OK, we’re getting closer!

We’re now six films into DC Comics and Warner Bros.’ exciting new endeavor to launch high-quality direct-to-DVD animated films masterminded by Bruce Timm, one of the key creative forces behind the amazing Batman: The Animated Series from the 90’s.  In my review of the fourth film, Wonder Woman, I wrote that I enjoyed the effort but that I was disappointed that, to that point, the DVD series wasn’t turning out as I had hoped.  I wrote:

The original announcement had seemed to indicate that the series would focus more on adaptations of classic comic stories as opposed to this sort of one-off origin story that isn’t based on any specific source material.  This is the sort of thing that most of the live-action super-hero films do, creating a new story that is sort of a “melange” of various bits of story-lines and background from the many years of the character’s history.  It’s not what I was hoping for from these DVDs.  (To my dismay, the preview included on the Wonder Woman disc seems to indicate that the next DVD, a Green Lantern adventure, will be exactly this same type of not-based-on-anything-specific tale.)  Where is my epic animated adaptation of The Great Darkness Saga?  Or Batman: Year One?  Or Kingdom Come?  How cool would that be?

Other than my philosophical support of its premise, is Superman/Batman: Public Enemies actually any good?  Well, it definitely is, though like the rest of these new DVDs it does not match the heights of any of Bruce Timm’s animated DCU series (Batman: The Animated Series, Justice League, etc.).

The story is simple:  Lex Luthor has been elected President of the United States.  He uses the discovery of an enormous fragment of Kryptonite that is on-course to impact with Earth (to what would be sure to be devastating consequences for the planet) as an excuse to issue a warrant for Superman’s arrest.  Batman quickly gets involved, and the two heroes find themselves on the run from a whole host of super-villains eager for the bounty Luthor has offered.  They also find themselves hunted by a number of heroes who feel a moral imperative to obey the orders of America’s commander in chief.  Meanwhile, there’s still the little matter of finding a way to avert the impending impact of the Kryptonite meteor.

This DVD, as with the original comic books, is pretty much action-action-action.  The animation is, for the most part, really gorgeous (probably the best effort since the first one, Superman: Doomsday).  The animation teams on these DVDs seem to be more comfortable with large action sequences than with intimate dialogue sequences (which is probably why I feel Superman: Doomsday and Public Enemies are the most successful ones, as they’re also the most action-packed).  These guys are AMAZING at choreographing enormous super-hero/villain action sequences.  There’s a lot of fun eye-candy here, and the pace of the story is pretty relentless.

I have really enjoyed how, for each of these DVDs, Timm and his team have created new designs for all of the characters, in an attempt to match the style of the artists of the source material.  Ed McGuinness has a very distinct style of drawing, and I was really surprised and impressed by the way the animation maintained a lot of the flavor of his original work.  Not everything is perfect — there are some instances where what worked in a still drawing doesn’t translate to a moving image, such as the early scene where Captain Atom and Major Force confront Superman.  As the two characters walk towards Superman, one can see that the animators had trouble making their enormously-muscled arms (a distinct McGuinness characteristic) move along with their bodies.  Also, while I found most of the character-designs to be really top-notch (especially the tweaked looks for Luthor and Batman), I was appalled at the hideous depiction of Amanda Waller.  She’s always been a heavy character, but here she was absurdly obese!  Yikes!  I also wasn’t wild about the over-simplified look of Power Girl’s face, with her enormous bird-like eyes.  But these are small quibbles — over-all, as I wrote, the animation is top-notch.

The best feature of this DVD is the return of the classic voices from the original DCU animated series: Clancy Brown (The Shawshank Redemption) as Lex Luthor, Tim Daly as Superman, and Kevin Conroy as Batman.  As far as I’m concerned, those three actors ARE those characters.  There have been many other great actors who have taken a swing at those roles (both in live-action and in the other DC animated DVDs), but no one can beat those three.  (PARTICULARLY Kevin Conroy’s Batman.)  So it was an ENORMOUS delight to have those three all return for this installment, and the film gives them a lot of opportunities to riff off of one another.  (I was further pleased to see several other voices from the original animated series return to reprise their roles, such as CCH Pounder as Amanda Waller.)

