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Batman: The Killing Joke
Batman: The Killing Joke 2016
Part of the reason why I decided to watch a bunch of animated movies during July was because I knew that Batman: The Killing Joke was coming out this month and there weren’t any other theatrical releases until August. What ultimately made this more special was that this film was something that I specifically called for almost 3 years ago, even calling for the R rating to separate it from the family fare. What’s probably most interesting about all this is that I haven’t actually read the Killing Joke myself. I’m acutely aware of it, not just for its critical praise and commercial success, but also for some of the more negative critics, specifically for its depictions and/or implications of violence against women and a piece of the large trend of Women in refrigerators. Even as fans started discussing this specific movie, there were also criticisms aimed against it for its new opening act that wasn’t a part of the original story. But for my part, I generally enjoyed the film but I can see some of the weak points in the story.
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Superman: Braniac Attacks
Superman: Braniac Attacks 2006
I’m down to the second to last DC Animated movie and I hope the last one doesn’t end up on a down note like this one did. This came out in a bit of an odd timeline. It was six years after the end of the Superman animated series and right around the end of Justice League Unlimited, and while they brought back Tim Daly and Dana Delaney as the voices of Superman and Lois Lane, they replaced Clancy Brown’s Lex Luthor with Powers Booth and brought in Lance Henrickson for Brainiac. Overall, the movie felt like it was intended for a younger audience and spent much of its hour and seventeen minute run time packed with fight scenes. There were a few moments here and there that made me laugh or surprised me, but overall it felt like a bit of a letdown.
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The Batman vs Dracula
The Batman vs Dracula 2005
While I watched most of the run of the first incarnation of Batman: The Animated Series, I didn’t follow it with any of the later series including the one simply called The Batman. I don’t really know much about it at all, reading up on it it seems like it was intended to be a Batman for slightly younger audiences than the original series, but it found its footing a little bit better in later seasons. The first thing that struck me was the incredibly different and jarring design for the Joker. But as for looking at the movie as a whole, it didn’t have too much of a kid-friendly vibe to me. It got surprisingly dark in places, but it was mostly superficial. It’s a fun film that seems like a perfect movie to throw on for Halloween if you’re also a fan of Batman.
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Phantom Boy
Phantom Boy 2016
I can almost see the end of this month of animated superhero and comic book movies as I tackle this French animated film that has just now gotten a full blown English dub from GKids who also did the English dub for Wrinkles which I watched earlier this month, they were also gracious enough to send me a screener. I had caught wind of this film several months ago around when it was announced that GKids would be handling the English distribution, but I was unclear as to whether or not I would consider it to be a superhero movie or not. And while it does have a kid with super powers, it doesn’t really play like any superhero movie before it, but what does push it just over the top is the very theatrical and comic book styled mobster villain named the Face. It deals with plenty of non-superhero issues and also plays with a few of the villain tropes in a fun way. It does cop out a little bit with the ending, but overall I really enjoyed this film.
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Batman: Mystery of the Batwoman
Batman: Mystery of the Batwoman 2003
It feels like animation month here is already starting to wind down and as I write this, the month isn’t even half over yet. While I’ve hit a bit of a rough patch in some of the more grown up animation as well as the previous Batman animation, this was a much more welcome return to form. Mystery of the Batwoman was essentially the last project to come out of the Batman: The Animated Series era that more or less bridges a bit of the gap between the New Batman Adventures and Batman Beyond even though both of them had been off the air for a couple years before this project was completed. At its heart, like the title says it’s a mystery where Batman as well as the villains try to figure out who this Batwoman is, and as I always do I will be discussing her identity so here’s your spoiler warning.
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The Haunted World of El Superbeasto
The Haunted World of El Superbeasto
It’s not even halfway through the month and I’m already at my final fully animated film aimed towards grown ups until the Killing Joke comes out later on this month. And unfortunately, like Lady Death, this one fell flat for me though for completely different reasons. It actually reminded me quite a bit of Jay and Silent Bob’s Super Groovy Cartoon Movie as it had a very similar juvenile sensibility only this was much more liberal with the nudity and gore which makes sense as it was directed by Rob Zombie. Straight up comedies are occasionally difficult to review objectively because humor is such a subjective thing. But when it came to my sense of humor and this movie’s sense of humor, they only lined up about 3% of the time. The rest of the time I was either cringing at the jokes made at the protagonists expense, or marveling at how they managed to get Paul Giamatti and Rosario Dawson in these roles. There was plenty of horror homages and felt like it was trying to recapture some of the early Ralph Bakshi animation, but it just fell completely flat for me.
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Lady Death
Lady Death 2004
I feel like I’m already halfway through this month of animation and unfortunately I’ve hit the first snag. Things have been going pretty peachy so far and I just hope that this isn’t a portent of things to come. I also want to make a quick mention of Hulu where I watched this film. Recently it has been pushing its paid subscriptions so hard that you can barely even get past the front page without signing up for a free trial. They do still have a large number of movies available to watch without a subscription, but it’s not intuitive on how to get to anywhere to search for them. But if you aren’t scared off by this review and want to watch it for yourself, just click right here and go straight to it. But the film itself has a few moments of gorgeous artwork, but aside from that is just a jumbled mess with bad voice acting.
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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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Wrinkles
Wrinkles aka Arrugas 2011
Going full on into animation month here as I have decided to jump back and forth between animation geared for adults and those geared for kids. After checking out the latest kid’s Lego Justice League film I decided to check out this Spanish animated drama about an old folk’s home. And even though the original language track is often preferred by cinephiles, when I saw that Martin Sheen was in the English voice cast I decided to watch the English dub. And while I didn’t really know anything about this film aside from a couple recommendations and a quick mention of Alzheimer’s, I was surprised how much I loved this film. It alternates between making you laugh and making you cry in a heartbeat, but I wouldn’t have it any other way.
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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.
Flights, Tights, and Movie Nights 