In 2022 I used "Black Friday" deals to catch up on movies on Starz and Showtime including Everything Everywhere, Spider-Man No Way Home, and Ghostbusters Afterlife. So as "Black Friday" approached, I kept an eye out for deals on my Roku. I got MGM+ to finish watching The Winter King and finally they had MAX for only $2.99.
My primary purpose in wanting MAX was to catch up on DC movies, both live action and animated. Since I binged a bunch, I thought I'd put them in one entry. You're welcome.
The Flash: This movie was fraught with problems before its June 2023 release. In over 5 years of development there were multiple writer/director changes, the pandemic, the change of leadership at DC/WB, and the bad behavior of star Ezra Miller. A lot was working against this and it surprised no one when it failed.
But like Shazam Fury of the Gods, it also wasn't a very good movie. And like the Zack Snyder entries in the DCECU it has some good ideas but just not enough to make the whole movie work.
Something I noted a long time ago was the DCECU movies had introduced Barry Allen/the Flash as more of a sidekick. I liked that this was addressed early on where during a rescue of babies at a hospital he describes himself as "the Justice League's janitor." He does basically just use his speed to save people. This opening scene also made me disappointed that the DCECU's Justice League never really had a chance because there is good chemistry between Barry and Ben Affleck's Batman and then also Gal Gadot's Wonder Woman. Though it reuses the joke from the theatrical Justice League with the Lasso of truth only with Batman instead of Aquaman. (If you think about it, really it would have made more sense to have whoever set this crime in motion be part of the later action. Like if it had been Reverse Flash or Dark Flash or Professor Zoom or whoever then it could have tied into things later instead of having not much real point. Just one of many script problems.)
But then the story has to begin in earnest when Barry realizes he can go back in time to try to save his mom. He plans to do this in a creative way: the day his mom died, his father was at the store to get tomatoes that his mother had forgot to buy earlier. So Barry goes back to put the tomatoes in his mom's cart. Simple, no? No! As he tries to get back to the present, a malevolent speedster knocks him into the year 2013 when Barry is only 18 years old. He finds his mother alive and there's a sweet reunion before Barry meets his younger self and realizes it's the night he's supposed to get his powers. Recreating the accident causes younger Barry to get powers--but older Barry loses his.
(Something that occurred to me later: do they ever say who killed his mom? In the comics and Flash TV show it was Reverse Flash going back in time to kill her to create his hero/enemy the Flash, but I don't think this movie ever says who kills her or even shows it, just the aftermath. Weird.)
The movie then addresses something else, which is how annoying Barry can be. Dealing with his hyperactive younger self, Barry starts to realize how hard he is to deal with and matures a bit.
But while it's when Barry gets powers, it's also when Zod invades Earth. In Man of Steel, Superman confronted Zod, but when no one comes forward to confront Zod this time, the Barrys go looking for him. They enlist the aid of Bruce Wayne, who is now the Michael Keaton version, who's a lonely old man.
There's a somewhat decent explanation that time is not linear and changing something anywhere can change everything, both past and present. So while Barry didn't go back to before Bruce Wayne was born, he still changed the past and present. They convince Bruce to help them locate the Kryptonian, who turns out to be Kara Zor-El, aka Supergirl.
From there the movie has some good moments as Barry starts to realize that some things can't be changed--or shouldn't be. Trying to convince Other Barry of that proves to be the problem. There are a couple of plot holes if you paid attention to Man of Steel. In that movie it wasn't the sun that gave Kryptonians superpowers but the Earth's atmosphere. That was why Zod thought he needed the "World Engines" to terraform Earth. But in BvS they changed it to the traditional thing of the sun giving Superman power. The Flash uses the solar thing too, so in that case, why does Zod bring the World Engines? There wouldn't be much difference in the atmosphere and the sun would affect them no matter what gases are in the atmosphere--unless you're going to create an Ice Age-type thing where the sky is too polluted for much sun to get through, but I don't see why they would do that. Also, why doesn't older Barry realize that the radiation from the World Engines created Kryptonite that can kill Kryptonians? I know he wasn't really in BvS but Bruce or Clark probably mentioned something about it. So instead of going after Zod, they should have gone after the World Engine and tried to get some Kryptonite to then go after Zod. I'm just saying.
