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The DC Animated Universe Weekly Review - Batman: The Animated Series

Batman: The Animated Series

Episode 81

Harley’s Holiday

Another epic episode, one of the best.  Harley Quinn is declared sane and set free but on her first day out she gets into a little trouble and freaks out. In the process Bruce Wayne’s “casual girlfriend” Veronica Vreeland, gets kidnapped by Harley.  

 

Harley is just trying to get out of town and not commit any crimes.  Unfortunately no one gave her the social skills on how to dig out of trouble.  So she’s declared sane but no real oversight was presented on how to integrate her back into society.  It’s as if Arkham Asylum never freed a patient before.  She wasn’t remanded to anyone’s custody, she wasn’t placed in a group home.  She was just set free and shocker, everything goes wrong. 

 

In the process of trying to get out of town before things get worse she manages to get a diverse group of individuals hot on her trail.  Her pursuers are Batman and Robin, Detective Harvey Bullock, gangster Boxy Bennett, and General Vreeland (Veronica’s father) IN A TANK!  During the adventure Veronica Vreeland realizes Harley didn’t mean for all these things to go wrong, she just made a few mistakes.  Vreeland promises to not press charges if Harley can get her out of the situation safely.  Then Veronica’s father shows up in a tank shooting at the car.  

 

Plot wise, the tank itself isn’t the problem but he’s shooting at the car holding his daughter.  What does he expect would happen? If he hits the car, his daughter dies.  Also, Veronica’s dad is a general and she’s a rich Gotham City socialite.  She clearly didn’t marry into money since she occasionally hooks up with Bruce Wayne.  She calls him out for being a player and dumping her in Batman: Mask of the Phantasm.  US General’s as of 2023 make about anywhere between $90k - $530k a year.  The average is around $230k.  Even if he made $530k a year, which is doubtful, that’s not “socialite who can roll with Boy Billionaire Bruce Wayne” kind of money.  Where did the Vreeland’s get their money?  Is General Vreeland smuggling arms for extra cash?  The DCAU does have some shady military commanders we’ll meet years later but General Vreeland is only seen in this episode.  It’s likely his career was completely “tanked” after this incident.  He may have inherited his wealth from old money and was just a patriot who enlisted and worked his way up the ranks.  Lots of unanswered questions about his character and the Vreeland’s in general.  

 

So all the pursuers converge on Harley all at once but she’s able to escape and Veronica is released to Batman unharmed.  Batman captures Harley after a climactic fight and she’s returned to Arkham.  Batman shows compassion to Harley and understands why things got out of hand.  As a thank you Harley gives Batman a passionate kiss to the shock of everyone.   

 

This episode has drama, suspense, action, comedy and pulls it all off perfectly.  Harley Quinn proves how entertaining of a character she is and you find yourself rooting for her.  It’s an episode where you really want to see her pull it off and escape but Batman can’t let that happen.  He’s almost the villain in the story but his motivations are altruistic.  He doesn’t want her to get into deeper trouble and wants to keep her and anyone else in her path from getting hurt. Truly a can’t miss episode.

 

Written by
Joseph Ammendolea
Owner/President
“I Like To Play With Toys” Productions®
ILikeToPlayWithToysProductions@Yahoo.com

 

Aquaman - DCEU Review Series

DCEU Review Series

Aquaman

2018

Director: James Wan

 

Aquaman received fairly positive reviews from fans and critics.  The character gets a lot of pop culture flack for being the water guy on the team.  His powers are silly.  He talks to fish. The majority of the Earth is water. He would come in handy for water-based emergencies.  Nonstop water emergencies would get redundant though.  

 

The film starts with a flashback to Aquaman’s mom washing up on shore and falling in love with a human lighthouse keeper (Jengo/Boba Fett from Star Wars).  Lighthouse keepers aren’t even a thing anymore.  It’s all automated, even in the late 70s/early 80s when this flashback takes place.  She builds a little family but has to head back to Atlantis because of…reasons.