So what’s not so good?  Primarily, it’s that the story upon which all of the exciting action hangs is rather weak.  I understand that it’s popular, but Loeb and McGuinness’ original comic-book storyline is far being one of my favorites, and the DVD shares many of its weaknesses.  While the set-up is cool (how would Superman and Batman react if their worst enemy actually was elected, without fraud, to the highest office in the land?), the story quickly devolves into silliness.  By the time one gets to the end, in which Lex has donned his green and purple super-suit and an enormous Superman/Batman robot arrives out of nowhere to save the day, the adventure has veered into total lunacy.  Over-all, Timm and writer Stan Berkowitz have done a good job at trimming away many of the indulgences from the original story (such as the go-nowhere subplots involving the possibility that Superman villain Metallo was the one who shot Bruce Wayne’s parents, and the appearance of the Kingdom Come Superman from the future), but the disappointment of the third act’s story was exactly the same thing that bugged me about the final issues of the original comic.

I also would have enjoyed a lot more fleshing-out of how exactly Luthor got himself elected President.  There’s a great montage that opens the film that sets this premise up, hinting that tough economic times created desperation in the country’s voters, but after a clip of Luthor on a news show declaring his candidacy, we jump right to the announcement that he was elected President.  I would have liked to have seen a lot more info on how he sold himself to the country, how he convinced people to disregard his criminal past, etc. etc.  It’s key to the story that we buy into the notion that Luthor was legitimately elected, and I think more time needed to be spent on fleshing out that idea.

(True, none of that was present in the original comic, but that’s because this story came after several years of storytelling in DC’s various Superman books that DID explore the story of Luthor’s candidacy and eventual election.  Most readers who read those six issues of Superman/Batman in 2003/4 had read those other comics, so Loeb and McGuinness didn’t need to spend too much time on the set-up.  This DVD, on the other hand, needs to stand entirely on its own, and I think they would have been well-served to have taken a little more time to sell the premise.)

I also would have liked to have seen a little more time (even just a scene or two would have sufficed) to explain exactly why certain heroes agree to work for Luthor.  The dilemma of a super-hero having to decide whether his/her respect for the office of the President outweighs his/her personal feelings about the office-holder is an extraordinarily rich hook for the story.  But I felt those juicy issues were quickly swept aside (by the original comics, and even more-so by the DVD movie) in favor of moving on to more action.  This leaves me totally confused as to why heroes like Hawkman and Captain Marvel, for instance, choose to stand against their former colleagues Superman and Batman.  This DVD is the shortest of the six animated DVDs so far (it’s a brisk 67 minutes), so it’s not like they couldn’t have added in a few extra minutes fleshing out some of this character motivation and back-story.

(Speaking of Hawkman and Captain Marvel, by the way, brings me to yet another issue I have with both the DVD and the original comics: I think the drama of Superman and Batman having to fight against other super-heroes would have been much richer if they’d been facing off against other of the DCU’s big guns like Wonder Woman and Green Lantern, as opposed to B-listers like Captain Atom and Black Lightning.)

I’m getting into a lot of niggling complaints, now, and I really shouldn’t.  The DVD really is quite solid.  It’s just that I have extraordinarily high standards for animation, and particularly for the DCU animated projects.  (This is primarily because Timm & co. set the bar SO HIGH for themselves with all of their terrific work on the Batman, Superman, Batman: Beyond, and Justice League TV series!)   Superman/Batman: Public Enemies is a very entertaining and enjoyable entry in the new DVD series, and superior to the last three DVDs.

It’s great… but I am still waiting for the SPECTACULAR.