Despite Ezra Miller's problems and how annoying he is early on, he manages to do a really good job of growing and maturing--as the character. Both versions of the character. It's disappointing that Sasha Calle as Kara didn't get more to do. And Keaton does a good job bringing back his Batman, though it seems a little ridiculous how many times he gets shot in the cape. Probably the one who suffered the most from all the script/director changes was Kiersey Clemons as Iris West, whose role was reduced to only a little at the beginning and end, leaving not much of a chance to create an impression.
Overall like I said, the movie has some good moments and a few good ideas, but it just doesn't have enough to make a satisfying movie. And, really, some of the effects are pretty bad. I know some in the Speed Force were supposed to be, but others like during the hospital rescue didn't look great on my TV, so I'm sure they looked worse on a big screen. (2.5/5) (Fun Facts: From what has been said the ending was shot three times. I think one ending was supposed to bring back Affleck's Batman. A second ending would have brought Keaton's Batman and Calle's Supergirl into the present to use them going forward. But with the change of leadership at DC they decided to make the end a joke with George Clooney showing up as Bruce Wayne. While that wasn't really satisfying, the second ending wouldn't have really worked with what happened in the 2013 timeline. They really should have just gone with the first ending. A cookie scene at the end brings in Jason Mamoa's Aquaman for a cameo that doesn't really help to set up his movie. I thought the Nic Cage as Superman thing would just be a brief glimpse but it did go on for a minute or so as he fights a giant spider, a reference to producer Jon Peters's demand for a giant spider in the movie. George Reeves' Superman, Christopher Reeve's Superman, Helen Slater's Supergirl, and Adam West's Batman also get cameos that were probably made by "AI" that shows what the striking actors were fighting against.)
Blue Beetle: This movie makes some curious decisions that didn't really work out for the best. I read some of the comics introducing the Jaime Reyes Blue Beetle and also watched Young Justice on MAX featuring the character. The origin is that an alien "scarab" attaches itself to a teenager in Texas and basically creates an Iron Man-type suit for him. It was sort of if you combined Spider-Man and Iron Man as he's in high school and has a couple of friends and a girl he likes and instead of spider powers has the alien Iron Man suit thing.
That's not really what the movie does. Instead of Texas, the origin is fictional "Palmera City" in...somewhere. It really looks more like Miami than El Paso like the comics I read. And really "Palmera" makes me think of original Atom Ray Palmer. Jaime has graduated Gotham University with a degree in pre-law and come back home. The alien scarab is in the lab of Kord Industries, which was owned by second Blue Beetle Ted Kord, who has gone missing so his...sister(?) Victoria (Susan Sarandon looking like a more-evil Hillary Clinton) has taken over and plans to create a knockoff of the scarab called the OMAC or One Man Army Corps, which is another DC property.
Ted's daughter Jenny gives the scarab to Jaime to sneak it from the building. He opens the box in front of his whole family (parents, sister, grandma, and wacky uncle played by George Lopez) so unlike other superhero stories his entire family knows his "secret" identity. So it's not really secret, especially when he tells Jenny Kord too. He really might as well have held a press conference.
A guy named Carapax (like carapace?) tries to take the scarab using an OMAC suit. When Jaime escapes, Carapax and Victoria Kord go after Jaime's family. One member dies and the rest have to work with Jenny after Jaime is captured trying to save them.
While I didn't hate this, it sort of makes this a super team, especially when they go to the Beetle Cave to loot it. The problem with super teams is there's only so much screen time to go around and it makes it hard to feature everyone equally. It might have been better to just keep the focus on Jaime, Jenny, and maybe the sister and/or uncle so more attention could be paid to them--and the villains. It's not really until almost the end that we learn what the deal is with Carapax.