 

After the lame backstory sequence, we actually get a fairly entertaining submarine action sequence.  We’re introduced to one of the big-bad’s Black Manta.  Black Manta and friends were hired to take out a submarine by the true villain of the film.  Aquaman’s evil brother or something.  Aquaman leaves Black Manta’s father Jesse Kane to die.  If he saved the guy a lot of drama would have been avoided.  A non DCEU version of Superman would have saved him, Batman and Wonder Woman would have saved him.  

 

In Aquaman’s defense, Jesse Kane hit him with a grenade launcher while in a Nuclear submarine.  Aquaman was fighting Black Manta and winning and Jesse Kane jumped in the fight.  So Aquaman tosses a metal poll into his arm and pins it through another hunk of metal on the sinking submarine.  He wasn’t busting out of that, though the film wants you to think with the help of Black Manta he could have busted out.  Jesse Kane launches another grenade at Aquaman while leaving and then a torpedo lands on him totally trapping his ass.  Black Manta asks for his help and Aquaman is like, you’re douchbags, I’m not helping you, then leaves.  Jesse Kane tells Black Manta to book before he dies too.  Thus, Aquaman’s most known villain is born.  A little compassion goes a long way in life folks.  

 

Then we’re at Atlantis and everyone is wet so their hair floats around with annoying CGI.  All the people float around with annoying CGI and a weird blue/green heugh to it.  It’s super distracting.  There’s some drama with Atlantis.

 

Then Amber “the Turd” Herd shows up and asks Aquaman to come back to Atlantis and claim the throne because his mother Nicole Kidman was queen of Atlantis.  Atlantis is trying to start a war with the surface world.  Amber Turd wants Aquaman to stop it.  Willem Defoe shows up in flashbacks and we learn he’s the dude who trained Aquaman.  The flashbacks are a waste of time and pointless. If the film just focused on the main plot you’d have an interesting story worth following. 

 

Sadly Aquaman isn’t too familiar to the general movie going audience so we get a lot of back story explaining him and his powers.  The kingdom of Atlantis is supposed to be this visually stunning place.  It’s really quite lame and derivative.  Too much CGI ruins films, and this film has a ton.

 

We’re treated to a master class is acting skills.  Willem Defoe, Jason Mamoa, Amber Turd are standing around having a conversation.  Defoe knocks his performance out of the park, Mamoa is a base hit at best, and Amber shits the bed. Defoe adds the right level of intensity to the lines. Mamoa plays it too cool for school.  Amber is just trying to prove to people she knows how to read.  

 

What probably makes this film next to impossible to film is how wet everyone needs to be.  Filming consistently wet actors is near impossible.  Film shoots can run 12 hours or more.  So there is some staffer constantly hosing actors down in the dry scenes.  No one should be wet that long.  They were all likely terribly sick during the entire production.  

 

Then we get a derivative ceremonial battle between Aquaman and his douchebag brother for control of Atlantis.  The fight itself is pretty cool, just unoriginal and boring with how the film built up to it.  Somehow Aquaman loses the fight, not really sure how. Amber Turd’s most illogical line “are you waiting for an invitation? get it!”  That’s basically an invitation.  This one isn’t really her fault. She didn’t write it.  She sure couldn’t act it though. The film is loaded with these bad one liners.

 

The film then becomes a poorly made Indiana Jones adventure while they try to find the ultimate trident to cure bad breath or something.  Aquaman recommending peeing on a device that needs water to work and Amber Turd’s face of disgust is pure irony.  We get cutaways to Black Manta making his famous suit.  Don’t forget we have to establish the required love story in these films.  That’s done during the boring middle parts building up to the next action sequence. 

 

Black Manta shows up in full costume and we get another cool action sequence and as the film is progressing these fight scenes are getting better.  It’s a shame the story surrounding it isn’t particularly riveting.  Black Manta finds a way to hurt Aquaman with Atlantian technology.  The stakes of the battle are pretty high at this point.  Another spot of irony is Amber Turd destroying an entire wine collection to fight off some bad guys.  

