Blog Archives
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.
Veggietales: The League of Incredible Vegetables
Veggietales: The League of Incredible Vegetables 2012
Coming into the home stretch for this month of kids’ superhero movies is what is likely to be the youngest skewing movie I will ever cover on this site, unless I run out of other movies to review. I’m not interested in reviewing something intended for preschoolers like Dora the Explorer: Superbabies, but even this is probably stretching what passes for an actual movie. For one thing, it only runs for about 48 minutes: the length of an hour TV show minus commercials. The target audience is also for around 5-10 year olds, but that’s not too far from the target audience for other superhero shows like Superfriends. And also, it’s part of the dreaded Christian propaganda machine. Not that I have anything against Christians in general, I still vaguely consider myself to be one, but their idea of entertainment usually falls more on the side of being preachy than being entertaining. But I have had my experiences with Veggietales as both an uncle and a father so I more or less knew what I was getting into, and I have to admit that I do enjoy the sense of humor that goes into these films. It’s just that message crammed into the end that sours it a little for me.
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Justice League vs. Teen Titans
It’s time for another entry in the DC Animated canon and they are continuing their fairly recent connected universe of films that tie together Batman and Robin with the Justice League movies aside from Gods and Monsters. This film follows the recent trend of naming superhero films based on having the heroes fight each other. At least this time there’s an element of mind control rather than a difference in ideology. As for my own experience with the Teen Titans themselves, I’ve seen a few episodes of Teen Titans, plenty of Teen Titans Go, but I’ve only seen the Blue Beetle in a single episode of Batman: Brave and the Bold. It felt like an odd fit considering that in the universe of this story, the Justice League is still quite young but the Teen Titans is already established. Though it does seem to be even newer than the Justice League. But aside from the specifics, this is a much better tone than the live action DC Universe and aside from a few minor nitpicks, I enjoyed the hell out of this one.
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Lego Justice League: Cosmic Clash
Lego DC Comics Super Heroes: Justice League: Cosmic Clash 2016
It’s the second month of the year and that means the second DC movie that includes Batman in it. Not only that, but it’s the second film that includes Batman fighting another hero and the first this year where he is fighting Superman. Aside from that, it’s also the fourth Lego DC movie to be released on home video after the success of DC Heroes Unite, Attack of the Legion of Doom, and Justice League vs. Bizarro League. It actually continues where Bizarro League left off where Cyborg is now a full fledged member of the team and Batman is on board with everyone but is still somewhat on the outskirts of the team. Like all the others, there’s plenty of humor and while most of it is childish, there’s enough referential humor to make things fun for adults as well.
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Heavy Metal 2000
Heavy Metal 2000 2000
It’s been a while since I’ve participated in a blogathon that I didn’t host, but when I saw the O Canada Blogathon over at Speakeasy all the way back in October I figured I could come up with something Canadian to join in. Although my first two thoughts were shut down for various reasons, I knew there was a very obscure Canadian independent film called Sidekick, but it’s also so obscure that I’m having trouble getting my hands on it. I also knew about a French/Canadian production called Crying Freeman, but looking into it I realized it was based on a manga rather than a comic and I’m holding off on those for the moment. So last on my list was this one. I had watched the first Heavy Metal last year but hadn’t heard good things about the sequel and since I didn’t care for the original all that much I didn’t have high hopes for this one. And for the most part my fears were right.
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Firebreather
Firebreather 2010
I tend to be a fan of certain directors and writers, especially when it comes to animation. When I was younger, Peter Chung was likely one of the first few animation directors that I knew by name. He was the director behind the unique Aeon Flux and has also done several other projects over the years. His art style tends to be very unique as well, favoring a slight anime influence though his characters often are even more exaggerated with long limbs and skinny bodies. This film follows that style, but takes it into the realm of CGI where it originally aired on Cartoon Network. Coming into it, I knew nothing about it aside from the fact that it was based on a comic book. Walking away from it, I was pleasantly surprised by this tale of a hybrid kid coming of age in a world of high school and Kaiju although the high school half of the film was extremely cliched.
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Marvel Superhero Adventures: Frost Fight
Marvel Superhero Adventures: Frost Fight 2015
Just when I thought I had watched every Christmas related superhero movie they had to come out with another one. And in typical Marvel fashion, this one flew under my radar until it was actually released even though they did apparently announce the title at NYCC. It was just released digitally earlier last week and like most of Marvel’s recent home video releases it is very family friendly. But they have also switched animation styles yet again, going away from the anime and the cell-shaded CGI in favor of their TV style animation similar to Avengers Assemble and Guardians of the Galaxy, though with only a few of the same voice actors. It does a nice job of tying Santa Claus into the Marvel universe, but it’s mainly just a very disjointed series of battles and/or gags with a very common holiday story at the end.
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Gen 13
Gen13 2000
Most superhero movie fans are aware of the unreleased Fantastic Four movie made in the mid 90’s in order for the company to retain the rights to the characters for a few more years. That wasn’t the only unreleased comic book movie to exist, just likely one of the most well known. The Dolph Lundgren Punisher movie was also mostly unreleased as it never came out in theaters, but eventually had a home video release in the US. Gen 13 has never officially been released in the US to date for a very different reason. Gen13 was a comic book initially published by WildStorm comics which was a part of Image comics. The film was produced in part by Buena Vista Pictures, owned by Disney set for a 2000 release date on home video. By the time this film was nearly completed, WildStorm comics was struggling and was sold to DC comics which is owned by Warner Bros. As a result, this film was shelved in the US and only released in a handful of other countries through Paramount Pictures as the distribution company. Which is a bit of a shame because while I didn’t fall head over heels for this film, it’s something that could have had a niche audience and it deserves that at least. Since it was unreleased in the US, it wasn’t rated by the MPAA, but if it was I imagine it would have to have at least a couple minor cuts in order to get a PG-13 rating. There is a bit of non-sexual nudity along with plenty of blood but no gore. But as for the origin story it tells, it’s just above average.
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