The movie also goes all-in with the Spanish. Between Spanglish and Spanish with subtitles there's a lot of non-English. I'm not adverse to subtitles--I've watched whole movies in subtitles--but you know there are a lot of people who are like, "I didn't go to the movies to read!" And I'm not sure what they do overseas in translating the Spanglish; do they leave the Spanish parts in Spanish and only translate the English? And what about when it's in a Spanish-speaking country?
Anyway, the last act gets better as it puts more focus on Jaimie taking on Carapax. But I can't help thinking that they could have simplified a lot of this and like the comics just done it like a Spider-Man movie instead of him graduating college and his whole family instantly knowing everything. Maybe cut the Kord stuff down (pun intended) and get into the scarab's alien origin, which involves something called "The Reach" who as featured in the second season of Young Justice are not exactly benevolent aliens. In that show and the comics, the intelligence that runs the scarab is also not nearly so benevolent or tolerant of humans.
While not as bad as The Flash and Shazam Fury of the Gods, it's not really a great movie either. It could have been a decent foundation for a franchise though I don't think that will happen. A cookie scene establishes that Ted Kord is alive...somewhere which I suppose would have been part of a sequel. Maybe then they could have gotten into the alien stuff like if The Reach abducted Ted or something. But whatever. Like The Flash, the effects didn't always look great either; in this case it might have been that I think like the Batgirl movie mulched for a tax break this was originally supposed to be a MAX Original before it got "promoted" to theaters, making its failure more public. D'OH! (2.5/5) (Fun Fact: One of Ted Kord's old gadgets is made from a Nintendo Power Glove and I was really disappointed no one said, "It's so bad" like in The Wizard.)
Young Justice: Phantoms: This is the 4th season of the show and second made for MAX. I really liked the first two seasons but the last one was kind of uneven. This one was just a struggle to get through. They use a Clone Wars storytelling technique of having the season stitched out of multi-episode arcs. The first focuses on M'Gann (Miss Martian) and Conner (Superboy) going to M'Arzz (Mars) to meet her family and get married. But her evil brother shows up and threatens to kill everyone with a bomb until Conner sacrifices himself to stop him. The next arc focuses on Tigress and her sister finding Lady Shiva and rescuing Cassandra Cain (late 90s-early 2000s Batgirl) from her. Then there's an arc about Zatanna and magic students fighting a "Lord of Chaos" rival to Klarion the Witch Boy. And another arc about Kaldur'ahm, Arthur Curry, Mera, etc. getting embroiled in a plot to steal the crown of Atlantis. Then there's an arc about Rocket (a former sidekick of Hardware or something?), Forager, and Jay Garrick Flash going to New Genesis to negotiate peace between them, Earth, and the Green Lanterns. Finally it gets to the meat of it when Zod's future son rescues him and his army--including a brainwashed Conner--from the Phantom Zone to go to Earth to sorta reenact Superman II. Mayhem ensues! The 26 episode season could really have been done in half that--if not less. While it was nice to see a lot of the characters again, there were a lot of extra pieces that weren't essential for the overall story. But it gets a big bonus point from me for the New Genesis section including Kilowog and Razer and tying to the Green Lantern Animated series from about 10 years ago. It doesn't give us full closure but it's nice to see them again, only in regular animation instead of CGI. The rest was just too much of not really a good thing. Especially annoying were the social issues: Beast Boy's PTSD, Halo's Muslimness, and Rocket's autistic son. Those aren't bad in and of themselves but it was often just overbearing to the point of sounding like a PSA. (2.5/5) (Fun Fact: I'm not sure if there will be another season but there is plenty of room as this did little to tie up the Markovia thing in the previous season and in the end Darkseid recruits Mary Marvel (Shazam's adopted sister) and Supergirl. Sad Fact: There are tributes to both Rene Auberjonois and Ed Asner who did voices on the show and died before this last one aired.)
