Review: "Meet the Robinsons" is a Heartfelt Gem

TRASH IN MY EYE No. 140 (of 2007) by Leroy Douresseaux

Meet the Robinsons (2007) – computer animated
Running time: 95 minutes (1 hour, 35 minutes)
MPAA – G
DIRECTOR: Stephen J. Anderson
WRITERS: Stephen J. Anderson, Michelle Bochner, Jon Bernstein, Nathan Greno, Don Hall, Joe Mateo, and Aurian Redson; with story material from Robert L. Baird, Daniel Gerson, and Shirley Pierce; (based on A Day with Wilbur Robinson by William Joyce)
PRODUCER: Dorothy McKim

ANIMATION/SCI-FI/COMEDY/ACTION/FAMILY

Starring: (voices) Daniel Hansen, Angela Bassett, Jordan Fry, Tom Selleck, Harland Williams, Laurie Metcalf, Adam West, Ethan Sandler, Tom Kenney, and Matthew Josten

Meet the Robinsons, a Walt Disney Feature Animation digital 3-D animation film, focuses on a boy genius named Lewis. His love of gadgets and gizmos takes him on a trip to the future and reveals to him great secrets about his past and about his own limitless potential.

Lewis (Daniel Hansen and Jordan Fry) is a brilliant preteen inventor, but he’s also an orphan. He’s been living at the 6th Street Orphanage under the guardianship of its sweet and patient caretaker, Mildred (Angela Bassett), ever since she found him on her doorstep as an infant. Rejected by most prospective adoptive parents, Lewis decides to invent the “memory scanner” to retrieve his earliest recollections and hopefully see his birth mother. Lewis presents his invention as his school’s science fair where it is a disaster – mostly because of sabotage on the part of the villainous Bowler Hat Guy (Ethan Sandler), who steals the machine.

Lewis is ready to give up on the quest for his birth mother when he meets a mysterious teenager, Wilbur Robinson (Wesley Singerman), who like the Bowler Hat Guy, is from the future. Wilbur whisks Lewis to the future in his father’s time machine/jet car. Wilbur is desperate to get Lewis to help him retrieve his father’s second time machine, which was stolen by the Bowler Hat Guy. However, when Lewis meets the Robinsons, Wilbur’s large and extended eccentric family, he discovers that, much to his delight, they are ready to adopt him. But if Lewis doesn’t stop Bowler Hat Guy, everyone’s future may turn out to be very dark indeed.

Meet the Robinson’s theme is “keep moving forward,” which is taken from a quote by the late Walt Disney himself, and the filmmakers stay true to “keep moving forward” in terms of the characters. Don’t let the past drag you down, and don’t be bitter about failure because failure is a better teacher than success, the film practically yells out. The writers deal with some pretty serious subject matter in terms of what it means to be a family and also what it means to accept personal blame for failure rather than blaming someone else.

In terms of the film’s visuals and production design, Meet the Robinsons looks way back into the past for inspiration. The futurism of the industrial design movement of the 1930’s and 40’s is present, as well as art deco (which was inspired by futurism). “Streamline Moderne, which was a 1930’s architectural style and Walt Disney’s “Tomorrowland,” join to create a heady, invigorating mix of the retro sci-fi cool and cartoon futuristic. This goes well with what Lewis uses to create his inventions: scrap, spare parts, household items, and odds-and-ends. Think “The Jetsons” meets “Jimmy Neutron, Boy Genius.”

The computer (or 3D) animation, however, is highly suspect. There are times when some of it seems to disappear in a glare of white light, or the camera shifts and the entire 3D environment becomes two-dimensional. It’s simply bad lighting and poor environmental building (perhaps because of software and/or hardware issues). It is sometimes embarrassingly shoddy animation work from Disney, a company that has a legacy of delivering exceptional animation, even when the story is mediocre.

However, the truth is that while viewers may come to the film looking for 3D animation, they’ll end up staying for the story. Luckily, Meet the Robinson’s messages of family bonds and of never letting failure be a crippling setback make this visually imaginative film a poignant gem that might bring at least one tear to your eye.