Last week I wrote about some of the great comics I’ve read lately.  That list was just scratching the surface!  Here’s some more fantastic stuff that I’ve been enjoying recently:

Hellboy: The Wild Hunt and BPRD: 1947 - The Hellboy saga continues in these two new wonderful mini-series.  In Hellboy: The Wild Hunt, things are coming to a head for the big red guy.  Cut off from his old friends and comrades in the BPRD, and hunted by the newly-resurrected Queen of Blood, things are looking grim for our hero!  Last month’s issue (#6) was jam-packed with astonishing revelations about Hellboy’s origin that I never saw coming, but that I thought worked absolutely PERFECTLY.  Meanwhile, BPRD: 1947 takes us through a rollicking tale of the second year of the Bureau for Paranormal Research and Defense as Professor Bruttenholm struggles against vampires and a lot of other weirdness.  The Hellboy universe has really richened and deepened over these last few years, and I am really excited to see where things go from here.

Ultimate Comics: Spider-Man — The relaunch of Brian Michael Bendis’ take on Spider-Man (three issues have been published as of this writing) continues just where the previous 133 issues (plus a handful of annuals and other specials) left off.  Young Peter Parker must juggle his, um, interesting love-life with a boring job at a fast-food joint (since he lost his job at the Daily Bugle following the devastation of NYC in the truly awful Ultimatum miniseries) with, oh yeah, his crime-fighting escapades as Spider-Man!  Mr. Bendis is well-known for his witty, true-to-teenaged-life dialogue, but I think his real strength is the depth of characterization he brings to Peter Parker and all the rest of the extraordinarily numerous cast of this comic.  Mary-Jane, Flash Thompson, Aunt May, “Kong,” Kitty Pryde from the X-Men, Johnny Storm from the Fantastic Four (and it is almost embarrassing how much more interesting Kitty and Johnny are here than in their “home” comics) and many more characters are all brought to amazingly real life in these pages.  I’ve been following Bendis’ run on “Ultimate” Spider-Man and I’ll be with the series until he leaves.  Spider-Man has never been done better (in my comic-reading life-time, at least!).  My only small complaint: I’m not quite taken with the overly stylized work of new series artist David Lafuente.  Let’s see if it grows on me any more after a few more issues…

Stephen King’s The Dark Tower — I fell way behind on this series of mini-series, adapting and expanding upon the back story of Stephen King’s seven-book The Dark Tower opus, but I was finally able to catch up last month.  Breathtakingly gorgeous art by Jae Lee combined with a wonderful epic fantasy yarn by Peter David & Robin Furth (working with Mr. King) make this a compelling comic book indeed.  Large amounts of extra credit for the terrific back-up features.  In addition to the main story, each issue is filled to overflowing with lengthy text-pieces that flesh out the extraordinary world that Stephen King created, interviews with the various creators involved with the book, and lots more.  (My only complaint is that Jae Lee was absent for the most recent mini-series, The Fall of Gilead, and the book was not the same without him.  I’d have preferred that they delayed the release of that mini-series so that Mr. Lee could have illustrated it, maintaining artistic continuity across the entire series.)

Batman and Robin — Grant Morrison and Frank Quitely’s latest partnership is this bizarre, violent, madcap new take on Batman and Robin.  But this isn’t the Batman and Robin that you might be familiar with.  Following the recent dramatic upheavals in the DC universe status quo, former Robin Dick Grayson has taken the mantle of the Dark Knight, with Bruce Wayne’s long-lost son Damian (who Bruce fathered to Ras Al Ghul’s daughter Talia in the long-forgotten but recently returned-to-continuity graphic novel Batman: Son of the Demon from 1987 by Mike W. Barr & Jerry Bingham).  The characterizations and plot-lines don’t quite jive with what’s happening in the other Batman titles these days, but who cares.  Mr. Quitely’s gorgeous, distinct illustrations have always served as the best conduits for Mr. Morrison’s out-there storytelling, and this book is no different.  My complaint, as with the Dark Tower series, is about the shift in artists: already we’re having fill-in artists after only three issues??  Sheesh!!

