Blog Archives
100 Essential Superhero Movies – The Superman Movies
I decided that I wanted to make a list of 100 superhero movies that I thought were the essentials, the ones that everyone needs to see at one point in time if they want to be a fully fledged superhero movie afficionado, and while I am having guest bloggers this month help me fill out the list, there are many much more obvious choices that were easy to make and I’m here to share some of those with you now starting with the biggest superhero out there, the one that probably most people know of no matter what country they are in, and that of course is Superman. He’s been the star of many different movies through the years and while I haven’t selected every single one of them, I have picked most of them for one reason or another.
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Son of Batman
Son of Batman 2014
It’s time for yet another entry from DC Animation which almost always produce some of my favorite animated superheroes. This time around it’s a story that I wasn’t familiar with at all, which as the title suggests is about the son of Batman. If you’ve seen Dark Knight Rises, or are familiar with what’s happened in the comic books it’s not a big surprise that Batman hooks up with Talia Al Ghul who isn’t always as cutthroat as her father from what I understand. There’s also apparently some deal with how the kid is born in the first place in the comics but it’s mostly glossed over in this movie. Anyway, the League of Shadows is in trouble so Talia takes her son Damian to meet his heretofore unknown father who just so happens to be Batman for a little father and son bonding time. Of course, being raised within the League of Shadows isn’t without its downfalls and there’s also the matter at hand where Slade Wilson aka Deathstroke has killed Ra’s Al Ghul and Damian is looking for revenge and is not above killing, which obviously doesn’t sit well with Batman. Anyway it’s a fun movie and continues a similar look from Justice League: War and also a similar mix of blood and occasional humor which I enjoyed as usual.
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The Return of Swamp Thing
The Return of Swamp Thing 1989
I knew very little about the first Swamp Thing movie, and I knew even less about the sequel which came out 7 years later and the only connection between the two movies are the actor that plays Swamp Thing in the suit and the villain Arcane who supposedly died in the first movie. I would have thought that they would have used the Dick Durock’s voice once again for the Swamp Thing, but for some reason* they chose to hire a voice actor do ADR all of his lines. The tone of this movie is also much more light and comedic. Unfortunately this makes the campy comedy feel much more forced than in the first movie where everyone was taking things seriously. There’s still some cheesy fun to be had, but it’s not nearly as good of a movie overall than the first one.
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Swamp Thing
Swamp Thing 1982
It’s been a while since I watched the Swamp Thing mirror from Marvel Man-Thing, and while they came out in comic book form near the same time, in the movie world Swamp Thing beat it by quite a wide margin. Not only that, but it was directed by horror master Wes Craven best known for the Nightmare on Elm Street series, and yet this is a far cry from a horror movie aside from the creature makeup. It’s rated PG for one thing though it does get away with the brief boob shot that happened once in a while back in the 80’s days of the PG rating. It’s a bit of a monster movie where the creature is a sympathetic/tragic hero, but there’s also a strong villain that he’s pitted against all the while he spends his time trying to protect an instant love-interest. Filled with a bit of cheese, but still a fun movie.
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Superhero Shorts: Batman Evolution
Welcome to another edition of Superhero Shorts where I take a look at a superhero themed short film and ask a few questions of the creator. This time around I have the fun short Batman Evolution where Eric Gable used his martial arts training and love of both the classic and modern styles of Batman to create a short that shows how Batman changed from the comedic and campy Adam West style Batman to the grittier modern Batman started by Tim Burton and taken even further by Christopher Nolan all while using authentic Ninjutsu techniques during the fight choreography. As always, you can watch the video below or you can visit their YouTube channel.
