DC Did Something Right For Once
I loved what DC used to be. It was a great world filled with larger than
life heroes who stood for truth and justice. The heroes wouldn't always
win, hell some of their greatest stories are of their failures, but
they always bounced back stronger than ever before. These stories were
always a beacon of hope and inspiration to get through life's many
challenges and those stories continue to inspire me even to this day.
Which makes me sad to say DC and I have been having a lover's quarrel
for the past five years or so. It all started with the "New 52." Well,
actually I blame Christopher Nolan for a lot of this, but that's another
topic for another day. With the "New 52" DC's characters became this
giant ball of negativity that would just eat away at my soul. These
characters would constantly bicker at each other instead of save the
people engulfed in the chaos around them. It was as if the writers of
these series never read a comic book before. With every passing year it
becomes more and more difficult to admit that I am a DC fanboy, because
the current state of these characters is simply embarrassing. Batman has
been replaced with "Robo-Gordan," Superman's a murderer, and Wonder
Woman been turned into a bloodthirsty simpleton. They aren't heroes,
they're damaged goods.
What I'm getting at is all of these factors have bled over into the
other forms of media: the games, movies, animated series and so on. A
lot of that negativity carried over and made every form of DC media
frustrating to experience. The last few direct-to-video animated movies
have been difficult to sit through. Everything from the team of heroes
acting like spoiled brats to extremely inappropriate sexual material
becoming part of the story's plot has become the norm for what to expect
when watching one of these movies. One of the last films, "Justice
League: War" had me wanting to smash my television with a baseball bat
when Wonder Woman mugged a food vendor for an ice cream cone. And don't
even get me started on "Flashpoint Paradox."
So imagine my surprise when I discover not only was "Batman Unlimited:
Animal Instincts" not terrible, it was actually pretty damn good.
The story centers around Bruce Wayne a.k.a. Batman stumbling across a
series of robberies committed by a group of animal themed super villains
who are being led by Oswald Cobblepot, a.k.a. The Penguin. Meanwhile,
under his public persona, Cobblepot is unveiling new types robots
designed for the purpose of search and rescue. Of course, the robots are
being used to help in the aid of these before mentioned robberies. So
it's up to Batman and his teammates, Green Arrow, Flash, Nightwing and
Red Robin to stop Penguin and his "Animilitia" from committing these
crimes and to figure out if there's anything more to this scheme outside
of simple bank heist.
One of the most fascinating aspects to this movie is its setting. Yes,
it all takes place in Gotham city, but it's not "where," it's the "when"
that's interesting. This version of Gotham city is a lot more high tech
than what we're used to seeing. There are tv monitors at every city
skyline. The police vehicles can transform into hover cars. Batman's
gadgets can help deflect lasers. And so on. Although, it is not too far
advance into the future like in the animated series, "Batman Beyond." In
fact, the movie starts out with Bruce (Who also looks a lot older than
normal) testing out a new gliding bat suit, one which looks a lot like
Terry's suit in "Batman Beyond." It feels possible that the intention
was to set this story in between the original animated series and
Beyond, which is a touch I really like.
Not only is the setting good, but the film's actually got a pretty good
sense of humor to boot. I am a firm believer that all comics, no matter
the topic, should always be a little silly or at least be mildly
self-aware of how ludicrous these situations are, which is exactly what
this film does. The jokes come across in a few different ways from puns
said during battle to just general moments of silliness, like Red Robin
eating a bowl of oatmeal while researching information for Batman.
There's even a funny fourth wall joke towards the beginning, where
Nightwing follows a woman with cat ears sneaking into a jewelry store.
When it's revealed to be Cheetah, she responds with, "What did you
expect, Catwoman?" It got a good laugh from me, because I did think for a
moment it would be. But to get back on point, I mention the humor in
this film because it was refreshing to see. In previous direct-to-video
DC animated films, if there was humor in it, it was either very cruel,
harsh or just straight up weird. Like in "Throne of Atlantis," Aquaman
is introduced by having him at a bar, drunk, talking to a lobster about
his dead father. While here the tone is every light and aren't just
cynical digs at other characters. Yes, humor is selective, but here you
can tell the film makers are going for another tone than what they've
tried before, and it is this writer's opinion that this tone works best
for these characters.
Plus there's a lot of fun comic book style fight scenes too. You'll have
moments where Green Arrow is shooting boxing glove tipped arrows at a
robot gorilla with a wrist mounted laser gun flying on a jet pack, and
it is awesome. You don't get much more comic bookie than that. That
style of action is throughout the entire film and it never feels boring
or repetitive. It never feels too dark either which is nice. Don't get
me wrong, these characters are still put into dangerous situations. One
scene has Red Robin trapped in the Batcave with Man-Bat trying to break
out of his prison cell. It's a tense moment, but nothing an eight
year-old couldn't handle. It's just the right amount tension for the
film to be engaging throughout.
What's most encouraging about this film is how well the team operates
with each other. Again, the last couple of Justice League films where
almost nonstop bouts of arguing amongst the team. But here, every
character had a role to play and nobody felt like dead weight. I've
always thought Batman was a character who worked best in a super powered
team. Batman is the straight man in a group of wacko heroes. He's the
best at organizing his team and knows how to use their strengths and
weaknesses. This film is all about that. Even though the film features
his name in the title, he never overshadows the rest of his team.
But that's not to say this film is all sunshine and roses, I do have a
few issues with it, mostly with the character designs. To put it
bluntly, nobody knew what to do about designing every character's hair
style. Every character looks like they're sporting a giant pompadour
that would rival most 80's anime high school aged punks. Or it just
comes across as every character is having a bad case of bed head. Also
Nightwing's costume stinks, but I've always been a fan of the blue and
gold "New Titans" look for Nightwing, so take that comment with a grain
of salt.
Also while I do like the cast of characters for this movie, there's only
one female character in the entire film and that's Cheetah. While it's a
good choice, I just wish there were more female heroes in the film like
Zatanna, Power Girl, Question and so on to round out the cast a little
better. If they make another entry into this "Batman Unlimited" series
(which I hope they do), that would be my biggest input on how to make
the series better.
And this last complaint is more of me being an old dork than anything
else, but they're are moments where it feels like the film is trying to
sell me toys. Batman goes through about three different costume changes
in the film and each time I got the feeling it was letting me know I
could get this toy right now if I went out to S-mart. Also it doesn't
help that the movie came with a five dollar off coupon for a Mattle
Batman figure of my choosing. But again, if the film's true evil
intention was to get me to buy toys, at least the film was entertaining
to watch.
So at the end of the day, I highly recommend checking out "Batman
Unlimited: Animal Instincts." It's a fun superhero adventure movie
that's perfect for all the young ones and the kid inside all of us.
While I'm not big on the character design and lack of female characters,
those are nip picks that could be corrected in future installments. It
is nice to see DC get back on track after a long string of missable
animated movies and I hope this is the start of their comeback. This
film made me believe in my childhood heroes again.
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