• Welcome! The TrekBBS is the number one place to chat about Star Trek with like-minded fans.
    If you are not already a member then please register an account and join in the discussion!

Your reviews of DC superhero animated Blu-rays on sale at Best Buy

Aragorn

Fleet Admiral
Admiral
At Best Buy, there's a sale going on right now where the the following Blu-ray titles are on sale for $12.99 each -- Wonder Woman, Batman: Gotham Knight, Superman: Doomsday and Justice League: The New Frontier. Anyone who's seen them yet -- on DVD or Blu-ray -- have any reviews/opinions to share?

One review for Justice League said the story was gutted down to a lot of generic by-the-numbers stuff and some of the voice actors sounded bored, but it was still a very positive review. One review for Doomsday was pretty bad.
 
Justice League: New Frontier - okay (I think the story it's based on is very overrated), rather scattershot in focus (like the story).

Wonder Woman - great action, great animation, I think a lot of their conception of Diana and her people completely miss the point of Marston and Perez's work in the comics.

Green Lantern: First Flight - overall probably the best of them as a story, though hindered by a rather unexplored lead character.
 
I don't know if it's a popular view, but I've personally thought that all four of those on sale were rather lackluster. For me, there's just something that feels "off" about each one of them; I really want to like them, but I just don't feel it. It's what led me to give each of them only 3 stars at Netflix (which on my opinion scale means that I watched it once; thought it was okay; and I won't watch it again even if I'm channel surfing and happen to see it on).
 
Superman Doomsday sucks. The Doomsday story itself is boring and the animation of Supes sucks. Anne Heche also sucks as Lois.

Wonder Woman is solid. Good stuff. Would I purchase it? I don't know, maybe if I had a little girl to show it to.

Batman Gotham Knight - I love the idea of this. I love Kevin Conroy. I have fallen asleep to this 3 times and never made it through. I just can't get into it.

Justice League New Frontier: Excellent. The best of these released so far. Buy it immediately.
 
Superman Doomsday: I enjoyed it. It could have used an extra 30 minutes to expand both the pre-doomsday time and the post-death/pre-rebirth period, but it was still enjoyable.

Gotham Knight: I hate anime. I can't get past the animation style. I haven't bothered to watch this because of that.

Justice League: Great. I love the concept, love mixing in the historical speeches, and the plot works. If you only buy 1 of these, buy this one.

Wonder Woman: The character has never interested me. I haven't bothered to watch it.

Green Lantern: Boring. The only one of these that I regretted taking the time to watch. The characters are flat, the plot is predictable, and I just didn't find anything interesting to see here. Sure it's in space and there are lots of fights. But how long can you see green and yellow lasers shot at each other before asking what's next?
 
I already own Batman and Wonder Woman. Maybe I'll get Justice League.

FYI, these prices are the same on Amazon.com right now.
 
I've enjoyed all of them to varying degrees.

Superman: Doomsday - Adam Baldwin and James Marsters are very good in their voice roles as Superman and Lex Luthor respectively. Anne Heche, voicing Lois Lane, goes for a breathy rat-a-tat-tat style of delivery which was jarring at first, but which grew on me on repeat viewing. Her voice work in this is widely disliked, though.

Out of all the DTV so far, Superman: Doomsday is the one that's closest to the design sensibilities of the DCAU. That's unsurprising since Bruce Timm is one of the directors and did a lot of the design work. The lines on Superman's cheeks are often cited as an eyesore in terms of the designs, and I agree that they don't look great, but it's not a deal-breaker for me.

One of the main sources of complaint is that the story is very different from the comic book storyline. Accepting that it's loosely inspired by the comics rather than anything approaching a direct adaptation is crucial to enjoyment of it.

Anyway, in my opinion the action is pretty good and the story is solid, while the highlights are to be found in the most perverse screen incarnations of Lex Luthor and Toyman seen to date.

Justice League: The New Frontier - the graphic novel is a big, sprawling work and much is lost by cutting it down to fit the running time of an animated DTV movie.

The negatives are that the story is choppy and may be hard to follow at times for those who haven't read the GN, some of the voice work is a little lackluster by the usually high standards of Warner Animation (although not overly so), and some of the big battle scenes lapse into poor animation in a clear case of biting off more than the budget can handle. The positives are mostly to be found in the great design work and the cool neo-Silver Age ambiance that's created.

Batman: Gotham Knight - a lot of people were disappointed that the various segments didn't fit together into a more cohesive narrative. Personally I thoroughly enjoyed it, but then I was perfectly ready to accept it as a series of vignettes that showcase Batman in different anime styles and are mostly thinly-connected mood pieces. Although he did a good job, it felt a little odd to me to hear Kevin Conroy's voice coming from these animation designs.

Wonder Woman - this is the one of the first four that I most highly recommend to buy. It has a strong story, good voice acting (with Nathan Fillion being the standout), great animation, some good humor, and a narrative that fits nicely within the running time. It also has a very rich color design that looks great in Blu-ray and a very good score.
 
They're all good-not-great. Superman Doomsday is good action but it really rankles how simple the story is made versus the comics. Wonder Woman... it's alright. New Frontier is different and interesting but the villain isn't that great. Gotham Knight is the weakest of those. Some of the stories were interesting, some not so much.
 
If you are not already a member then please register an account and join in the discussion!

Sign up / Register


Back
Top