7 of 10
B+

Saturday, December 08, 2007

Review: "Chicken Little" Has Big Action

TRASH IN MY EYE No. 169 (of 2005) by Leroy Douresseaux


Chicken Little (2005) – computer animated
Running time: 81 minutes (1 hour, 21 minutes)
MPAA – G
DIRECTOR: Mark Dindal
WRITERS: Steve Bencich and Ron J. Friedman and Ron Anderson; from a story by Mark Kennedy and Mark Dindal (with additional story material by Robert L. Baird and Dan Gerson)
PRODUCER: Randy Fullmer
EDITOR: Dan Molina

ANIMATION/SCI-FI/FANTASY and COMEDY/ACTION/FAMILY

Starring: (voices) Zach Braff, Garry Marshall, Steve Zahn, Joan Cusack, Don Knotts, Patrick Stewart, Amy Sedaris, Harry Shearer, Wallace Shawn, Fred Willard, Catherine O’Hara, Adam West, Patrick Warburton, Mark Dindal, and Dan Molina

One day a piece of the sky falls to earth and hits Chicken Little (Zach Braff) on the head. The sky is falling her warns, but the townsfolk of Oakey Oaks, including his father, Buck Cluck (Garry Marshall), conclude that an acorn hit the boy chick on the head. The incident swiftly turns Chicken Little into the town joke and embarrasses his father. However, the plucky chicken joins the local baseball team with the hopes of reviving his reputation and earning his father’s respect. Chicken Little does indeed lead the team to an upset victory, and he and his pops are on good terms again.

All is well, but another “piece of the sky” hits Chicken Little on the head. Still, he’s reluctant to cause another scene and once again be labeled crazy. Instead, he enlists the help of his friends: Abby Mallard (Joan Cusack), who is also known as the Ugly Duckling because she is so… unpretty; Runt of the Litter (Steve Zahn), a tall, obese pig; and Fish Out of Water (“voice” created by film editor Dan Molina), a fish who wears a water-filled helmet, and the gang embark on an adventure to stop an alien invasion without sending the town into another panic.

Walt Disney’s Chicken Little, of course, spoofs of 17th century, rural English fable, “Chicken Little.” Disney’s new film is also their first fully computer animated film (2000’s Dinosaur combined computer generated characters with live-action background imagery), and also signals the famed movie company’s move away from hand-drawn (2D) animation to computer animated (3D) animation. Clearly aimed at children 12 and under, Chicken Little is filled with clever gags. The script is a hodge podge of sketch comedy, after school special storylines, and the kind of family psychology that would find its way on the “Dr. Phil” and “Oprah.”

The script is Chicken Little’s big problem. The animation is fine, sometimes even outstanding. There are a few moments when it has the quality of the first Shrek, but there are also times when it has the texture and quality of Disney/Pixar’s The Incredibles. However, the film is basically pretty pictures over an ugly story. The script bludgeons the audience with the notion that at this movie’s heart (which it doesn’t have) is the story of a father and son coming together. The father, in this case, Buck Cluck, must learn to accept his son’s physical shortcomings and love him for the plucky fella he is. But unlike Finding Nemo, where the parent/child dynamic seemed so natural, Chicken Little takes that relationship and drapes a cheesy action movie cartoon for children over it.

Chicken Little looks, feels, and sounds like the kind of action movies that have been so popular over the last decade, but tamed for children. Anyone who has seen Independence Day will recognize it in this flick. Chicken Little’s setting, Oakey Oaks, is the same old idealized Midwestern small town that Hollywood has been shoving at audiences for decades. That place is a fairy tale really, but it’s a good setting for War of the Worlds, which is another source reference for this flick. Chicken Little is as noisy and/or as busy as The Rock, Armageddon, Bad Boys II, etc. This is director Mark Dindal’s (The Emperor’s New Groove) Steven Spielberg/Michael Bay movie.

