Blog Archives
Batman vs. Superman
Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice
In the past couple years there hasn’t been many other films that have had the amount of buzz and hype that this film has had next to Star Wars and Civil War. And once the early reviews hit, they hit pretty hard. So even though I technically saw this film on opening day, I went in with a whole lot of trepidation. As far as my history with Zack Snyder, I’m generally more in favor of his films than against. While I haven’t seen his first feature film, Dawn of the Dead, I have enjoyed more than I haven’t. In fact the only film of his that I’ve actively disliked was Sucker Punch. And while Batman vs. Superman is weighed down by some of his shortcomings, there was enough mystery and nuance to the film that I enjoyed seeing where it was going. It mainly suffered from two things: it constantly mired itself in artistic flourishes to make it feel like it’s tackling serious topics rather than two guys in costumes fighting each other, and like Age of Ultron it had to spend a lot of time making it known that there’s connective tissue linking it to other films coming in the future. Finally, as is usually the case there may be spoilers ahead so tread carefully if you are worried about that sort of thing.
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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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FTMN Quickie: Watchmen Director’s Cut
Similar to what I did with the Punisher Extended Cut a few months back, I finally got around to watching the Director’s Cut of Watchmen that I’ve owned on DVD for well over a year now. And similar to the Punisher cut, this version doesn’t have a huge amount of changes, instead there are many small additions to the film that adjust the pacing and shift the tone a little bit here and there. If you want to read my thoughts on the theatrical version of the film, you can find that right here.
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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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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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Lego Justice League: Attack of the Legion of Doom
Lego DC Comics Super Heroes: Justice League: Attack of the Legion of Doom 2015
I’ve been a big fan of the Lego brand for ages, along with their video games since the Lego Star Wars games and their movies from last year and this year. They came out with their Lego Batman straight to home video movie last year which essentially followed the plot of video game Lego Batman 2. There was another one that came out earlier this year which had the Justice League fighting Bizarro characters and Darkseid, and this continues that story where Darkseid is using Lex Luthor for revenge while Cyborg is the new member of the team. It’s a little bit funny that two animated films released within a week or so of each other both feature Cyborg as the new member of the team, with this film and Batman Unlimited: Monster Mayhem which I watched and reviewed a few days ago. Doing a brief comparison of the two, even though they are both essentially used to help sell toys, this Lego movie uses humor much better and doesn’t feel quite so shameless or formulaic. Instead, it brings the humor that the brand has become known for and is generally hilarious from start to finish.
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Batman Unlimited: Monster Mayhem
Batman Unlimited: Monster Mayhem 2015
It was only a few months ago that the first Batman Unlimited movie came out to home video and it’s already time for the sequel. It’s a little tough to get behind this kind of movie that is inherently designed to market their toy line, and watching it with that in mind, it does exactly that in spades. With just two films, they introduce a large number of heroes, villains, and accessories. The first film introduced all the animal themed villains, while this one introduces all of the monstrous themed villains. Though the problem that I had with the first film carries over just as much with this film. I.E. there are no women outside of a single villainess Silver Banshee who I was never familiar with before seeing this film. Like Animal Instincts and last year’s JLA Adventures, this is very kid friendly and lighthearted as opposed to the typical hard PG-13 DC animation with their other Batman and Justice League animated films. Taken at face value, it’s harmless and entertaining enough, it’s just the whole concept surrounding it that rubs me the wrong way in more ways than one.
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The Death of “Superman Lives”; What Happened?
The Death of “Superman Lives”; What Happened? 2015
It seems that I’m finally getting around to some of the backlogged non-theatrical releases that have come out this year. This film was originally launched as a kickstarter by John Schnepp a couple years ago to chronicle his quest to find out what happened to this multi-year project that ended up never getting made. He gets interviews with many of the major players including all three script writers, producer Jon Peters, director Tim Burton, and plenty of concept artists. Enhancing the interviews are snippets of the film recreated in animation or in a couple cases live action as well as plenty of concept art and behind the scenes archival footage. It’s not really an investigation of how this film got cancelled, instead it’s more like a look back on the making of the film that ends just before they would have started filming. As someone who has heard a little bit about this project, and probably from the source that most people would have heard it from: Kevin Smith, I thought it was generally fascinating, though it did run a bit too long for my taste and especially for my wife’s taste.
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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 Unlimited: Animal Instincts
Batman Unlimited: Animal Instincts 2015
While I had initially only planned to do animation through April, May is almost over and I’m still sticking to the animated fare. And while I’ve just gone though catching up on a few Marvel animated films I hadn’t gotten around to yet, DC is still cranking them out on a regular basis. I hadn’t heard much lead up to this title so I wasn’t entirely sure what to expect at all. I’m not familiar with any sort of Batman Unlimited universe whether in the comics or on TV. From what I can tell from this film it’s set in the future, kind of like Batman Beyond, but instead of it being a future generation, it’s just Batman and several of the less extraterrestrial Justice League set in the future. It also reminded me a little bit of last year’s JLA Adventures where this was a very kid friendly adventure as opposed to the increasingly darker PG-13 stories typical of recent DC Animated films. It’s also worth noting that this film is intended to help launch a new toy line of DC Unlimited characters which will also continue in shorts and future home video films which actually makes me think of the Monster High style of marketing. As an actual film it was a fun little adventure without too much real depth to it, but there’s nothing wrong with that.
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Flights, Tights, and Movie Nights 