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JLA Adventures: Trapped in Time
JLA Adventures: Trapped in Time 2014
This is a movie you might not have heard about until recently even if you follow DC Animation, it’s a bit of a stealth release, only popping up on people’s radars when it was included in Target’s mailer last week as it is a Target DVD exclusive. One thing I immediately found out about it was that it is something much lighter in tone than many of the recent DC Animated movies. It’s much more in line with an updated version of Super Friends so I was excited because it was something that I could watch with my daughter Jena without worrying if there was too much blood in it. I’m always a fan of a time travel story and this has some very fun moments without bogging itself down with the nitty gritty details of it. The movie mainly follows a couple soon-to-be-members of the Legion of Super-heroes 1,000 years in the future: Dawnstar and Karate Kid. But back in the present, there’s also plenty of the Justice League and the Legion of Doom with many of their classic Super Friends roster with the addition of Cyborg who was only in the tail end of the Super Friends. I had a lot of fun with this movie and so did Jena.
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Justice League: War
Justice League: War 2014
Taking a quick break from the non-superhero comic book adaptations I watched a couple brand new DC Animation releases: Justice League: War and JLA Adventures: Trapped in Time. My review of Trapped in Time will be up in a couple days, but first I’m going to talk a bit about Justice League: War which is the first Animated offering from DC’s New 52 timeline offering up yet another Justice League origin story, though I haven’t read any of the New 52. Fortunately, even though a lot of it is the same thing we’ve seen more than a couple times, it’s still a fun ride. After the very dark turn in DC Animation with Dark Knight Returns and The Flashpoint Paradox, War lightens things up quite a bit while not going all the way around to being too shallow. There’s still plenty of action to be had here and they sneak in a single swear word, but the blood is kept to a minimum. It was also a nice change of pace to add Shazam into the mix, as he’s not usually one of the regulars in these movies.
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Superman/Batman: Public Enemies
Superman/Batman: Public Enemies 2009
Happy New Year! There hasn’t been a lot of voting in my “what I should watch in 2014” poll, but the winner in both the poll and the comments was non-superhero movies. So at least here in January, I’ll be watching some more varied movies that are still based on comics. But today I’m doing what I thought I did a couple months back until I realized that there was still a DC animated movie that I had yet to review, even though I had seen it before my website days. Public Enemies was the first of these movies to really focus on the Batman/Superman team up, and while I didn’t like it as much as Apocalypse, I still had a lot of fun with it.There’s a ton of cameos of various supervillains and some lesser known heroes, but it brings back the ever familiar voices for Batman, Superman, and Lex Luthor which is always a good sign even if it has a couple odd patches here and there.
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My Top 10 DC Animated Movies
After watching and reviewing Justice League: The New Frontier, I thought I had finished watching and reviewing all of the DC Animated movies that have been currently released. After writing this list, I realized I still have one to review (Public Enemies), but I have seen it before so whatever. I’ve always enjoyed watching these animated movies from Marvel, DC, and even some of the other non-affiliated animated movies like Bolt, the Incredibles, or Megamind. But even though these are all released direct-to-DVD and have never gotten a theatrical run since going way back to the Batman: The Animated series spin-off movie Mask of the Phantasm (which I sadly have yet to see, but also don’t include in this series of Warner Premier original DC Animated movies), they are all done with quality writing, are often based on acclaimed comic book runs, have excellent voice casts, and high quality-within-a-budget animation. And what better way to wrap up these movies, so to speak, than with a list of my favorites, which started as just a top 5 list and when I kept finding titles I just couldn’t exclude, grew into a top 10 list, which is a bit over half of the currently 17 released titles with 2-3 new ones coming out every year. So, without ado…
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Superhero Shorts: Dark Knight Legacy
Welcome to another edition of Superhero Shorts where I showcase a superhero themed short film and ask a few questions of the creator. This time around I’m talking with Cris Landa and his Nolan inspired short film that takes place after the Dark Knight Rises where someone needs to fill the void left behind by the absence of Batman and in his place comes The Red Hood and Night wing who differ on their opinions on how to deal with the criminal element. As usual, you can watch the video below or on the Machinima YouTube channel.
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Flights, Tights, and Movie Nights 