Chicken Little, as voiced by Zach Braff, is actually an endearing character – this movie’s saving grace, in fact. The character itself is a cutey, sort of a riff on “Egghead, Jr.” from those “Foghorn Leghorn” Looney Tunes cartoons. He’s a plucky little fella and the animators lovingly rendered and animated him.

The rest of the cast is mostly trash. The characters aren’t really characters so much as they are stereotypes that get to do stand up routines at different times in the film narrative. I immensely disliked Abby Mallard – nothing more to say about it here – and Runt of the Litter is pathetic. Steve Zahn can play quirky characters whose humor comes through even in crime dramas (Out of Sight), but his comedic gifts are lost because we don’t him here; all we get is his voice in the annoying Runt. Fish Out of Water provides nice slapstick, but the jokes come across as desperation on the writers’ parts. Garry Marshall’s Brooklyn accent is out of place in this film, and as a father, Buck Cluck is like an overbearing mother in his demands on his son, Chicken Little.

I guess the shortest and perhaps best way to describe Disney’s Chicken Little is as Jimmy Neutron: Boy Genius with much better computer animation.

4 of 10
C

Saturday, November 5, 2005

Review: "Tower Heist" Captures Classic Eddie Murphy

TRASH IN MY EYE No. 92 (of 2011) by Leroy Douresseaux

Tower Heist (2011)
Running time: 104 minutes (1 hour, 44 minutes)
MPAA – PG-13 for language and sexual content
DIRECTOR: Brett Ratner
WRITERS: Ted Griffin and Jeff Nathanson; from a story by Adam Cooper, Bill Collage, and Ted Griffin
PRODUCERS: Brian Grazer, Eddie Murphy, and Kim Roth
CINEMATOGRAPHER: Dante Spinotti
EDITOR: Mark Helfrich
COMPOSER: Christophe Beck

COMEDY/CRIME with elements of a thriller

Starring: Ben Stiller, Eddie Murphy, Casey Affleck, Alan Alda, Matthew Broderick, Stephen Henderson, Judd Hirsch, Téa Leoni, Michael Peña, Gabourey Sidibe, Nina Arianda, Marcia Jean Kurtz, and Juan Carlos Hernandez

Tower Heist is a 2011 crime comedy from director Brett Ratner (the Rush Hour franchise). The film follows the misadventures of a gang of working stiffs who plot to rob a Wall Street tycoon who stole their pensions. Tower Heist is a comic caper that lives up to the comedy part, and the film’s actors deliver on their characters, especially Eddie Murphy who returns to the kind of character that made him popular in the 1980s.

Tower Heist focuses on Josh Kovacs (Ben Stiller), the building manager of The Tower, a high-rise luxury apartment complex in New York City’s Columbus Circle (Manhattan). The residents are wealthy and are used to being catered to, and the building’s security is no joke. Still, Josh has everything under control until the Tower’s most noteworthy tenant, wealthy businessman, Arthur Shaw (Alan Alda), is arrested by the FBI for running a Ponzi scheme. It was Kovacs who suggested that Shaw invest the Tower employees’ pension fund, and now that money is also apparently gone.

When FBI agent Claire Denham (Téa Leoni) tells him that Shaw may get away with his crimes, Josh decides to get revenge on Shaw by breaking into his apartment to steal from him. He gathers fellow coworkers: his brother-in-law, Charlie Gibbs (Casey Affleck); a bankrupt Wall Street investor, Mr. Fitzhugh (Matthew Broderick); bellhop Enrique Dev’reaux (Michael Peña), and Jamaican-born maid, Odessa Montero (Gabourey Sidibe) as his crew. Josh knows, however, that his crew needs a real criminal, so he recruits his neighbor, a petty crook named Slide (Eddie Murphy), to assist them in the robbery. But as determined as they are, things keep getting in their way.

