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Justice League Dark
Justice League Dark 2017
While this isn’t the first comic book movie to be released in 2017, this is the first 2017 comic book movie that I’ve gotten around to watching. It’s no secret that I’m a big fan of DC’s animated movies and especially those directed by Jay Oliva. There’s just something about his action and style that gets to me every time. This is also the next in the continuing series of movies loosely connected continuity surrounding the expanding Justice League. And this had the right amount of action, humor, and drama to keep me hooked from beginning to end. Even though I was only vaguely familiar with many of the characters in this film, I connected with them and enjoyed this from beginning to end. Especially with its connection to the unfairly cancelled NBC series Constantine. My only real gripe with this film is that once again it pushed Batman front and center when he had no real reason to be included in this story other than the fact that he is DC’s cash cow and has to be included in every possible thing they do.
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Red 2
Red 2 2013
I’ve almost completed my recent goal of watching and reviewing the last few major comic book films I have yet to cover here. This film came out during the second year of this site and it was the first summer where I started to realize how many comic book films were actually coming out and how difficult it was for me to keep up with all of them. And since this was a sequel to a film that I had yet to see, it was one of those that fell through the cracks until now. I hadn’t really heard much about this film, and what little I did hear was generally mixed. But since I did enjoy the first one so much, I though I would enjoy this one as well. There is definitely a different tone to this film, and while the plot still isn’t much to speak of, I did laugh more often and harder than I did in the first film, so it’s got that going for it at least.
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The Losers
The Losers 2010
I’m continuing my journey to watch the last of the most major comic book films that I’ve missed these past five years and it’s almost astonishing that I’ve put this film off for so long. While it wasn’t a big hit in 2010 when it was released, it is one of the many comic book films featuring Chris Evans in a major role. It’s somewhat surprising that it has such a low rating, and I’m curious if any of it has to do with the marketing or just the time it was released as I watched this film with little to no expectations and absolutely loved the hell out of it. It reminded me a little bit of a combination between Tropic Thunder with less comedy and Two Guns with more coherence.
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FTMN Quickie: Batman v Superman Ultimate Edition
Batman v Superman Ultimate Edition 2016
Once again my movie viewing was decided via a Twitter poll which resulted in the mixed bag of revisiting the epic superhero film of the year made even more epic-er with about 30 minutes of footage so it now clocks in at just over three hours. Now, if you recall my original review for Batman vs Superman, I’m not one of the haters of this film, I thought it was just fine and I have been fully expecting that this extended cut makes some improvements. It’s just so difficult for me to put three hours into a movie, especially when I know that it’s just for one of these two paragraph quickie reviews looking specifically at an alternate cut of a film that I’ve already reviewed. But I did split the viewing up over about three nights and I did still like more than I didn’t like. But boy did those moments I didn’t like stick out like a sore thumb even more this time around. Is the Ultimate Cut really the best way to view this movie? A loose maybe is really the best I can do for that question right now.
Batman: Return of the Caped Crusaders
Batman: Return of the Caped Crusaders 2016
I was disappointed during the last theatrical event for one of these DC animated features because I had car trouble and wasn’t able to go. Even though I wasn’t quite as excited for this film as I was for Killing Joke I figured it would still be a fun time at the theater and I was right. I don’t really have a whole lot of experience with ’66 Batman aside from the one movie, but even with only having that little bit of background I could tell the amount of care that went into this animated feature. There were plenty of references to the rogue’s gallery from the show and it captured the feel of the original show while still tossing in plenty of jokes geared towards someone who is familiar with Batman lore at large, seemingly poking fun at the darker, more modern version of Batman while celebrating the joy and camp of the earlier days.
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Hero of the Year
DC Superhero Girls: Hero of the Year 2016
This is the first feature length movie based on the initiative that DC has started about a year ago that combines toys, a webseries, and comics that are targeted towards girls rather than boys. And since there isn’t a large enough roster of notable women superheroes in the DC universe, they add in a handful of villains into the mix to make up the full slate. One of the biggest issues that I had with the webseries was that it focused too much on the girly aspects of the concept and not enough of the superheroism, this film is much closer to the right balance with a fair amount of action, humor, and friendship without spending too much time on makeovers and costume designing.
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Batman Unlimited: Mechs Vs Mutants
Batman Unlimited: Mechs Vs Mutants 2016
Within a month of me finishing all of the animated comic book movies out there, they went and released two more already. Starting off with the latest entry in the Batman Unlimited series, something that I tend to think of as the “toy series” as it coincided with the release of a new toy line and overall is more kid friendly than the current Warner Premier animated movies that tend towards PG-13 to R for a more adult audience. Even when just looking at this comparatively to the other two Batman Unlimited movies that came before this one, there was a level of inconsistency with many of the characters like Penguin and even Killer Croc. But while it did take a while to win me over, the level of humor across the third act made up for a lot of nothing in the first two. At least a little.
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Filmwhys Spotlight: Supergirl
The third entry in my series shining a light on underappreciated superhero movies through the eyes of the fans that love them. This time around I’m shining the spotlight onto 1984’s Supergirl with the help of guests Jermaine Dickerson from Jermaine Design, Todd Liebenow from Forgotten Films, and Andrew Wickliffe from The Stop Button. I hope you’ll join us in taking a look at some of the brighter points of this movie that for many hasn’t stood the test of time, not that it even was ever successful in the first place.
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Suicide Squad
Suicide Squad 2016
Like with any recent DC live action movie release these days there’s a lot more to it than just “Did I like it?” or “Did I not like it?” It seems like it started a little bit with Manof Steel and escalated greatly with Batman vs Superman and once again there’s this great divide between a very low critical consensus and a record breaking box office. Who’s right? Who’s wrong? Does it really even matter anymore as long as the money is flowing and nothing’s going to stop this DC train from moving along trying to catch up to the Marvel money train chugging a few billion dollars ahead. Obviously, I’m a superhero movie fan, you don’t sit through over 300 superhero movies without either being a fan, becoming a fan, or quitting about 100 movies ago. My expectations for Suicide Squad were very similar to the animated Assault on Arkham, and what I got wasn’t a far cry from it. The characters were fun, it was fast paced, sure there were some flaws with the story but at the end of the day, my wife and I had a great morning at the movies. It would just be nice if there was a little bit more cohesion so that everyone else had fun too.
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Teen Titans: Trouble in Tokyo
Teen Titans: Trouble in Tokyo 2006
This month of animation is almost over and with this movie I have now officially seen every single DC Animated movie ever made, not counting some multi-part TV episodes that were later released as a movie. This was the last film before transitioning into their Warner Premier made-for-home-video and it also happened to come right at the end of the Teen Titans run. I’ve only seen a handful of Teen Titans episodes, and quite a bit more of the later series Teen Titans Go, and honestly this felt a little bit like a transitional moment between the two series even though it was hot off the heels of the first series and years before the second. While the overall story was serious, there were plenty of moments that used a very anime style of comedy in the animation, something that is widely used in Go, but I don’t recall it being used much in the original Teen Titans. The movie was fun, the villain was interesting, but my biggest complaint was that it only used the Tokyo setting for a large number of cliched stereotypical jokes without any real respect to the culture.
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Flights, Tights, and Movie Nights 