DC Animated series

  • Superman vs. The Elite (2012)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (On TV, August 2022) The way to get suspense from a Superman story is to give him a conflict that his superpowers can’t easily handle—and in the right hands, it turns out that there’s rather a lot that can’t be resolved by super-strength, speed and invulnerability. In Superman vs. The Elite, much of the plot is dedicated to classic debates amongst comic superhero commentators—the balance between kid-friendly action and realistic violence, the tension that emerges being unable to resolve problems permanently, and the ethics of using superpowers in a threat-filled world. Here, the goody-two-shoe viewpoint of Superman is confronted by the harder-edged ideals of The Elite, a group of superpowered characters who occasionally veer from heroes to villains. This is hardly unfamiliar stuff by comic-book standards (where this kind of rumination dates back to the grim 1980s) and I’m not sure that The Elite acts all that effectively as a thematic foil to Superman, but it’s still interesting to see a DC animated film effectively deal with issues that weren’t nearly so successfully tackled in various live-action films. Superman vs. The Elite may be a decade old by now, but it still makes the point that the DC animated films have regularly, quietly, unpretentiously bested most of the DC live-action takes on the same comics. This is one further piece of evidence confirming this theory: it feels slightly more viable as a standalone watch than many of the later, increasingly interrelated follow-up entries in the same series.

  • Batman: Bad Blood (2016)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (On TV, August 2022) As I write this, Warner Brothers is having almost comical difficulties creating a slate of decent live-action “DC Extended Universe” (DCEU) films from DC Comics superheroes, with rare successes being overshadowed by baffling decisions and no evidence of any intelligence at the strategic level. Meanwhile, of course, there’s a growing corpus of perfectly serviceable animated movies that are able to present a vast shared universe of DC superheroes. Batman: Bad Blood manages to touch upon material that can’t even be brought forward with the current state of the DCEU: Batman not as a loner, but as the central character of an extended group of family and friends. (The closest we got to that idea being explored in cinema was… The Lego Batman Film, and a few other animated films.)  This brings a welcome spin on a character portrayed very differently in live-action films, and shows just how much the animated wing of the DC superhero movies is able to riffle through some deep-cut mythology in order to bring something interesting on-screen. Now, I won’t try to argue that the film is that good—the dialogue is ordinary, the cinematography is average and it’s too short with too many characters to allow for anything beyond a cursory plot. (In that way, you can at least say that it’s faithful to the comic book arcs.) Nonetheless, Batman: Bad Blood is watchable enough—especially for fans of the extended Batman cast of characters that rarely make it to live-action movies before they’re rebooted in favour of yet another origin story. What’s less fun, of course, is that those animated films are made with low ambitions—it would be interesting to see one with the budget and running time attempt something as ambitious as some of the Elseworld one-shots.

  • Batman and Harley Quinn (2017)

    Batman and Harley Quinn (2017)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (On TV, October 2019) I’m not much of a comic-book fan, but there is something about Batman’s cast of supporting characters that I find interesting and Harley Quinn is surely one of the best newish (1992) introductions to the menagerie. (I’m not a big fan of the Margot Robbie version of Harley Quinn, but that’s another discussion for another time.)  This animated movie Batman and Harley Quinn takes from the New Batman Adventures TV series in recycling the art style and personalities of the characters. Quinn being Quinn and Batman being Batman provides much of the fodder for the film’s admittedly lighter tone: Noticeably lighter and funnier than the previous Batman animated movies (a clear step up from the repellent The Killing Joke), Batman and Harley Quinn nails the tone of the character and how she sees the world. It’s surprisingly racier than what you’d expect from the series (including some naughtiness between Quinn and Nightwing), but it somehow works. The film is at its best in small character moments: the overall plot is a bit too sombre, and the film ends about two minutes too early for a satisfying denouement. But having Quinn expel gas in the Batmobile has its own particular charm. Batman and Harley Quinn is not a great movie in that it won’t do much for those not already at ease in the Batman universe. But it’s fun enough for those who are, and noticeably better as a lighthearted adventure than the ultra-grimness of some other animated Batman movies.