 

Eventually Aquaman (magically cured from his deadly fight with Black Manta) and Amber Turd are on a boat fighting sea monsters, it’s a pretty cool sequence.  Aquaman meets his mom Nicole Kidman.  It gets pretty sappy for a while.  It’s one of those movies, you can’t gloss over the emotion of meeting long lost parents.  The only solution is not making a movie with such a hackneyed trope.  Then he fights/argues with a giant squid-crab to get the McGuffin trident.  This is just annoying.  It’s a two-hour movie.  You can cut this and be fine.  Grab the stick and move on. 

 

Then all the underwater people are in ridiculously shiny costumes about to go to war with one another.  Aquaman shows up in his ridiculous costume and ability to talk to fish.  The full reveal of squid-crab looks like the 1998 Godzilla and Alien via an “If They Mated” sketch from Late Night with Conan O’Brien.  Aquaman has the big fight with his brother, he wins. He refuses to kill his brother, Nicole Kidman comes back, bam! Family reunion.  The premise of the story, everyone just needs a mother.  Jengo Fett and Nicole Kidman get back together.  Aquaman takes over Atlantis.  Black Mantis lives. The end. 

 

The action was good, the story is bad.  The acting is mostly bad.  The dialog is even worse.  He’s less of a nag than Wonder Woman.  Therefore, Aquaman beats Wonder Woman as the best movie in the DCEU up to this point.  It’s not a film that I’d recommend to anyone for any reason.  None of the DCEU films are watchable at this point.  This is at least something you can almost sit through and enjoy.  

 

Written by
Joseph Ammendolea
Owner/President
“I Like To Play With Toys” Productions®
ILikeToPlayWithToysProductions@Yahoo.com

The X Generation - 1985

 Cuculi presents Live Beats music of the 90s & 00s.

 

The DC Animated Universe Weekly Review - Batman: The Animated Series

 Batman: The Animated Series

Episode 80

Second Chance

 

When you know your characters the writing appears to be easy and this Two-Face centric story reflects that.  Two-Face is about to undergo surgery to fix the scars on his face and make himself Harvey Dent again.  His evil split personality has been suppressed and this is that last part in curing him.  Nothing goes according to plan in the world of Gotham and before the surgery starts Dent is kidnapped by some goons. 

 

During Batman and Robin’s investigation they speak with the usual Dent hating suspects but don’t turn up any results.  Batman is able to deduce the culprit is actually Two-Face himself.  Two-Face doesn’t want Harvey Dent’s kinder personality to remerge so he created a plan to stop it.  Batman is able to capture Two-Face but he’s sent back to Arkham for more mental health before they try the surgery again.  So ultimately Two-Face wins.  There’s a glimmer of hope he’ll recover but we know it only gets worse as the DCAU evolves.  

 

A plot twist can make or break many television episodes and in this case it works.  The idea that Two-Face is plotting against his other persona is brilliant.  Two-Face’s plans to sabotage Harvey Dent are within a realm much more grounded in reality than Scarface.  Scarface wouldn’t think twice of killing the Ventriloquist even though it would kill himself in the process.  That’s one of many reasons Scarface is a complete douche in Batman’s Rouges Gallery.  Two-Face on the other hand may hate Harvey Dent but knows he cannot kill him without killing himself.  A much smarter villain who knows his limitations and works with them.  

 

Written by
Joseph Ammendolea
Owner/President
“I Like To Play With Toys” Productions®
ILikeToPlayWithToysProductions@Yahoo.com

The X Generation - All The Small Things

 Cuculi presents Live Beats music of the 90s & 00s.