DC's animated movies have been around since at least 1993's Batman: Mask of the Phantasm. In the 2010s they had a bunch of connected movies loosely based on the "New 52" comic book universe. That ended in 2020 with Apokolips War, a dark R-rated feature that killed and maimed numerous characters and wound up with Barry Allen going back to change things. So then they started over with a Superman movie that was OK and a Wonder Woman movie that maybe got a little too dark.
Constantine: House of Mystery: This is really 4 short films that are about the length of one regular animated movie. The titular one picks up at the end of Apokolips War. Since Constantine helps the Flash go back in time and casts some spell to keep Darkseid from finding Earth, he's punished by the Spectre by being locked up in a creepy Victorian house, into basically a hell of his own making; it's like why the original Matrix failed in those movies. This winds up basically being the rancid cherry on the turd sundae that was Apokolips War. (2.5/5) The next story is "Kamandi the Last Boy," a creation of legendary artist Jack Kirby in the 70s. On a future Earth where everything is ruined and mutated animal people are everywhere, Kamandi, some kind of android or something, a tiger guy, and a gorilla guy have to pass challenges for a prize that could set up a sequel but probably won't. (3/5) Then there's "The Losers" who aren't The Losers from the 2010-ish movie who were like an off-brand A-Team. These Losers are a group of WWII soldiers and a Chinese agent (voiced by Ming-Na Wen) who stumble onto a Lost World and have to destroy the time portal or whatever. (3/5) The most fun was "Blue Beetle" that is made like an old-school 70s or early 80s cartoon like Superfriends or Spider-Man and His Amazing Friends. Ted Kord's Blue Beetle and the Question have to find out why some evil henchmen called "the Squids" stole a valuable diamond. It was goofy and silly but that's what it was supposed to be. A welcome 180 from the first story. (4/5) (Fun Facts: House of Mystery was an anthology comic like Action Comics, Detective Comics, or Journey Into Mystery. It started as a horror comic in the 50s but expanded to superheroes later before becoming a base for the Justice League Dark in the 2010s. In the Blue Beetle short all the characters are from Charlton Comics, who went out of business in 1986 and according to Wikipedia DC bought their superhero characters for $5000 apiece. That's probably a good value considering what those characters have made since then. David Kaye voices The Question; he was also the voice of Megatron in Beast Wars and a couple of later series.)
Justice Society of America: World War II: This continues that new universe as Barry and Iris visit Metropolis and he teams up with Superman against Brainiac only to accidentally speed across space and time to another universe where it's like 1943 and the Justice Society of Wonder Woman, Hawkman, Hourman, Black Canary, and Jay Garrick's Flash are fighting the Nazis. Instead of a fun time-traveling adventure it becomes a dark, confusing slog as the Nazis enlist Aquaman and Atlantis to invade America thanks to some Wormtongue-type guy. And I just hate this Eastern European woman they have for Wonder Woman; she sounds like Natasha in those old Rocky & Bullwinkle cartoons. Like I said, what could have been a fun adventure and celebration of DC history is completely squandered. (2/5)
Green Lantern: Beware My Power: I think this is vaguely in the same continuity as the other animated ones I mentioned, but there's not a lot of carryover so it's pretty much stand-alone. Anyway, a Guardian from Oa crashes on Earth and gives former soldier John Stewart Hal Jordan's old ring. John ends up meeting Green Arrow, Martian Manhunter, and Vixen on the Justice League Watchtower. Green Arrow goes with him to Oa, where they find the Green Lanterns massacred. And a warrior from Thanagar (where Hawkman is sometimes from) tries to kill them. They find Adam Strange and uncover a plot that involves Hal Jordan and the evil Parallax entity.
Basically this is doing the 90s stories where Hal Jordan turned into the evil Parallax after his home of Coast City was destroyed by Doomsday. Hal slaughtered the Green Lanterns so that only one Guardian remained, who gave a ring to Kyle Rayner, who was a Latino artist.
