Superman/Batman: Public Enemies.

Right, now I have the one film of the four connected to Doom, I decided to just go to the earliest of the three left and start from there, so Superman/Batman: Public Enemies it is!

Let's take a minute to talk about Superman & Batman, this is probably one of the few places I can genuinely fit my frustrations over what I am about to rant about, in a review.

If you aren't a comicbook fan, you'd probably believe DC has only two heroes, Superman and Batman.

There has been maybe four live action movies not about Superman or Batman or characters from their stories. So despite the fact that DC have a massive pantheon of awesome characters, Hollywood are apparently too scared of the 'gamble' of not using their two bonafide moneymakers.


I guess I can't argue with this on one level, because films these days are run by Jews in suits and the only thing that matters to them is money but other heroes could become household names if you gave them a chance, in a sense by pouring all your money into just two franchises, you're missing out the chance of perhaps making money off a new hero. I mean look, Marvel did it, sure it was still all the main leaguers but they at least had a wider range of heroes on our screens. Then again after the cunt stain that was Green Lantern, DC are probably going to run away and make a shit load of new Batman and Superman films to try and recover...

The exact same thing can be said for the animated movies too. Seven of thirteen animated movies all either Batman, Superman or Batman/Superman. Ten if we include the Justice League films. Only Wonder Woman and GL have been given their own movies and since Emerald Knights was about the entire corps, it wasn't even about favourites like Hal or Kyle. I mean the JL movies do a good job of shoving in cameos from other heroes although they always come down to either Batman and Superman. Why must 99% of the DC Universe be reduced to cameos?

Why can't we have an underwater adventure movie with the cocky Aquaman, full of swashbuckling - this could easily be done kid friendly if you centralise it around the adventure aspect, making it marketable to a mass audience? Or a high speed adventure with The Flash? Maybe a gritty and dark street level movie about Black Canary and Wildcat, it could be a more mature aimed film, done in a sort of noir style as they hunt down a crazed serial killer? How about a film where Batman gets taken out of action (YES KILL BATMAN!) and Green Arrow has to take his place and the burden that provides, a sort of thinking man's Superhero movie? Seriously DC, steal my ideas if it gets them made, the world just doesn't need any more Batman or Superman movies or even Batman/Superman movies, no matter how much you believe them to be surefire moneymakers, I can't be the only one finding them stale, always on our screens.

Public Enemies attempts to present a modern world, a world in a chaos, a world where Lex Luthor, despite everything he has done, can become president. It's a rather typical story of government drafted heroes, they shouldn't be allowed to be vigilantes then there is a wider plot of an impending meteor strike and stuff - it is all some massive trick so Luthor can get back at Superman, what a pathetic, obsessed weirdo. Why is he so obsessed anyway?

There are quite a few subplots that also lead nowhere, they make a big deal out of everyone going 'OMG Luthor can change, he is the president now' but make no real explanation how he got there and by the time he is evil again, not only is it sudden, it just makes the entire first three quarters pointless. Much like the subplot of Luthor's steroid addiction. Why, why is it there?

The art is heavily stylised this time around and although it doesn't look nearly as cheap as Doom or Two Earths did, the stylisation on a lot of the characters is still damn ugly. The characters are designed with so much muscle it creates almost the opposite effect making them look almost fat. I mean look at those shoulders, they look so out of proportion, those thighs are so large I can't believe they can actually walk, do those arms even bend and look at the size of those hands! I mention this more than anything because these chunky ass character designs mean that most of the fight scenes look clunky as fuck.

That aside, this probably has the best fights I've seen from the last three DC animated features movies I have watched. They just have a real sense of scale to them and it makes them really epic. There is a lot of imagination in them too, which keeps them exciting and fresh. It is just a shame it all looks so ugly. This seems to be a running theme in these movies.

To get around the fact that this movie doesn't look cheap as shit like the others did, they put in some shitty CGI for balance. I swear when Spider-Man swung around the city in the 1994 animated series it looked better than when Lex and Superman were chasing each other through the city at the end.

At least all the proper voice actors are back this time around. Makes everything seem a lot less out of character this way. I mean even Dr. Cox makes a voice appearance as Metallo - Metallo being one of the best characters in the film, too.

Oh look, Superman got shot in the chest with a kryptonite bullet, by Metallo which they repeated again in Doom, awesome...

Maybe I just have some kind of gay tendencies or something, but I swear with the way they built up the chemistry, Superman and Batman seemed less like best friends and instead inches away from tearing off each others clothes. Some of their interchange of dialogue seemed so charged with sexual tension it actually made me uncomfortable. I mean just look at the way it ends! I have nothing against gay people but Batman and Superman aren't gay and this isn't a slash fiction. Even looking past the homoerroticism between Supes and Bats, there is just so much dialogue in this film that is just so awkward, so silly, it had me laughing out loud. I'm really sure this isn't meant to be a comedy.

Hell this movie is made almost completely worth it because of a cameo from Captain Marvel. But why does he have to be working for Lex? It's completely out of character. But what a surprise, he gets taken down, in one hit, by Batman... and guess who it all comes down to in the end? Yep, Batman, duh.

Much like what I said at the beginning, this film is rammed full of cameos, most of which don't even have a speaking line and are only in it to get punched or kicked by Superman or Batman and are never seen again. So no, this is no better.

This film is easily the most kid friendly. There is practically no gore at all and the insanely annoying 13 year old Toy'man' deserves a kryptonite bullet...to the face.

So do I recommend it? Public Enemies has easily the best action out of the three I have reviewed so far and is probably the most epic too. But what stops it from being a firm recommendation is some ugly character designs and some awful writing. A rather ongoing theme, it seems.

Think About It!

-Locke