The best part of Bruce Timm’s Justice League: New Frontier, the second in the DC direct DVD series, was how well it managed to make a highly styalized drawing style work in animation. Superman/Batman: Public Enemies does that again, and it’s more impressive here, because I was a little concerned about how well it would work. The new movie is based on the first arc of the Superman/Batman comic book series, which portrays both superheroes about as muscular as anyone’s ever seen them and with a very bright and vibrant color scheme. The muscular-ness is toned down a little in the movie, but the characters all have a bigger build than we’ve ever seen them in Bruce Timm animation– usually the characters all have straight, jagged lines and square jaws. It not only works, it feels natural, and after a few minutes, I found myself forgetting how different it looked and let myself be drawn into a DC Universe that was quite different from the others Bruce Timm has created between his television series and all of these DC direct-to-video releases (I count six to date).

The biggest story element I’ve been waiting to see on screen for a long time is that of Lex Luthor as President of the United States. There’s a neat spin put on this– that he was elected because the American people thought, though he had a criminal record, he was the best man to solve the economic crisis. That made his election more plausible and also made the film a little topical. From there, the film makes the audience really believe this movie might be a comic book political satire with a lot of intrigue, and while there are mentions to other evil men who did the job well for a while, like Nixon, the movie quickly moves away from that as soon as Superman is set up to take the fall for the murder of John Corbin, Metallo.

That plot point is very interesting and the way Lex manages to convince the people Superman actually killed someone on purpose– blaming it on a Kryptonite comet on a collision course that he claims is affecting Superman’s mind– is interesting and well-handled. But then there’s one long fight scene after another as Lex’s superhero team tries to take Superman out and various villains do the same in order to win the one billion dollar bounty Lex puts on Superman’s head. And some of those villains, I’m sorry to say, I didn’t even recognize, although it was a lot of fun to see all of DC’s frozen villains (Mr. Freeze, Captain Cold, etc) all working as a team and Bane, who I agree probably would be the first one in line, being an assassin for hire.  Batman helps Superman through all of this, and without him, Superman wouldn’t last five minutes, which I actually really enjoyed. He gets shot very early with a Kryptonite bullet and Batman has to pull him out of one fire after another with his gadgets and inginuity.

I would have liked more political intrigue than dozens of giant fight scenes, but I can’t say I didn’t enjoy a lot of them. Probably the best in the movie is when Superman and Batman are attacked by Hawkman and Shazam. It’s epic and has some of the most beautiful animation in the film. I won’t ruin it by describing it in detail.

I wondered where a lot of the Justice League was during all of this. Superman’s made a wanted criminal by President Lex and heroes like Wonder Woman and Flash don’t weigh-in on this? What, do they have something more important to do? If so, it’s probably so epic it would be as interesting as anything in this movie. I haven’t read most of the arc this film is based on, so it’s possible the same thing is done in the comics and the movie isn’t to blame. But I hate it when a story set in the DC or Marvel Universe just picks which major hereos it’s going to use out of a superhero team and doesn’t mention the others. It’s okay if just Batman characters are in a Batman story, but this is a big DCU story, and it’s hard not to wonder where everyone is.

Superman/Batman is a weird comic book. Batman and Superman are written entirely straight. They take themselves and their world 100% seriously. But the stories sometimes border on silly and it’s a book that seems to be able to get away with anything it wants to because it’s main characters don’t seem to notice it’s silly. I’m reminded specifically of Batzarro. In this movie, and I’m sure it was in the comics, a Japanese genius kid who calls himself Toyman builds a giant rocket; one half of it looks like Batman and the other half Superman. It’s hard not to laugh, but it’s also hard not to want the toy version.

Is this a problem? Not really. The film is definitely faithful to the spirit of the comic series. But as seriously as the movie began, I imagined a very different movie, one I knew this wasn’t going to be. But I do have the same problem I did with Superman: Doomsday: it’s too short. The end feels rushed, where Lex shows his hand to his advisors not because he’s pressured, but because the movie is running out of time. He starts rambling about letting the meteor hit the Earth (which he said he could stop but wasn’t able to) in order to create a new world order. Obviously, people won’t stand for that, even if they’re scared of Lex Luthor. So he panics, jumps in his green suit, and goes on a rampage. I’m fine with the rampage, I just would have liked to see the people turn against Lex Luthor because they saw through him, not because he made a dumb move anyone could see through.

LLAP

-Cap’n Logan

This is the beginning of an ongoing video review series where I’ll be taking a look at comic book films well after they’ve been in video stores and in a historical context. First up is Superman Doomsday from 2007. Enjoy!

LLAP

-Cap’n Logan