Using this story with no real setup just didn't really work. In the comics Hal turned because his home city was wiped out, but in this he decides to destroy the universe...just cuz. It really doesn't make a lot of sense. And while it was nice to have a Green Lantern origin that wasn't Hal Jordan, they didn't really do a lot with John other than show him killing people in Afghanistan and defending a drunk in an alley.
Again what could have been a fun, star-faring adventure became a dull slog that ruined Hal Jordan. You really didn't need to build up John by tearing Hal down; the two co-existed in the comics for about 15 years before that whole Parallax thing. And where was Kilowog? The pig-faced drill instructor is always great and sadly missing--unless he was a corpse somewhere. Stupid poozers. (2/5) (Fun Fact: When the planet Thanagar is transported with zeta beams it's like in the old Transformers TV show miniseries "The Ultimate Doom" where Megatron uses the space bridge to bring Cybertron to Earth. This was then done less competently in the third Bay movie.)
Legion of Super-Heroes: Supergirl has been on Earth a couple of months and is having trouble fitting in on such a primitive backwater and with all these new abilities, so her cousin (Superman) uses a device to take her to the 31st Century. There she meets the Legion of Super-Heroes and is admitted to the "Legion Academy" along with Mon-El (who basically has the same powers though he's from a different planet), Brainiac 5 (the 4th clone of the original Brainiac), Triplicate Girl (who like in Neil Vogler's Tripler can create three of herself, Phantom Girl (who disappears and reappears at will), Invisible Boy (obvious), Bouncing Boy (also obvious), and a boy whose arms can come off to fly around--whatever his name was supposed to be. No one trusts Brainiac, especially not Supergirl since the original tried to kill her cousin in the JSA movie until the Flash killed him with a Kryptonite bullet.
It's a little predictable from there. You know since everyone hates Brainiac he'll turn out to be good. Everyone (including Supergirl) is smitten with Mon-El so of course he turns out to be bad. And mayhem ensues! Overall this one was actually pretty fun. There are a couple of gross parts and a couple of deaths, though no one important, but it's not as dark and dreary as many of their other recent animated movies. While it is connected to the other movies like the Green Lantern one it can be watched by itself, though unlike that other one it can actually be enjoyed. (3.5/5) (Fun Fact: a cookie scene adds another link to the chain of the overall plot when Superman and Batman are abducted by a zeta beam seen in the Green Lantern movie. They're presumably taken to...)
Justice League: Warworld: The instant problem with this movie is the title, description, and cover image all give the plot away. The movie starts with Wonder Woman as a Western drifter who saves some townspeople from Jonah Hex. Then it jumps to a Conan the Barbarian-type setting with Bruce Wayne as a mercenary warrior who is captured and leads "Warlord" to the fortress of a wizard. Then it goes black-and-white to echo an old Twilight Zone episode, "Will the Real Martian Please Stand Up?" Clark Kent is a young FBI agent who along with his boss has to determine if someone in a diner is an alien, which in this case is ironic.
The dumb thing is we already know none of this is real. It's not even a spoiler, because it's called Warworld. The description and even the cover image tells us that Wonder Woman, Superman, and Batman are on Warworld and hallucinating these fantasies. So we're just waiting around for them to realize this. Recent Future State and regular Superman comics were probably a lot more interesting when it comes to Warworld as in those Superman was forced to fight as a gladiator while "The Authority" stage a rebellion. They really should have leaned more on that and done those first two segments as separate Elseworld movies.
The real point of this was to clumsily introduce a Crisis on Infinite Earths trilogy that will start next year. I wouldn't really look forward to it. And it seems really stupid to do a Crisis when they just rebooted their animated continuity only a couple of years ago. But what's really important is trading on the famous name, right?(2.5/5) (Fun Fact: This uses the same terrible voice for Wonder Woman. Ugh.)
