Category Archives: DC
Batman Beyond: Return of the Joker
Batman Beyond: Return of the Joker 2000
I’m continuing my month of animated movies switching back and forth between animation for adults, and those for younger audiences. While this isn’t exactly a kid’s film, it did spawn off of the great era of DC Animation on television starting off with Batman: The Animated Series. It was a show that while I don’t have clear memories of when I watched it, whether it was right after coming home from school or during those Saturday mornings while I was an early teen even on through my later teens, though I didn’t quite follow the show into the Batman Beyond era. I know I’ve seen a few episodes and watching this film again it reeked with familiarity, but there was never anything specific that I could put my finger on. The flashback scene also brought back more memories of the series I did watch, and overall it went quite a bit darker than I would have expected and like the series before it, Return of the Joker was a solid Batman story on par with some of the best animated movies they’ve released in recent years. And while I don’t usually mention this for older movies, since there is a large mystery aspect to this film’s story I will be discussing the reveal so don’t read if you’d rather watch the mystery unfold for yourself.
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Lego Justice League: Gotham City Breakout
Lego DC Comics Super Heroes: Justice League Gotham City Breakout 2016
This is the latest in one of the many DC animated series that have been coming from Warner bros, typically all focused on either Batman or the Justice League. It follows the same general pattern where it’s much more kid friendly than the Warner Premier PG-13 movies, but it also has a lot more humor that adults will get a kick out of unlike the Batman Unlimited series. It seems like this one really cranked the jokes up to 11, especially if you’re a longtime fan of Batman with several references to the Adam West series and two plots going on at once which keep things going at a near breakneck pace. So far, this has been my favorite of all the Lego DC movies and a lot of fun, especially if you have kids.
Wonder Woman
Wonder Woman 1974
Continuing my month of the more obscure and cult superhero films I’m taking a look at probably the least well known version of a popular superhero going back to the first TV pilot of the Wonder Woman TV show. Most people are familiar with the popular Lynda Carter show from the 70’s, but before they cast Carter they actually shot, filmed, and aired a very different version of the show with actress Cathy Lee Crosby as Diana Prince. And while I haven’t really seen any full episodes of the Carter version aside from a few clips, this felt very different than what I would imagine the later show went on to be. It had much more of a serious tone to it and felt more like a detective show rather than a superhero show. She barely wore the costume, there were no special effects to show off any super powers to speak of, and there was actually quite a bit of death and danger. It was quite fascinating to look back at this version of the character even though it barely resembled anything I knew about Wonder Woman aside from her name and the name of Steve Trevor.
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Justice League of America
Justice League of America 1997
While I’ve delved through the entire depths of the Marvel film catalogue including their awful TV movie roots, I have yet to do the same for DC. I have seen nearly all of their films, but there are a handful of early animated movies from the 90’s and a couple TV movies including this one that was initially intended to be the pilot of a new TV series coming hot off the heels of Lois and Clark: The New Adventures of Superman. But they also took a page out of the popularity of MTV’s the Real World which would have been on season 4 or 5 when this went into production and also would be near the height of the show’s popularity. So this show combines the superheroics with the daily life of the heroes alongside several “confessional” segments where the heroes talk directly to the TV audience. It’s bizarre how this managed to even make it to the pilot movie stage, the costumes and effects were lackluster, the characters were unlikable and barely resembled their comic book counterparts, and overall it feels roughly five years behind even 1997.
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Is Warner Bros. Relying Too Heavily on Batman?
I’ve been meaning to write on this topic for quite a while now, but since recently it came out in the news that next year’s Batman vs. Superman is supposedly even less a sequel to Man of Steel than we initially suspected and is much more a Batman story. But even if you discount the whole Batman vs. Superman issue, there’s still the matter of what they’re doing with their home video releases. This year alone, Warner Bros. have released seven straight-to-video animated movies and one more that’s due before the year’s out. Every single one of them features Batman in some way, shape, or form, and half of them have him specifically in the title of the film as the main character. You have to go back four years to 2011 to find a year where Batman made up less than half of that year’s line-up, having only Batman: Year One released alongside the other actually non-Batman titles All Star Superman, Green Lantern: Emerald Knights, and the live action Green Lantern.