 

The DC Animated Universe Weekly Review - Batman: The Animated Series

 Batman: The Animated Series

Episode 79

Riddler’s Reform

 

Riddler’s third episode in the series and the last where he’s the featured villain.  Each episode with him lost some pizazz and this is his least exciting.  He’s allegedly reformed and made a new series of toys which are selling well.  Batman doesn’t believe he’s changed.  Riddler keeps dropping clues about his crimes and eventually traps Batman in an inescapable situation.  Batman survives though and the Riddler is taken off to Arkham unable to solve the riddle of how Batman beat his trap.  Batman tells Robin at the end of the episode he escapes the explosion by using the safe as protection.  There’s a great moment at the end when Riddler is in Arkham Asylum ranting over and over about Batman beating his trap.

 

This episode is par for the course at this point.  The Riddler comes off as redundant and desperate.  It’s a far cry from his first appearance where he’s calculating and clever.  In the first episode Batman beats him but Riddler still escapes. In this episode he’s captured and broken.  Certainly not a bad way to close out a character but the plot or how it was accomplished could have been better.  Granted our standard for episodes is far too high since there have so many amazing BtAS episodes at this point.  Even a bad BtAS episode far exceeds the best episodes of other series.  

 

Written by
Joseph Ammendolea
Owner/President
“I Like To Play With Toys” Productions®
ILikeToPlayWithToysProductions@Yahoo.com

Zack Snyder's Justice League - DCEU Review Series

DCEU Review Series

Zack Snyder's Justice League

2021

Director: Zack Snyder

 

This film is four hours long and horrendous.  Whedon has the excuse of working around what already existed.  Snyder has no such excuse.  He was on a mission to prove his version was superior.  The problem with Snyder is his superhero films were too meta.  He’s obsessed with the “what if” scenarios of comics which only super nerd fans would enjoy.  He didn’t even try to make a film that the 40-year-old woman in middle America would enjoy.  When making a film that absolutely needs to be a mega blockbuster, it has to have broad appeal. Fanboys be damned. 

 

The film is broken into 7 agonizingly painful parts.  Each part is equally drawn out, boring, and could be cut down to 10 minutes.

Part I

Snyder opens his film with everyone depressed about Superman being dead but takes 40 minutes to establish that.  They hated him in his first two movie appearances but now love him because he's dead.  There are some nice visuals but nothing to keep the eye and nothing of interest with the characters, dialogue, or story.  

 

Some dudes go to blow up a bank but Wonder Woman is there to stop them.  They take a bunch of people hostages, including children.  Why would people listen to a guy with a machine gun after another guy sets a timer on a bomb to kill them all?  The logic doesn’t make sense.  If you’re going to die anyway, might as well make the best effort to avoid the blast, getting shot doesn’t matter.  Also, why are there 30 kids hanging out in a bank?  Kids don’t hang out in banks.  Snyder’s version of “save the cat” is absolute bullshit. 

 

The Amazons decide to fiddle with their glowing motherbox and the lamest villain for a DC film shows up, Steppenwolf.  He’s so lame, incredibly lame.  With the help of his parademons Steppenwolf beats up a bunch of women who are dressed like Russel Crowe in Gladiator.  There’s a million slow motion shots that aren’t needed and Snyder might have forgotten that he’s not making a sequel to his film 300.  The tag team amazon runaway with the glowing box is a bad rip-off of the infinity gauntlet being tossed around in Avengers End Game. Steppenwolf gets the box anyway which makes the entire sequence of events useless.  Whedon cut all this crap and rightfully so!

Part II

Steppenwolf sends out his parademons to find other motherboxes.  We are slowly introduced to all the major players, ones we know, ones we don’t know.  The ones we know they flip through quick, they don’t need more character development.  The ones we haven’t met yet, we get backstory.  None of it is particularly compelling and it doesn’t really progress the plot but with Snyder the plot doesn’t matter and the villain is lame. Trying to steal a bunch of alien boxes is a lame story.   Steppenwolf has a ton of lame vague chit chat with Darkseid’s lacky, Desaud.  They are building up to Darkseid being the big bad in the DCEU like Thanos was in Marvel but it’s pointless when your movie universe sucks. We get our bad guy backstory and this all takes 30 minutes.  

