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The Main Characters
---Superman (voiced by Tim Daly) is all about fighting for Truth, Justice and the American Way; except when that American Way is the Luthor way.
---Batman (voiced by Kevin Conroy) fights for the same values as Superman but does so in a much darker way. These two are fundamentally different yet work well together.
---Lex Luthor (voiced by Clancy Brown) is Superman’s nemesis. Somehow he becomes President of the United States and you know Superman is not happy about that.
The Setting
This one takes place in a whole variety of locations, Superman’s Metropolis, Batman’s Bat-Cave in Gotham City, Washington DC and most of the world and even into outer space.
The Main Feature (1:06:55)
Times are tough, the economy is bad (hmm, sounds familiar) and this downturn has led to Lex Luthor becoming the president of the United States. He has his own force (Capt. Atom, Black Lightning, Power Girl, Katana and Capt. Force) to make the world better and surprisingly, he does. Of course, a Kryptonite meteor is heading for Earth and Lex uses this as an opportunity to call on Superman and have him attacked by Metallo (a robot with a Kryptonite heart). Luckily, Batman makes the save, but not before Superman is shot with a Kryptonite bullet. They both escape Metallo with their own injuries. When they get back they see on the television that Metallo’s been killed and Superman has been framed for the murder. He places a bounty of one billion dollars on his head and the criminals are out in force to get that money, including Banshee, Capt. Cold, Mister Freeze, Solomon Grundy, Mongul, Shiva, Nightshade, Gorilla Grodd, Deadshot, Black Manta, Boomerang, and others. They are defeated when Capt. Atom and the rest of his squad shows up and Superman thanks them for the help until he is attacked by them. He’s got a federal arrest warrant pinned on him, after all. Superman manages to convince all but Major Force of his innocence and when MF goes nuclear, Capt. Atom is there to contain it all. Meanwhile, Lex fires off his warheads to stop the meteor with no success at all. Superman and Batman head over to Luthor’s lair for information on the radiation of the meteor when Hawkman and Capt. Marvel get in their way. They are defeated and Superman and Batman get the information they need, but not before Luthor reveals he’s been injecting himself with Kryptonite to make him stronger. The two defeat Luthor and head out to see a Japanese boy named Hiro, otherwise known as the Toyman. He’s building a gigantic Superman/Batman amalgam robot to stop the meteor. Luthor dons his green costume and heads out to stop Superman and Batman from stopping the meteor. See, he doesn’t want the meteor to wipe out civilization so he can lead the best. This leads to our conclusion of Superman fighting it out with Luthor as Batman manually controls the robot.
Feature Review
It’s been a while since I read Public Enemies from the comics but from what I remembered this does a very good job of adapting it to the animated screen. First off, the characters look like they came off of Ed McGuinness’ paper and the style that they were animated did a great job mimicking Ed’s pencils. The movie itself read like a comic and you could almost tell which scenes ended the certain chapters in the comic books. I thought that the run-time was odd (only 67 minutes?) but they managed to tell the whole story very well. I’d have to say this was a lot of fun to sit through and Batman or Superman fans will definitely enjoy this movie that is full of fighting scenes. An awesome job with the animation, the story was easy to follow and enjoyable, and the voice actors all did a great job bringing the characters to life. All in all, this is another success for DC.
DVD Features
A) Extras
---Disc One---
All of the extras here (except for the trailers) have appeared on previous DC DVD’s and even though I don’t like repeats, it does a great job promoting other discs and the second disc includes the extras the real fans would want.
1) Blackest Night: Inside The DC Comics Event (8:51)
Johns talks about Blackest Night and the main premise (Black rings fly to dead DC characters and all hell breaks loose). The main characters in this epic are discussed a bit, including Martian Manhunter, Golden-Age Superman, and the Flash. All this hits on Free Comic Book Day and we see very brief scenes of that. Well I am pumped for this event as of this writing it is two issues in and kicking major ass.
2) Wonder Woman: The Amazon Princess (10:25)
This was taken from the Batman: Gotham Knight DVD review and has been pasted following this sentence. They couldn’t get the movie off the ground, so we get an animated feature instead. If it is anything like Superman: D&R or New Frontier, we should be in good shape. Hey, Rosario Dawson, Alfred Molina, sweet Jesus what a cast! Mimi from the Rent movie is going to be in the Wonder Woman DVD. Rosario will play Artemis, Virginia Madsen is Hyppolyte., Keri Russell is Wonder Woman, Nathan Fillion is Steve Trevor, Alfred Molina is Ares and he jokes that American writers think the British accent is villainous. We get a look at the origin of WW with some nice storyboards of the film, which look similar to the Timm DC animation we’re used to. Looks good, and I’ll pen this into my spring 2009 DVD purchase list.
4) Batman: Gotham Knight – An Anime Evolution (10:09)
This is from the Justice League: New Frontier DVD. Again, my original thoughts are copied and pasted here. Denny O’Neill and Dan DiDio begin by talking about Batman and his origin and what drives him as a character. This DVD is 6 interlocking stories each done by different anime directors and studios. They talk about the villains of the film (Deadshot, Scarecrow and Killer Croc) I am interested in picking this up to see how it is executed. I am not a big anime fan so it should be a new experience watching different adaptations of Batman.