Tower Heist is not really a heist film like the edgier The Italian Job (either version) or the cool and clever Ocean’s Eleven (2001) and its sequels. Tower Heist is comic fluff – successful comic fluff, but still fluff, and its concepts, ideas, and set pieces are utter fantasy. Things happen in this movie that are so unbelievable that they are often funny; it’s ridiculous stuff, but quite amusing.

The real treasures in Tower Heist are the actors and their characters. The story that is Tower Heist is Josh Kovacs’ story, and Ben Stiller, who has been a successful leading man in big screen comedies for well over a decade, is funny. However, Stiller gives the film a surprising dramatic heft by giving Kovacs a dark and melancholy side that simmers right alongside this movie’s humor – even if many viewers may not see it.

Eddie Murphy, in his role as Slide, has done what many critics (and some fans) have been demanding for over two decades – return to playing the wiseass who makes being rude, confrontational, and streetwise a gold standard. This kind of character, in one form or another, appeared in early Murphy films like 48 Hrs., Trading Places, and Beverly Hills Cop and at various time during Murphy’s tenure on “Saturday Night Live” (1980-84), yet in this film, that kind of character still seems fresh. The reason for this may be that Murphy plays Slide as a genuine criminal, a confrontational person who may appear comical, but who is actually an opportunistic career criminal and felon that is dangerous and untrustworthy. Slide is a real hood rat and is good for the film’s conflict and tension. He makes you believe that this heist has a better than 50% chance of going really bad.

There are other good supporting performances: Téa Leoni (who should have had a larger role), Matthew Broderick, and Alan Alda (who makes Arthur Shaw seem like a really nasty piece of work). I’ll also give credit for Tower Heist’s success as a comedy to both director Brett Ratner and editor Mark Helfrich. Ratner allows the actors room to play their characters for strong (if not maximum) effect. Helfrich composes a film that makes sure the comic moments are really funny and turns the heist sequence into a surprising thriller. I’d like to be a snob about this sometimes shallow and fluffy movie, but I really enjoyed Tower Heist. So why front?

7 of 10
A-

Sunday, November 06, 2011

Review: "Mad Money" Has Mad Funny Trio

TRASH IN MY EYE No. 6 (of 2008) by Leroy Douresseaux

Mad Money (2008)
Running time: 103 minutes (1 hour, 43 minutes)
MPAA – PG-13 for sexual material and language, and brief drug references
DIRECTOR: Callie Khouri
WRITERS: Glenn Gers (based upon an earlier screenplay by John Mister and the screenplay for Hot Money by Neil McKay and Terry Winsor)
PRODUCERS: James Acheson, Jay Cohen, and Frank DeMartini
CINEMATOGRAPHER: John Bailey
EDITOR: Wendy Greene Bricmont

CRIME/COMEDY

Starring: Diane Keaton, Queen Latifah, Katie Holmes, Ted Danson, Adam Rothenberg, Roger R. Cross, Meagan Fay, Christopher McDonald, Stephen Root, Sterling Blackmon, Peyton “Alex” Smith, and Matthew Greer

While watching the crime caper Mad Money, anyone who views it with a critical eye will notice that the character writing is thin and that the plot stumbles whenever the narrative jumps back and forth in time, but director Callie Khouri (who won an Oscar for writing Thelma & Louise) keeps things moving – fast and upbeat – so the viewer won’t see the cracks in this lighthearted crime escapade.

The plot is implausible, and even viewers that don’t look hard can see where the criminal conspiracy at the heart of Mad Money would fall apart early in its execution. However, this comic trio of Diane Keaton, Queen Latifah and Katie Holmes are so lovable, and this recessionary crime tale about the struggling working class and downsized middle class is both timely and rings true.

Bridget Cardigan (Diane Keaton) discovers that she is about to lose both her home and comfortable middle class lifestyle because her husband, Don (Ted Danson), has been unemployed for a year (downsized from his job), and the couple is nearly 300,000 dollars in debt. Bridget, a stay-at-home mom, has been out of the job market for decades, and her decades-old comparative literature degree won’t help her in this tight job market. She accepts the only job she can get – as a janitor. Her custodial job is at the Federal Reserve Bank, where every day, employees destroy millions of dollars in worn out paper currency taken out of the system.