You can see that while these movies don't always overlap a lot, each one adds a link to the chain. First they introduced Superman, in the JSA movie Brainiac is introduced and seemingly killed and the multiverse concept is introduced, in the Green Lantern movie we see zeta beams that can movie stuff around, in the Legion movie Brainiac returns from the "dead" and zeta beams abduct Batman and Superman, and then they have to solve the mystery of Warworld which leads to the Crisis. Not the best setup but not really as incompetent and rushed as the live action movies.
Batman: The Long Halloween: This is based on the comic book series from the late 90s by future Marvel TV producer Jeph Loeb and artist Tim Sale. It's also a big influence for the Nolan Batman movies, especially The Dark Knight. It's probably also an influence for the new Matt Reeves series. I read the series a while ago so I don't know if this two-part movie is exactly like the book or not.
Anyway, this takes place early in Batman's career as almost a sequel to Frank Miller's Year One; unlike the Nolan movies most of Batman's rogue's gallery has already appeared. Starting on Halloween, a mysterious killer known only as "Holiday" starts killing someone related to mobster Carmine Falcone. Over Thanksgiving, Christmas, New Year's, St. Patrick's Day, Easter, Mother's Day, Memorial Day, Father's Day, Fourth of July, Labor Day, and back to Halloween, Holiday kills someone while Batman, Captain Gordon, and Harvey Dent try to find out who it is. (I think there were 12 issues of the comic and 12 holidays.) Selina Kyle (or Catwoman) also helps Batman out at times. She already knows his real identity and they have a sort of romance going.
The movie drags a little since the two parts make it almost 3 hours. Still it is good if you like Batman, especially the Nolan version. I remembered who Holiday was from the comics but if you haven't read that I don't think it's really obvious. With the involvement of Catwoman and Poison Ivy at one point you can see some parallels to the slightly later Hush series that also has an animated movie. (4/5) (Fun Facts: Robin Atkins Downes voices Scarecrow and someone else, but not Penguin, whom he played in Gotham. Katee Sackhoff, aka Bo Katan and Starbuck, voices Poison Ivy. There's no real connection to any of the other animated DC movies except a cookie scene joke at the very end where Green Arrow and Flash show up in costume on Halloween.)
Catwoman: Hunted: Like Batman: Ninja from a couple of years ago, this uses a more traditional anime look for no real reason. I mean none of it takes place in Japan and maybe only one character is potentially Japanese. This is a fun caper as Selina Kyle steals a valuable gem from Black Mask and "Leviathan" in Spain. Then she's hunted by Black Mask, Leviathan, Interpol, and Batwoman. The latter captures her to force her to work for the good guys, but Leviathan will do anything to teach Catwoman a lesson, including siccing Solomon Grundy on her! A really fun movie where the only disappointment I have is they didn't show Batwoman without her mask more--and that the bath scene would have gone further. Meow. (4/5) (Fun Facts: The voice cast includes Jonathan Banks, aka Mike from Breaking Bad/Better Call Saul, and also Keith David and Jonathan Frakes, who worked together previously in Disney's Gargoyles. About the only potential tie to any of the continuity movies is that Cheetah is in this and was in the Wonder Woman movie, though I don't know if that means they're supposed to be connected or not.)
Challenge of the Super Sons: Near the end of the "New 52" era, the New 52 Superman was killed off and a "new" Superman was brought in who was supposed to be the one from the 90s continuity. This Superman was married to Lois Lane and had a young son named Jonathan who developed Superman's powers. For a few years Jonathan and Batman's son Damian Wayne (made and raised early on by Talia al Guhl) would go on adventures together as the "Super Sons."
This movie pretty much sticks with that. In a montage we see Clark and Lois getting married and having Jonathan. At the start Jonathan is a normal kid, but when he gets mad at his dad for missing a baseball game, he develops heat vision and so his father reveals his secret. Then they go to the Batcave to have Jon's DNA tested. Jon meets Damian, who is an arrogant jerk. But the two have to team up when Starro takes over their parents and most of the world.