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Justice League: Gods and Monsters
Justice League: Gods and Monsters 2015
It’s time for me to catch up on some more slightly under the radar new releases that have slipped past me in the past couple months or so. The first one that I checked out is the latest in the neverending releases from DC Animation, this brings about the return of Bruce Timm as writer who was the head of animation during the days of Batman: The Animated Series, Justice League, and is more or less credited with making DC Animation the respected studio that it has become today. He has overseen much of the DC Animated universe as executive producer, but the last movie that was written by him goes all the way back to the first with Superman/Doomsday. Gods and Monsters takes an alternate universe look at what the Justice League could have been if things had turned out very differently for a lot of people. Here, the Justice League is a small group of superhumans who are respected to a certain extent, but mostly feared by the general public as a potential menace who destroys any enemies they come across. I’ve always enjoyed alternate universe stories, and while this one was fascinating, I often felt like I was missing something with my limited knowledge of the extended DC Universe.
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Batman vs. Robin
Batman vs. Robin 2015
April has unintentionally become animation month here at Flights, Tights and Movie Nights as I take a look at a couple home video releases as well as catch up with the last couple Marvel animated movies I haven’t gotten around to yet. Batman vs. Robin is the latest DC Animation release that was originally touted as their first original story, though it is apparently partly based on the Court of Owls by Scott Snyder and Greg Capullo as well as a sequel to last year’s Son of Batman which was a decent, though fairly mediocre effort from the studio. It has a much stronger underlying theme of what being a father and being a son means, though it doesn’t quite reach the heights of Road to Perdition which I had just recently watched. It was still a mighty fine effort with some nice performances, impressive action sequences, and a few twists and turns along the way. And FYI, Batman vs. Robin is currently available via digital download, and will be released on DVD this Tuesday, April 14th, and as a warning I will be delving into the film in its entirety, including any spoilers.
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Justice League: Throne of Atlantis
Justice League: Throne of Atlantis 2015
And right onto the first new release of the year. This seems like it’s one of the first follow ups in the DC Animation home video releases as it almost directly follows last year’s Justice League: War. Even though Son of Batman was also part of DC’s New 52 continuity, that movie felt much more self-contained where this really felt like a sequel, especially when I did revisit War shortly before watching Throne of Atlantis. While Aquaman is often the butt of many jokes, he is actually a popular and powerful member of the Justice League and long since deserving of his own movie. There are a few jokes tossed at the king of the sea’s expense, but for the most part it’s a typical origin story with a very similar tone and feel to War, with a few of the same voice cast returning along with some new and familiar voices like Rosario Dawson who got upgraded from Artemis in the Wonder Woman movie to Wonder Woman herself, and Nathan Fillion returning to voice Green Lantern. I thought it was a decent sequel to War, but if there’s one aspect of superhero movies I have had my fill of, it’s origin stories and this didn’t really do anything different or interesting to set it apart from any of the dozens of other origin stories I’ve seen already.
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TV Nights: Constantine #1
Constantine Week 1
Episode: Non Est Asylum
Original Airdate: 10-24-2014
The last comic book show of the fall season is upon us and it’s definitely not the Supernatural ripoff that some people think it might be, it’s also not a spin-off of the Keanu Reeves movie from a few years back though it shares the same name. Instead, it’s something inbetween the two. It’s based off the John Constantine Hellblazer comics from DC’s Vertigo line and from what I understand this plays it much closer to the source material than the Keanu movie ever did. But at the same time, since I am familiar with that movie, I do see a few similarities for the uninitiated. For the most part I thought it was pretty good, and it got kicked up a notch during the climax.
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Assault on Arkham
Batman: Assault on Arkham 2014
There were two straight-to-home-video superhero movies from the two big comic book companies that came out about the same time on streaming services, and depending on how you look at it I chose poorly by watching Iron Man and Captain America: Heroes United first, or just saved the best one for last. The only thing I knew about this movie was that it was based on the recent Arkham video game series which I haven’t played. I had no idea that it was more specifically about the Suicide Squad which I had only just heard about earlier this year when they were teased in an episode of Arrow. Many of these DC Animated movies have been getting darker and darker, and while this movie has plenty of moments that border on the “R” side of its “PG-13” rating, they are handled with a lot of fun. It also helps to set the tone right from the beginning with the introduction to the suicide squad themselves that feels like it could have been pulled from a 70’s cop show. I loved this movie from start to finish and it’s another quality title in the series.
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Flights, Tights, and Movie Nights 