Bridget surprisingly learns that she has more in common with her new co-workers than she thought when she forges an unexpected bond with Nina Brewster (Queen Latifah), a hard-working single mother of two young boys, and Jackie Truman (Katie Holmes), a wacky and exuberant free spirit who acts as if she has nothing to lose. Looking to finally just get ahead, Nina and Jackie find themselves buying into Bridget’s scheme - steal all those 1, 5, 10, 20, etc. dollar bills meant for destruction. As their little crime syndicate amasses piles of cash, the girls think they have pulled off the perfect crime – that is until one misstep has them trying to stay one step ahead of the law.

Playing Bridget Cardigan, who must go from supportive wife to bread winner, Diane Keaton doesn’t simply play the character as merely a supportive housewife. Early in the film, Bridget is mostly boosting her husband’s confidence, but Bridget soon has to roar – to assert herself. That’s when Keaton deftly transforms her character into a bossy spitfire, a snappy malcontent not content to watch the comfortable world for which she worked so hard to attain just vanish because society considers her and Don passé. Keaton makes Bridget both sweet and sour and both fragrant and pungent. She’s a senior citizen with zest, spicy and spunky, and Keaton shows that in many scenes, especially when we get to watch Bridget go to Nina Brewster’s inner city hood, in spite of her fears.

As for the supporting characters, Queen Latifah’s Nina Brewster is by far the best of the lot. Latifah makes Nina the island of sanity in a sea full of screwballs – including Keaton’s Bridget, but Latifah also makes the sometimes dour, so-serious Nina so quite likeable. Holmes is no slouch either. Her winning Jackie Truman, always bouncing and shaking to the music of her mp3 player, is the fun chick everyone wants to know. Holmes lights up the screen with Jackie’s screwy bubbly personality.

This is one time in Hollywood fare that a movie’s plot leaves male characters as background filler material, and the girls become the action heroes. Mad Money is, however, more than just a chick flick. It does the caper film as light, but both entertaining and well-timed material, and in these times with so many worried about their finances and livelihoods, it’s darn good to watch these girls beat the system silly. All hail this queenly trio for making stealing money as sweet as honey.

6 of 10
B

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Review: "Michael Clayton" is a Powerful Social Drama (Happy B'day to Goddess, Tilda Swinton)

TRASH IN MY EYE No. 15 (of 2008) by Leroy Douresseaux

Michael Clayton (2007)
Running time: 120 minutes (2 hours)
MPAA – R for language including some sexual dialogue
WRITER/DIRECTOR: Tony Gilroy
PRODUCERS: Jennifer Fox, Kerry Orent, Sydney Pollack, and Steve Samuels
CINEMATOGRAPHER: Robert Elswit
EDITOR: John Gilroy
2008 Academy Award winner

DRAMA/THRILLER

Starring: George Clooney, Tom Wilkinson, Tilda Swinton, Sydney Pollack, Michael O’Keefe, Austin Williams, Ken Howard, Robert Prescott, Terry Serpico, Sean Cullen, and David Lansbury

In screenwriter Tony Gilroy’s Michael Clayton, his debut as a film director, a burned out corporate lawyer who has built a career on cleaning up his clients’ messes faces his biggest mess when a guilt-ridden colleague threatens the settlement of a multi-million-dollar case. Gilroy is best known for writing the three Jason Bourne films, including most recently, The Bourne Ultimatum.

Michael Clayton (George Clooney) is an in-house “fixer” or “bagman” at Kenner, Bach & Ledeen, one of the largest corporate law firms in New York. A former criminal prosecutor, Clayton is burned out and hardly content with his job as a fixer, but his divorce, a failed business venture, and mounting debt have left Clayton inextricably tied to the firm. The firm is defending U/North (United Northfield) a giant corporation in a multimillion dollar class action lawsuit, but Kenner, Bach & Ledeen’s brilliant litigator, Arthur Edens (Tom Wilkinson), has a meltdown that threatens to upend a potential settlement entirely in favor of the plaintiffs against U/North.

