunning return to form for the DCAU after the tripe that was Batman and Harley Quinn, and I hope it means there'll be another DCAU movie sometime in the future. It'd be nice to see a Superman: The Animated Series movie (Superman: Brainiac Attacks doesn't count), or another Batman Beyond movie (this one especially needs to happen DC get on it you lazy bums).
Batman Vs. Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles
I see the same high price marijuana the Batman Ninja team was smoking made its way back across the Pacific, because even discounting the plot being a team-up between Batman and the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, this movie is weird. First of all, the animation is beautiful, as is really kinda standard for the DC movies. They hire truly top notch animation studios for these things and it shows in every frame. We begin innocently enough with the Foot Clan raiding a laboratory in Gotham for something that Barbara Gordon coincidentally happens to be there to take a look at. She reports this to Bats and things kick into gear from there. Naturally, if you couldn't tell by the Batman V Superman-esque title (this is the last one for now...), the Turtles and Batsey havta fight one another briefly before they inevitably team up. The Turtles are tracking Shredder and the Foot Clan, who have joined up with a Gotham criminal we eventually learn is Ra's Al Ghul, who is given one of the least intimidating voices I've ever heard. Thanks to the top notch animation, however, Ra's and the Turtles have one helluva badass fight scene near the end of the movie while Bats fights the Shredder. I find it funny that nobody in Gotham can put two and two together about Batman, but the Turtles do like a five minute Google search and figure out exactly where the Batcave is, and then Michealangelo still can't figure out who he is until later in the movie. About halfway through, Ra's and the Shredder decided the best thing to do is go to Arkham and let the Joker out to play, which gives us some fun interplay between the Turtles and the members fo the Bat-Family that feature in the movie (Batman, Batgirl and possibly the best version of Damian Wayne I've ever seen). This movie is the first time Bats and the Joker have been voiced by the same actor, Troy Baker, who has previously voiced versions of both characters (the Lego Batman games for Batman and Arkahm Origins and Assault on Arkham for the Joker), and there are some strange decisions going on with his voices here. He mostly keeps to his Mark Hamill impresson for the Joker, which is serving him much better here than it did in Assault on Arkham, but there are still times when it's obviously not Mark Hamill. His Batman, however, varies wildly between what he did in the Lego Batman games and a decent Kevin Conroy impression. I don't actually know why he chose to do that, but it never really takes me out of the movie. I can't recall the Turtles' voices, but they're all excellent and suit the characters. As mentioned before, Ra's Al Ghul is given quite possibly one of the worst voices he's ever had. They should've gotten Giancarlo Esposito back to perform the character, since he has a larger role here than he did in Son of Batman. Yes, I'm still butthurt about that. This will not change. This was a fun movie, and though I doubt it'll ever happen, the post-credits scene sets up a sequel quite nicely. Just like Batman Ninja, it's one of those "I didn't know I needed this until I had it" kinds of movies. Fun Fact: I accidentally wrote the title as "Batman Vs. Teen Titans" at first. I have no idea how that happened.
Batman: Hush
Remember in my Death of Superman review I mentioned that the majority of events in the DC Animated Movie Universe happen off-screen? Hush lives and breathes that, because almost every character relationship is dependent on events we've never seen. Yes we, as Batman fans, know these characters, but this universe has never seen most of them. Catwoman, Riddler, Joker, Poison Ivy, Thomas Elliot, Bane... There are so many characters in this movie that have never appeared before in this universe, but we're expected to not only know every bit about them, there are scenes in this very film that are never explained. How does Poison Ivy come into contact with Superman for her to mind control him? Never mentioned. This all but destroys the plot of this movie, turning it into a bloatfest of characters who get maybe a couple minutes of screentime and then vanish into the ether never to be seen again. I've heard Hush is one of the seminal Batman storylines, but it worked in the comics because, aside from Hush himself, readers had spent plenty of decades with these characters. All the same things I've said for almost 40 movies now still apply to this one. Great animation, great cast, but it's all hampered by the fact that it centers on a relationship that began and ends in this movie that's treated like it's existed for years. Considering this is the last Batman-centric film in the DCAMU, that's honestly quite disappointing. I want to say good things about this movie, but truth of the matter is that I just can't. It's not really a satisfying experience in even the way Death of Superman and Reign of the Supermen were. Hell, it's barely a satisfying experience in the same way Batman: Gotham Knight was. Watch it if you have a love for the Hush graphic novel. Faring significantly better is the Sgt. Rock short that accompanies this film. Here, we have a simple tale of the Sarge leading a vampire, a werewolf and a Frankenstein's Monster behind the lines in Nazi Europe to find his old unit, who have been turned into zombies by the Nazis. It's short, it's effective, and it's not bogged down by anything. It does in 14 minutes what Hush couldn't do in 84.
Wonder Woman: Bloodlines
This movie starts off with Steve Trevor being attacked by Parademons, an event that has absolutely nothing to do with the rest of the movie, aside from apparently setting the timeline as around Justice League: War, but this does more harm than good, honestly, because when Diana was introduced in that movie, it seemed as though that was literally her introduction to Man's World, while here we see she spent some time with an archaeology professor and her teenage daughter. Apparently in all that time together (there's a montage and a clear aging of said teenage daughter), nobody introduced Diana to ice cream. What the hell? After we hit the fifteen minute mark, we're suddenly sometime after Reign of the Supermen and Batman: Hush, but where is unimportant, the point is that it's been five years. No other League members play even a cameo role, though Diana's relationship with Superman that disappeared between Justice League Vs. Teen Titans and The Death of Superman is mentioned. The teenage daughter that Diana spent time with, Vanessa, has fallen in with the wrong crowd, and her mother enlists Diana's help in finding her. This leads us into the main plot, which is relatively solid, honestly. It's better than Hush, because it doesn't really require much knowledge of the character's history outside this universe. The strangest part of this was the abrupt transition Diana made from "I can't help you" to "Let's bust outta this joint" when Steve was in an Amazonian jail at the beginning. The movie wastes almost zero time, although there are some characters that aren't given much to do. There's a minotaur named Ferdinand that gets introduced midway through the film, but outside a small moment just after his introduction, he doesn't play into the rest of the film at all. Shame, too, as he's voiced by Michael Dorn and how often do you get the chance to see a minotaur wearing a pink shirt preparing a salad? You read that right and I know you wish you hadn't. The cast is once again excellent, and the animation is smooth and visually pleasing. There seems to be more color in this movie than in most prior, reminding me more of Superman/Batman: Apocalypse's bright look. I don't know if this was intentional or just accidental, honestly. Unlike a few of the more recent films (Hush, Death and Reign, Gotham by Gaslight), this movie packs its runtime evenly, never really taking a moment for anything unimportant (aside from the lack of Ferdinand in the latter parts of the movie). I applaud the decision to not really feature Diana's origin, though the opening is a heavily truncated version of some of it, not even half. One of the better movies in the DC Universe Animated Original Movies line, and especially one of the better DC Animated Movie Universe entries. Along for the ride is a DC Showcase short about Death. I'm not really sure what possessed them to make this short, as it doesn't live up to any of the others. It's not really bad, it's just not up to par, that's all. Maybe it's because the story told here has been told better in other forms, I dunno.