Unlike a lot of these other ones, this one remains pretty light and fun. The grossest part is the Starros that come out of people's mouths. Ick. I really wish this is what they were doing more of because it was fun and some really good characterization. (4/5) (Sad Fact: In the comics they unfortunately decided to have Jon abducted by Jor-El and in the Phantom Zone or some damned place he became a young adult who for about a year took over as Superman while his father was on Warworld, so the whole "Super Sons" thing had to be retired, which is really too bad. It was a neat idea.)
Injustice: This movie is based on the video game that also had a comic book series that lasted for five seasons. I'm not sure how many issues there were per season, but it was a lot. So trying to distill all of that into an 80-minute movie turns out not to work great.
While I complain about a lot of these animated movies being too dark, this is supposed to be. It's sort of like a darker, more violent version of Marvel's Civil War. When the Joker kills Lois Lane, who's pregnant with Superman's child, Superman kills the Joker and then basically makes himself dictator of the world. Batman and mostly unpowered heroes like Nightwing and Green Arrow resist Superman's rule. Others, mostly those with powers like Wonder Woman and Hawkman, join Superman. Damian Wayne also joins Superman and recruits Ra's al Guhl to "help" by creating a robot called Amazo that can replicate the powers of Superman and other heroes. By putting Amazos all over the world they would basically have a superhuman police force. When Amazo goes rogue in Smallville, enemies have to become allies.
It was OK but like I said, it's pretty hard to condense all of it into an 80-minute movie. The thing with Dick Grayson in the afterlife was kind of silly and I wish they hadn't wasted their precious time on that. I'm not sure if they're doing a sequel considering there was a sequel to the game with then a comic book to it as well. (3/5) (Fun Facts: the way they stop Superman in the end was similar to what I did in Secret Origins when the Supergirl character went rogue. The sadly amusing thing to me is when the Joker springs his trap the Flash is apparently killed and literally no one notices or cares. I mean there's no mention of it at all while such a big deal is made about Lois dying. Unlike some of those other movies, the voice of Wonder Woman is provided by Rifftrax alum and San Francisco Sketchfest founder Janet Varney.)
The Doom That Came to Gotham: This is a Batman Elseworlds tale that mixes Batman with Lovecraft. The comic miniseries was co-written by Hellboy creator Mike Mignola, who also drew the covers. For those reasons this is not a fun and light story. There's a lot of horror and gross stuff and some violence--and demon butt! Seriously, in comics Etrigan the Demon usually wears clothes, but not in this. I guess to keep it from being too hard-R they don't show his wang.
The story starts in 1928 in Antarctica where Bruce Wayne is searching for Professor Oswald Cobblepot and his lost expedition. He instead finds a zombie blathering about doom and mutant penguins! Bruce stupidly takes the zombie back to Gotham. As Batman he tracks down a "Testament of Guhl" and runs into Talia al Guhl and her minion Killer Croc. She also has a demon and Poison Ivy, who's some other kind of demon.
Oliver Queen is Bruce's friend with a dark secret concerning the death of Bruce's parents. Dick Grayson is Bruce's right hand man, but not Robin. There's also "Sanjay Todd," who's an Indian kid whose name is a bastardization of Jason Todd, and "Kay Li Cain" who is an Asian girl based on late 90s-2000s Batgirl Cassie Cain. Barbara Gordon is really an Oracle as a medium. Her father, Harvey Dent, Lucius Fox, and Alfred all pretty much inhabit their typical roles.