Clayton faces the biggest challenge of his career and life to reign in Edens. Meanwhile, U/North’s general counsel, Karen Crowder (Tilda Swinton), who operates on a hair-trigger, knows that her career rests on the multi-million dollar settlement that once seemed to be heading to a successful conclusion for U/North. Edens’ rogue status means that Crowder may have to take matters into her own ruthless hands.

At one point in Michael Clayton, Sydney Pollack’s Marty Bach says, “People are fucking incomprehensible,” and that seems to be one of the dominant themes of Gilroy’s absolutely gripping legal thriller. Sure, Michael Clayton is an exposé of what evil corporations can do (poison their customers) and the way corporate law firms help them get away with it. The greed, the lies, and the under-the-table murder-for-hire deals are in evidence here, and while we’ve seen this in other muckraking dramas, what sets Michael Clayton apart is that we’re watching a film about people and not just characters.

It is in these people we see both the beauty and ugliness of humanity. We can admire how George Clooney’s Michael Clayton chases his ideals even if no one else believes in them or even if those ideals are the antithesis of others’ beliefs. The manner in which Gilroy tackles such mature themes through his star Clooney makes this an accomplished movie for adults. It’s a crackling delight full of standout performances including Tom Wilkinson’s Oscar-nominated turn as Arthur Edens and Tilda Swinton’s Oscar-winning performance as the neurotic viper Karen Crowder.

And Clooney: what can I say? He’s a movie star in the Old Hollywood tradition and also an exceptional actor that modern American filmmaking would be lost without.

9 of 10
A+

NOTES:
2008 Academy Awards: 1 win for “Best Performance by Actress in a Supporting Role” (Tilda Swinton); 6 nominations: “Best Achievement in Directing,” “Best Achievement in Music Written for Motion Pictures, Original Score” (James Newton Howard), “Best Motion Picture of the Year” (Sydney Pollack, Jennifer Fox, and Kerry Orent), “Best Performance by an Actor in a Leading Role” (George Clooney), “Best Performance by an Actor in a Supporting Role” (Tom Wilkinson), “Best Writing, Screenplay Written Directly for the Screen”

2008 BAFTA Awards: 1 win: “Best Supporting Actress” (Tilda Swinton); 4 nominations: “Best Editing” (John Gilroy), “Best Leading Actor” (George Clooney), “Best Screenplay – Original” (Tony Gilroy), and “Best Supporting Actor” (Tom Wilkinson)

2008 Golden Globes: 4 nominations: “Best Motion Picture – Drama,” “Best Performance by an Actor in a Motion Picture – Drama” (George Clooney), “Best Performance by an Actor in a Supporting Role in a Motion Picture” (Tom Wilkinson), and “Best Performance by an Actress in a Supporting Role in a Motion Picture” (Tilda Swinton)

Thursday, March 20, 2008

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"Best Animated Feature" Oscar Has 18 Suitors

18 Animated Features Submitted for 2011 Oscar® Race

Beverly Hills, CA (November 4, 2011) – Eighteen features have been submitted for consideration in the Animated Feature Film category for the 84th Academy Awards®.

The 18 submitted features are:
"The Adventures of Tintin"
"Alois Nebel"
"Alvin and the Chipmunks: Chipwrecked"
"Arthur Christmas"
"Cars 2"
"A Cat in Paris"
"Chico & Rita"
"Gnomeo & Juliet"
"Happy Feet Two"
"Hoodwinked Too! Hood vs. Evil"
"Kung Fu Panda 2"
"Mars Needs Moms"
"Puss in Boots"
"Rango"
"Rio"
"The Smurfs"
"Winnie the Pooh"
"Wrinkles"

Several of the films listed have not yet had their required Los Angeles qualifying runs. Submitted features must fulfill the theatrical release requirements and meet all of the category's other qualifying rules before they can advance in the voting process. At least eight eligible animated features must be theatrically released in Los Angeles County within the calendar year for this category to be activated.