 

Part III

It opens with Flash’s introduction.  The problem with speedsters in comic films now is that they’d been perfected in X-Men: First Class.  Every film who does a speedster now just copy’s that film.  Even prior to X-Men: First Class, the TV show Smallville did speedsters with the fast guy moving normal and everything else moving slow.  It’s logically the only way to show it but no one is breaking new ground with the effect.  Why over do it, which is what Snyder does in the Flash introduction. Billy Cudrup playing Flash’s dad was definitely a nice touch, he’s a phenomenal actor and belts all his performances out of the park. 

 

Then we get Cyborg’s origin story. We keep getting character introduction and it’s so forced.  These introductions are boring and it’s as bad a Suicide Squad reintroducing everyone a billion times in the film.  Get to the plot! I’ve said it before, Cyborg’s design is absolutely ridiculous.  He’s more robot than human, it doesn’t look cool. All he has is half a face, the rest is robot.  Young Justice did a far better design of Cyborg and way better character development. Everything Snyder’s Justice League got wrong with Cyborg, season 3 of Young Justice got right. One might argue it’s unfair to compare a cartoon show to a feature film but given the runtime of this film, Snyder drags this story out longer than any TV season.  Fisher clearly prefers this version because he has much more screen time.  What’s really drastic is Cybrog is supposed to be aged 17 or 18 and Fisher is well over 30 when he made this film.  He doesn’t even come close to looking like a teenager.  His acting was also schlock.  He sounds like he’s holding his nose whenever he talks.  Fisher’s overly dramatic theater acting movements are cringe.  It’s bad casting for no reason whatsoever. 

 

Mercedes gets some product placement in order to fund the $70 Million redo on this fanbot requested film version.  We get cameos from JK Simmons and Amber the turd Herd.  Their acting is bad.  Amber Turd because she’s a bad actress.  JK Simmons is a really good actor who was the wrong choice for James Gordon.  Simmons is too loud to play Gordon, too much presence. 

 

This also took forty minutes.  

Part IV

 

At almost the two hour mark we finally get the first fight between Steppenwolf and Justice League.  Whedon’s version accomplished this in an hour.  The extra hour in Snyder’s first half wasn’t any more interesting and wasn’t needed.  Aquaman shows up at the end of this fight and in a much cooler way than Whedon’s version.  He’s not too useful but it’s a nice reveal. Thirty minutes of my life I’ll never get back 

 

Part V

 

It just won’t end.  This film is absolutely painful.  At this point the team plans to bring Superman back from the dead.  It's a total ripoff of the creation of Vision in Avengers: Age of Ultron.  The sequence takes forever! I am watching this film regretting that I made the decision to provide reviews of all the films in the DCEU.  Personal root canals are more interesting and entertaining than the Snyder cut.  

 

Superman comes back from the dead. Cyborg’s dad dies.  Steppenwolf gets all his motherboxes. He did this part in thirty minutes. 

 

Part VI

 

Everyone but Superman tries to figure out how to track the motherbox to stop Steppenwolf.  Superman reunites with Lois Lane and Martha Kent on the Kent farm.  The farm scenes are so poorly shot it’s sad.  It’s also clear a ton of effort was put into it to make it look nice.  Snyder doesn’t have any clue how to do poignant and touching.  

 

Steppenwolf unites the motherboxes to destroy the world or something.  The heroes begin their assault for the big climactic battle.  They win. The day is saved.  It takes forty minutes and it’s all slow-motion action sequences.   Why, why, why, why? Because Zack Snyder is a masochist. 

 

Epilogue

 

All the heroes go their separate ways to lead into new movies in the DCEU.  Cyborg’s "the big wrap up story" in the film.  His dad does a boring voiceover trying to sum up the film.  It’s all pointless words tied together but mean absolutely nothing.  So glad Whedon cut Cyborg’s part down.  Lex Luthor escapes from prison, he’s chilling on a yacht, Deathstroke visits him.  Luthor cuts a deal to kill Batman, reveals Batman’s secret identity.  No mention of an Injustice League which was exponentially cooler.  