Batman: Streets of Gotham — Speaking of Batman, I’m also thoroughly enjoying this book written by the great Paul Dini (one of the key creative forces behind Batman: The Animated Series, which stands in my mind as my favorite version of Batman in ANY media) and illustrated by Dustin Nguyen.  I’ve been a fan of Mr. Nguyen since his great run on Wildcats 3.0 with Joe Casey, and his work here is absolutely stellar — from the wonderfully evocative water-color covers (issue #4’s cover featuring the horrifying Mr. Zsasz was a particular stand-out, though shame on whoever is responsible for the placement of the logo which makes it very difficult to see that Zsasz is standing under a silhouette of Batman) to his stylized work on the interiors.

Doom Patrol — Full disclosure: my friend Liz Gehrlein edits this book, and she’s the one who encouraged me to sample this new series (which I might not otherwise have picked off the racks myself).  I’m quite glad I gave it a try.  It’s got a sort-of retro feel filled to the brim with classic comic book super-hero escapades.  In contrast to the “decompressed” storytelling that has become very popular over the last several years, each issue so far has been jam-packed with exciting story.  Extra props for the magnificent Metal Men back-up feature that reunites two extraordinary talents: Keith Giffen and Kevin Maguire.

Superman: Secret Origin — I wasn’t sure that I would be interested in yet another take on Superman’s early years, but Gary Frank’s terrific cover prompted me to pick up issue #1, and I’m glad I did.  Mr. Frank’s art is, of course, spectacular.  He is able to combine really emotive faces with extraordinary detail in his rendering of people’s clothing, cars, and other background details.  I also found myself intrigued by the way writer Geoff Johns mixes and matches various ideas and iconography from various different versions of Superman.  There’s the crystalline Kryptonian technology from Richard Donner’s Superman movies; there’s the endearingly pre-Crisis look to the spaceship that brought Clark to Earth; there’s the heat-vision-as-metaphor-for-puberty idea from Smallville; there’s the depiction of Krypton as being divided up into various guilds that has been a big part of the New Krypton stories running through all of DC’s current Superman titles over the past year; and, of course, there’s the last page, which firmly establishes that young Clark took on the identity of Superboy while still living in Smallville.  (The only bit of cheese in this big melting pot that I wish had been left out?  The Gregory Peck-looking Jor-El from Adam Kubert’s run on Action Comics with Mr. Johns from 2007.  Mr. Kubert is a magnificent artist, but that version of Jor-El never did it for me.)  Still, a really enjoyable debut issue, and I eagerly anticipate the rest of the series.

Have you seen this?  Jon Hamm (Mad Men) plays Lex Luthor in this short from Funnyordie.com, asking for bailout money for Luthorcorp.  Genius!

Out-there director Spike Jonze (Being John Malkovich, Adaptation) is making a film of Maurice Sendak’s beloved childrens’ book, Where The Wild Things Are?  What an insane, inspired notion.  Check out this wondrous trailer.  This is a movie I need to see.

Speaking of trailers I really want to see, I didn’t know anything whatsoever about Sam Mendes’ (American Beauty) new film, Away We Go, before I saw this new trailer (mentioned at the Motion Captured blog over on HitFix.com).  It stars John Krasinski (Jim from The Office) and Maya Rudolph (from SNL), and now that I’ve seen the trailer I am very excited for this film!  

I love this new poster for J.J. Abrams’ Star Trek movie.  I need this in my home.

Speaking of Trek, there’s been some interesting pieces posted on-line lately about the use of Bryan Tyler’s magnificent score for Children of Dune in the trailers for the new Star Trek film.  This article summarizes the confusion nicely.  I am fascinated by this stuff.  Tyler’s score was also used extensively in the first trailer for Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull.  I loved both of the Sci-Fi channel’s Dune mini-series, and it tickles me to hear snippets of the score being used all over the place these days!