Films submitted in the Animated Feature Film category may also qualify for Academy Awards in other categories, including Best Picture, provided they meet the requirements for those categories.

The 84th Academy Awards nominations will be announced live on Tuesday, January 24, 2012, at 5:30 a.m. PT in the Academy's Samuel Goldwyn Theater.

Academy Awards for outstanding film achievements of 2011 will be presented on Sunday, February 26, 2012, at the Kodak Theatre at Hollywood & Highland Center®, and televised live by the ABC Television Network. The Oscar presentation also will be televised live in more than 200 countries worldwide.

"Justice League: The New Frontier" Simply a Rousing Adventure

TRASH IN MY EYE No. 91 (of 2011) by Leroy Douresseaux

Justice League: The New Frontier (2008)
Running time: 75 minutes (1 hour, 15 minutes)
MPAA – PG-13 for violent content/images
DIRECTOR: Dave Bullock
WRITERS: Stan Berkowitz with Darwyn Cooke (based upon the comic book by Darwyn Cooke)
PRODUCERS: Stan Berkowitz, Darwyn Cooke, Michael Goguen (supervising), Gregory Noveck (executive), Sander Schwartz (executive), Kimberly Smith (line), Bruce W. Timm
EDITOR: Elen Orson
COMPOSER: Kevin Manthei

ANIMATION/SUPERHERO/DRAMA

Starring: (voices) David Boreanaz, Miguel Ferrer, Neil Patrick Harris, Keith David, Lucy Lawless, Kyle MacLachlan, Lex Lang, Phil Morris, Kyra Sedgwick, Brooke Shields, Jeremy Sisto, Corey Burton, and John Heard

Justice League: The New Frontier is a direct-to-video superhero animated film from Warner Bros. Animation. Starring DC Comics’ beloved superhero team, the Justice League of America, this film is based on the 6-issue comic book miniseries, DC: The New Frontier, written and drawn by Darwyn Cooke and published from 2003 to 2004. Justice League: The New Frontier is also the second feature in the DC Universe Animated Original Movies line.

Set in a period from 1953 to 1960, Justice League: The New Frontier begins with an unknown entity called The Center (Keith David). It has witnessed the evolution of life on Earth and has now decided to destroy all humans on the planet. Slowly, superheroes, costume heroes, and adventurers band together to save the world from the Center. The story features Superman (Kyle MacLachlan), Batman (Jeremy Sisto), and Wonder Woman (Lucy Lawless), among others. However, much of the story focuses on the sagas of Hal Jordan, who would become the Green Lantern (David Boreanaz); J’onn J’onzz of Mars, who would become the Martian Manhunter (Miguel Ferrer); and the speedster known as the Flash (Neil Patrick Harris).

I read Darwyn Cooke’s DC: The New Frontier several years ago, and I was also skeptical when I first read that it would become one of DC Comics’ straight-to-video films. I am happy to say that my skepticism was smashed. Justice League: The New Frontier is an excellent animated superhero feature. I wish it were an actual television series rather than just a movie barely over 70 minutes in length (in terms of actual story).

The animation is good, but it’s the character and production design that really shines in terms of the film’s visuals. The designers and animators retain the Jack Kirby-influenced art of Cooke’s New Frontier comic book art, with its clean lines and art deco styling. The story is good, and the action of the various subplots satisfactorily rises and falls as the overall story builds to a crescendo. The only disappointing thing is that the last 20 minutes, while exciting, looks like an animated version of some Michael Bay nonsense.

The voice performances are all good, but I’m particularly partial to Jeremy Sisto’s Batman. In fact, I love this film’s interpretation of the character, and I wish Warner Bros. would make an entire animated film built around Sisto’s Batman. Thus far, I’ve found DC Universe Animated Original Movies to be average, but Justice League: The New Frontier is a hit. I wish there would be a sequel.

7 of 10
A-

Friday, November 04, 2011