 

We’re thrust into the future, the world is a wasteland.  Lots of boring exposition chit chat with Batman, Deathstroke, Flash, Amber Turd, Cyborg, and Joker.  An evil Superman shows up, but oh wait it’s just a bad dream Bruce Wayne is having.  Then we meet a really crappy CGI version of The Martian Manhunter.  Stop changing comic characters to look worse than their original comic! 

 

The dream sequence Bruce Wayne has is a crappy advertisement for a movie that will never get made.  Snyder knows this, why did he add it as his closer?  He must have been delusional to think WB would hire him back.  Why would he even want to work with them again after doing him so dirty?

 

The mistake we made as a society was praising Zach Snyder for remaking Dawn of the Dead and taking out all the high art elements from the original.  It somehow justified all his film decisions afterwards.  How does a filmmaker get worse with age?  This version does manage to show Darkseid multiple times but since the DCEU is thankfully dead who really cares about buildups to installments that will never get made?  He really serves no purpose except to advertise movies that are never going to get made.  The film was in a full screen format suitable for old school tube televisions.  No clear reason why Snyder did this other than to be counter to Whedon’s version.  Not a terrible choice, just a pointless one. 

 

The ultimate assessment is Whedon’s version is better but only because it’s shorter.  Both versions are horrible.  A terrible film, with a lame villain, boring characters, bad dialogue, a dumb plot.  Skip these at all costs.  

 

Written by
Joseph Ammendolea
Owner/President
“I Like To Play With Toys” Productions®
ILikeToPlayWithToysProductions@Yahoo.com

The X Generation - Basket Case

 Cuculi presents Live Beats music of the 90s & 00s.

 

The DC Animated Universe Weekly Review - Batman: The Animated Series

 Batman: The Animated Series

Episode 78 

Showdown

 

The best Ra’s al Ghul episode in the entire series, the entire DCAU.  Ra’s organization the Society of Shadows kidnaps a really old guy from a retirement home.  Ra’s leaves a tape for Batman and Robin to listen to as they drive to the airport to stop him.  On the tape is Ra’s telling a story dating back to 1883.

 

From there we flashback to a story about Jonah Hex!!!  Since Ra’s is really old thanks to the Lazarus Pits. He’s been causing trouble to the world for a really longtime.  This story has an older Jonah Hex tracking down a bad guy name Arkady Duvall for roughing up a woman and doing a bunch of other crimes.  He’s working for Ra’s and they are planning on invading America as it begins to expand via it’s railroad line.  

 

While Hex is tracking Duvall he discovers Ra’s plan and stops it.  He captures Duvall and turns him in.  Duvall offers him more than his bounty to go free but Jonah Hex will have none of that.  We’re back in the present as Batman catches up with Ra’s and fills in the rest of the blanks with Duvall after his capture.  

 

Duvall was sentenced to 50 years hard labor, no one expected him to survive it except Ra’s but he lost track of him during that time. It makes Duvall over 100 years old because he was exposed to Lazarus Pit as a child. Ra's reveals Arkady Duvall is his son.  Talia isn’t his only child. Ra’s admits that Arkady was too unstable to be his successor and at his advanced age is beyond the Lazarus. Batman lets Ra’s leave with his son since he’s not a bureaucrat who requires lots of paperwork proving paternity like the retirement home likely required.  

 

Such a great ending and it puts the villain in the right, in his own evil way.  All he’s doing is reclaiming his child to care for him.  Ra’s has many crimes to answer for. Taking his son out of a retirement home isn’t one of them.  The inclusion of Jonah Hex in the episode is outstanding.  His best TV appearance, it even tops many of his stories in the comics.  

 

Written by
Joseph Ammendolea
Owner/President
“I Like To Play With Toys” Productions®
ILikeToPlayWithToysProductions@Yahoo.com