Batman

Streaming some DC Animated Movies

/ skoce / 7 Comments

Recently added to Netflix, or at least recently noticed by me, were a trio of animated movies based on DC comics. In the past these animated movies have been very good. They in large part retained the tone of the DC animated shows of the 90’s and early 00’s, but often retold stories based on some great comics. Most of the first dozen or so were very good. Things changed at about the same time that DC realized they could only sell movies with Batman or Justice League in the title. The three that appeared on Netflix, Justice League: The Flashpoint Paradox, Justice League War and Son of Batman, were collectively very disappointing. Some of the problem comes from adapting inferior material, but there is something missing from these movies.

Flashpoint the comic was already a strained read. It seemed to be a story that started as merely a big Flash story that morphed into a line-wide crossover that then became the story wherein DC buried the real DC Universe and gave birth to the Nu52. But the story itself was not responsible for that. It is just a not too unusual alternate reality story. While the movie makes a few improvements, including removing Zoom as the killer of Barry’s Mom, it doesn’t stand up to any sort of scrutiny. The Flashpoint Universe combines some genuinely interesting ideas, like the Superman test subject and Batman as Thomas Wayne, but the central conflict between Wonder Woman and Aquaman fails on every level in both versions of the story. It has to change the Amazons into murderous savages and makes Atlantis much more powerful and warlike than they were before. Also, it requires believing that Wonder Woman wouldn’t wipe the floor with Aquaman in a fight. The big problem is that all of these changes supposedly stem from Flash saving him Mom something like 20 years in the past. That just doesn’t work. Those are all story problems, the animation and character designs are likewise awkward. Things just don’t look good; it looks cheap and off model. On top of those complaints are the just absurd levels of violence. Justice League: The Flashpoint Paradox takes a bad story and somehow makes it even worse.

Justice League War does the opposite; it takes a terrible story and greatly improves it. Still, that doesn’t actually make it any good. I still have complaints about the look of the movie, though it doesn’t look as cheap as Flashpoint. But it makes some effective changes to the original story, which is easily the worst thing Geoff Johns has ever written, which turns the story into something that is not completely embarrassing. Still, the biggest fault of the original is still there; in attempting to write the Justice League as young they end up coming off as unlikeable assholes. That characterization works for Green Lantern, but it doesn’t for Superman or Wonder Woman. It quickly becomes a showcase for superpowered violence with nothing of the story or characters worth caring about. The few moments of delight that exist are more than drowned out by the garish and the stupid.

If the first two movies were damned by their inferior source material, then the third should have bucked that trend. Son of Batman is based on the first part of Grant Morrison’s epic Batman arc and is easily the best of the three movies, but it still isn’t any more than simply good. The adaptation strays pretty far from the source, in events if not in the emotional context. Some of it would need to be elided from Morrison’s sprawling story, but losing large parts of the Batman family from the story really hurts it. Replacing Tim with Dick makes a certain amount of sense knowing what is coming next, but it mostly just shrinks the world. The bigger problem is how it opens with an action sequence with the League of Assassins that merely gives an extended and uninteresting fight scene and keeps Batman off the screen for an extended time. I don’t know that it looks much better than the others, this time adopting a style that I would call “straight up anime.” It works for the story. Actually, the more I think on it, the less I am disappointed with Son of Batman. It loses a lot in the adaptation, but that feels inevitable with the sort of story it is based one. Similar things happened with All-Star Superman, though that movie did a better job maintaining the heart of the original.

The problems with the first two do mostly lie at the feet of the material. Flashpoint and that Justice League stories are just not very good. No matter how much they work them up, they remain not very good. Son of Batman, though, highlights the greater problem. The Morrison Batman run strongly embraced the more fun or weird parts of Batman’s history, and the adaptation scrubs that out to realign it with the usual grim take on the character. The disappointment with Son of Batman is more mourning a missed opportunity. Together, these three movies sapped a good portion of my goodwill toward DC’s animated movies. It has been a long slow fall from the heights of the DC animated universe to these tepid New 52 adaptations and I’m no longer interested. It looks like they have a Justice League Vs Teen Titans movie coming up, which doesn’t appear to be based on any story I know and then they get to scrape the bottom of the barrel to do The Killing Joke. There was a time I was eager to see what new animated movie they had coming out, but now realize that I no longer care.

Justice League The Flashpoint Paradox **

Justice League War **

Son of Batman ***

The Dark Knight Rises Review

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I’ve now seen The Dark Knight Rises twice and taken some time to digest it. Though it is not without its flaws, I loved it. I enjoyed it more than its predecessor, though it is a small margin. Nolan’s trilogy of Batman movies is one of the few I can think of where the ending is just as good as the buildup. The Dark Knight Rises wears its themes on its sleeve and is more than willing to sacrifice realism for the sake of thematic appropriateness. The end result is a movie that strains credulity at times, but also a film on a grander scale than any in recent memory.

When I said TDKR sacrifices realism, I mean that it kills it execution style in the opening minutes and proceeds to do terrible things to its corpse for the rest of the film. The movie starts with a crazy midair hijacking and doesn’t let up, with amazing helicopters and the biggest supervillain I’ve ever seen on the screen. It is not, however, wholly inconsistent with the rest of the series. The Batplane is only marginally more outrageous than the Battank or the motorcycle. How exactly the Joker managed his villainous feats is somewhat less justified than Bane’s takeover of the city. The Dark Knight Rises is not a realistic movie in many ways, but it does still maintain a human realism. The characters are still very real, very relatable. Bruce is headed toward the only end a realistic Batman could ever come to, and the motivations of the various villains are all human. Whatever the movie lacks in plot realism, it makes up for in character realism, resulting in a film that is both outrageous and very human.

One place TDKR shines is in its uses of the Batman mythos. There are numerous references to seminal Batman stories evident throughout, most notably to Knightfall, the story of Bane defeating Batman, and The Dark Knight Returns, Frank Miller’s much loved story of Batman coming out of retirement, among many others. Bane himself is well presented on screen, rivaling Heath Ledgers outstanding take on the Joker. Unlike the atrocious Batman and Robin’s take on the character as a muscle bound thug, TDKR’s Bane is an intelligent, charismatic muscle bound thug. Yes he sounds like Darth Vader by way of Sean Connery, but it works beautifully. He is as terrifying as the Joker was, though in a very different way. The scene where he deals with sent chills down my spine. (Do you feel in charge?) Anne Hathaway’s Catwoman was basically a perfect take on the character, the ultimate femme fatale. The returning cast is as good as always.

It lacks some of the gravitas of The Dark Knight, but a more perfect telling of the hero’s journey you won’t find in a film. Batman is figuratively killed, literally cast down into the underworld and must pull himself back up. It perfectly ties the previous two movies together. Bane’s whole motivation is tied to the plot of the first movie, with a return of the League of Shadows. Again he must turn to the advice of his father, that we fall to get up again. But also the lie that Gordon and Batman built their peace on plays a large role. They are unable to keep hiding the Joker’s greatest triumph.

The Dark Knight Rises is pure fun. It is a movie where anything can happen, and the wilder it is the more likely it is to occur. But unlike the faceless alien invasion of The Avengers, The Dark Knight Rises conflicts all tie into a central theme. It may be faulted for beating viewers over the head with them, but at least it has themes, unlike most other superhero fare. I hope tentpole movie makers look at this film and it predecessor and learn the right lessons. Not that gritty and supposedly realistic is the way to go, but that theme and structure matter. But I’ve lived too long to believe that Hollywood will ever learn the right lessons.