Come back here tomorrow to read my thoughts on a terrific older film from director Guillermo del Toro, The Devil’s Backbone!

As an addendum to my list of my five favorite super-hero movies posted at the start of this week, here are three super-hero movies that I consider to be tremendously under-rated:

Superman Returns — I just don’t understand the almost universal apathy or even dislike towards Bryan Singer’s Superman relaunch. I love that this film has a somber, melancholy feel to it. I love that the story creates complicated character conflicts (the Clark-Lois-Superman-Richard love tangle) that aren’t easily resolved by the end of the film. (I was SHOCKED that Richard lived through the movie — and I really respect the filmmakers for not killing him off, thus providing an easy way for Lois and Clark/Superman to get back together.) I also love reverence the filmmakers showed for Richard Donner’s Superman movie — it really tickles me all the times the movie refers to Donner’s films, both visually (the design of the Fortress of Solitude, the use of Brando as Jor-El), and in the echoing of lines of dialogue in the script (such as Superman’s “statistically speaking, its still the safest way to travel,” and the reprise of Jor-El’s message to his son: “You will make my strength your own. You will see my life through your eyes, as your life will be seen through mine. The son becomes the father and the father… the son.”) The film has weaknesses — there’s not enough action, and Lex Luthor’s plot is pretty stupid. But watch again the plane crash sequence in which Superman reveals his return to the world, and tell me that’s not a magnificent moment of pop-fantasy magic. I’d love to get a sequel to this film to see where Singer takes the story from here, so I hope Warner gets around to making one.

Daredevil – Here’s another movie that I seem to be the only one who likes. As with Superman Returns, there are weaknesses to this film, like some embarassingly dodgy CGI effects. But there’s so much that I enjoy about this movie. I love how down-beat it is. I love how the filmmakers differentiate Daredevil from a more selflessly heroic character like Spider-Man. (This is epitomized by the scene on the rooftop between Matt Murdock/Daredevil and Elektra, in which he hears someone in trouble — but when Elektra asks him to stay with her, he does. Peter Parker would never make that choice — and I love that.) Speaking of Murdock/Daredevil, I know that its a popular sport to make fun of Ben Affleck, but I actually find him to be extremely watchable as Matt Murdock. And the rest of the cast is strong as well — Michael Clarke Duncan, Joe Pantoliano, Jennifer Garner, Colin Farrell, and Jon Favreau in a terrific turn as Foggy Nelson. Although just a moment ago I criticized some of the visual effects in this film, let me take a moment to praise the clever way in which Daredevil’s “radar sense” is visualized. Like Superman Returns, this is another movie to which I’d love to see a aequel (although I’ve resigned myself that I never will), as the movie ended (with the Kingpin aware of Matt Murdock’s identity) in just the right place to take on one of the best Daredevil stories ever from the comics: “Born Again,” in which the Kingpin uses that knowledge to pretty much destroy Murdock’s life.

Hulk — As with Superman Returns, this is another film that I love for its slow, melancholy nature. Ang Lee’s movie is derided for its lack of action, but I think it has some TERRIFIC action sequences, like the Hulk’s desert battle with the army. Its just that the movie takes its time to get to those sequences. That would be a problem only if what was going on wasn’t so compelling. Again, this is a movie that is made by the strength of its cast. Eric Bana gives what I find to be a mesmerizing performance as the haunted Bruce Banner. Sam Elliott is terrifically cast as General Ross, and Jennifer Connelly and Nick Nolte are strong as well. Sure the movie is weird, and it does take some liberties with the comic continuity (particularly Bruce Banner’s father’s involvement in his origin), but I really enjoy this more cerebral, psychological telling of this story. I also find the comic-book panel scene transitions to be immensely clever.

If its been a while since you’ve seen one of these three movies — give ‘em another chance on DVD! I don’t think you’ll regret it.