Someone on Goodreads complained that a lot of these traditional characters don't really do anything. I never read the comic but they seemed to do a good job in the movie of incorporating everyone in a fairly logical way. I mean logical for a story that involves demons and tentacle monsters. If you're a fan of Batman and a fan of Lovecraft then it's good; I'm more a fan of the former than latter. (3.5/5)
Justice League x RWBY, Part 1: So you might ask, what is RWBY? Even after watching this I don't really know. Some anime thing where teenagers go to a school and use powers and "dust" to fight monsters called Grimms. Characters from that and the Justice League (Superman, Batman, Wonder Woman, Flash, Cyborg, Vixen, and Jessica Cruz Green Lantern) are brought together in a strange, unnatural world. The added weirdness is the Justice League has been turned into teenagers, which for some of them interferes with their powers. And Batman has bat wings and Vixen has a fox tail! They get together with the RWBY kids to fight monsters and try to figure out what's going on. It's OK and if you know what a RWBY is maybe it's better. But some of it doesn't really make sense. Like if you're the bad guy and you can turn the Justice League into teenagers, why not turn them into babies or really old people so they can't do anything? Or, you know, just fucking kill them? If there had been fewer characters and more time they probably could have done more with the League being teenagers but there's just not enough time to do much with the concept except Jessica struggling to figure out how to use her power and Batman thinking maybe it'd be cool to have wings and see different spectrums.
Since this says "Part 1" you'd think they'd set up a second part but it only kinda hints that there's another bad guy from the RWBY universe. Maybe they somehow bring the Justice League there to help with it? Or not. Who knows? (2.5/5) (Writing Tip: The problem as I noted with this is there are too many characters. I mean you've got 7 in the Justice League and an equal number of RWBY for 14, plus maybe one or two others. 14 characters in a less than 90-minute movie means there's no way to give many much of a story because you still have to have big action pieces and stuff too. I was thinking really story-wise it would have been better to shrink it down to 4 main characters. Jessica/Juon(sp? It sounds like John basically) and Batman/Weiss were the two best stories so really just focus on them more and dump pretty much everything else. Maybe make it so they have to find the other characters and figure out what's going on. Or just have them be the only ones captured so they have to find a way out. That'd be good too. Anyway, the point being as I've said before on various blogs, too many characters make stories too thin and unwieldy. This is a prime example.)
(Author Note: I think though I might steal some part of this for one of my stories. I mean I've done age regression stories before. Really all I need to change is have a dude get sucked into this world and become a teenage girl. How and why would need to be figured out. I was thinking I could do a bastardized version of Forever Young: a male FBI agent follows a criminal into a portal and comes out as a teenage girl with a Swiss-cheesed memory. It's something to consider.)
Batman: Curse of the Dragon: This was the last of the animated movies I watched. A Fun Fact I found out on Wikipedia: in DC comics, "Richard Dragon" is basically their version of Iron Fist, the white guy who becomes an awesome martial arts guy. But in this movie he's a Bruce Lee replica, like if Bruce Lee had been James Bond, whom we sorta see at the start of the movie in a casino. They don't say his name, but who else would the sorta-Sean Connery-looking guy in a tuxedo playing cards be, right?
Since this is based on Enter the Dragon and other 70s kung-fu movies it's set in the 70s. Finding a picture of "the Gate" his old master protected, Richard Dragon goes to Gotham to recruit Bruce Wayne, who trained with him some years ago. They in turn go find Lady Shiva in Chinatown and then Bronze Tiger somewhere else. Then they battle agents of Kobra, a ruthless terrorist organization--or whatever. Interspersed with the present are flashbacks to when Richard, Bruce, Shiva, Bronze Tiger, and a couple others trained together in the Himalayas under O-Sensei, voiced by the late James Hong. The flashbacks not only show Bruce acquiring martial arts skills but also shows what happened with "the Gate" the first time around, which is why they don't want there to be a second time.
It's OK if you like those old kung-fu movies. Like some other animated movies in the past, Batman is more of a secondary character as this is mostly Richard Dragon's story. They just needed to include Batman for the marketing. I'm not a fan of kung-fu movies or the 70s in general so it wasn't really my jam but not a bad movie by any stretch. (3/5) (Fun Facts: Michael Jai White voices Bronze Tiger; he played a more modern version of the character in live action on Arrow. There's a setup for a sequel but I don't really know if it'll happen.)
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