5) From Graphic Novel to Original Animated Movie – Justice League: The New Frontier (10:44)
This is taken from the Superman: Doomsday DVD and what follows is from my review of that DVD: When I saw this was a Teaser Reel I thought it would be a 2 minute trailer but this clocked in at over 10-minutes! Of course this is based on the awesome Cooke mini-series. Cooke used to be a storyboard artist and worked in animation for some time. Cooke, DC biggie Paul Levitz, and many others chime in on New Frontier and what it was and its importance to DC. They talk about why they used this to make the movie and Cooke not being too close to the project at first. He was afraid the 70-minute film would lose too much of his work but he said the screenplay was awesome. They talk about not wanting to have continuity between films so a different Superman is used here, Kyle MacLachlan, and he sounds awesome. Lucy Lawless plays Wonder Woman (Bruce says this was a D’uh moment), and she really got into the character. David Boreanaz voices Hal Jordan. They don’t mention any others but I saw Neil Patrick Harris and an IMDB check sees him voices Flash. They show some animatics and footage from this film as well. Bruce Timm is just amazing in the world of DC animation and this is one area where they are just blowing Marvel out of the water. The one thing I have to ask now, what will they put as the extras on New Frontier? This was a great making of.
6) Trailers
So you get previews for a DC movie, a Fox show and a cool-looking Batman game.
---A) Green Lantern (1:08)
---B) Fringe (2:02)
---C) Batman: Arkham Asylum (1:55)
---Disc Two---
1) A Test of Minds: Superman and Batman (18:59)
We start with the classic World’s Finest comics which first teamed up the pairing of Batman and Superman. They co-starred in the title in separate tales until they teamed-up in one story starting with #73. But that was the Golden Age and this is now. The characters have always been two sides of the same coin. Both of them are orphans but Bruce’s parents were murdered while Superman’s parents died due to a catastrophe. They share the same goals, but have different ways of getting there. A psychologist is actually in this feature talking about the minds of both super heroes. She says that neither character has a psychological disorder. The work of Frank Miller in Dark Knight Returns is mentioned as the prevailing psychologies of both heroes. From there we talk about Jeph’s work on Public Enemies. This was an interesting look at the two characters.
2) Dinner with DCU and Special Guest Kevin Conroy (26:12)
We’re at the Smokehouse with Bruce Timm, Andrea Romano, Gregory Noveck and of course, Kevin Conroy. Kevin was the voice of Batman: The Animated Series. The series was sold except for one thing, they didn’t have someone to voice Batman! Kevin was a name given to her and once they heard him they knew they had their man. Kevin had never done voice work before, interestingly enough. We hear a bunch of stories about Batman: TAS, Kevin buying a Batman costume for kids one time, and Kevin voicing the character. Kevin is now the animated voice of Batman, playing him in JLU, Batman: Gotham Knights and now Public Enemies. They joke about Power Girl (ALL of her) being there. This was an interesting concept, though Kevin Conroy stayed very quiet throughout and didn’t add anything until he was spoken to.
3) A First Look at Justice League: Crisis on Two Earths (11:11)
DC has a great idea with its animated films, delving into its old classic stories to make into cartoons. That’s where Marvel has got it wrong. They’ve been trying for original stuff and not really making an impact creatively while DC is knocking it out of the park with their DVDs. This was born from a Dwayne McDuffie script for JLU that was never used because the show was canceled. Billy Baldwin is Batman. That’s funny since the whole dinner in the feature before was praising Kevin as THE voice of Batman. Owl-Man is played by James Woods of Family Guy fame.
4) Bruce Timm’s Top Picks:
Both of these top picks come from Superman: The Animates series, a show I’ve never actually seen before.
---A) The Demon Reborn (20:53)
Originally Aired: 09/19/99
A group of thieves break into a Native American Exhibit to steal a magical Shaman’s staff when Superman stops them. Batman had also been following them, because Ra’s Al Ghul. Ra’s wants the staff because his Lazarus Pits have not been reviving him anymore. So Superman is kidnapped by Ra’s in order to have Superman’s energy revive Ra’s and it almost works, until Batman shows up to save the day and help Superman regain control.
---B) Knight Time
Originally Aired: 10/10/98
This was a really cool episode where Bruce goes missing and Clark goes to look for him. Of course, with Bruce gone there is no Batman so Superman actually impersonates Batman and works with Robin to find Bruce. It turns out that Brainiac has kidnapped him so he can leave the planet. Superman saves the day (of course). This episode also managed to integrate the Penguin, Bane and Mad Hatter among others. This was just an awesome episode.
B) Audio/Video
This is a Dolby Digital/Widescreen presentation. I have to say it sounds great, especially the surrounds and the colors just leap off the screen. A great job by the DC guys.
C) Packaging / Liner Notes
This comes in a really cool slip-case that is really shiny. I guess I’m like a little kid and shiny things catch my eye. Other than that there’s no liner notes. You get a slip of paper with the Digital Disc code and all the extras are printed on the back of the DVD case.
D) Easter Eggs
Nothing on here, folks!
Overall Review
Trailers (2:57) start this off. We have Sherlock Holmes, Smallville Season 8, a Blu-Ray commercial (1:44) and a commercial for a Halo animated feature. (2:15) That last one looks pretty cool. Anyway, this is your usual awesome DC animated DVD, with a very good adaptation of the comic book storyline, some cool extras (especially the cartoons) and really if you have one of these two-disc collections you’ll know what to expect. I have to knock off some points just because the running time was so short and because there was no commentary (what’s the deal with that, by the way) but other than those two minor things, this was great.
Overall Rating
9.0
10.0 Perfect
9.0-9.5 Near Perfect, Highly Recommended
8.0-8.5 Really good disc, Recommended
7.0-7.5 Good DVD, Mildly recommended
6.0-6.5 Above Average DVD. Mildest of mild recommendations
5.0-5.5 Decent all around disc, but catch it on TV
4.0-4.5 Great Movie but horrible DVD
3.0-3.5 Horrible movie but great DVD
2.0-2.5 There’s at least some merit to this DVD, but not much.
1.0-1.5 Horrible DVD, don’t even bother
0.0-0.5 Worst DVD ever
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