Justice For Ben Tramer

 

ANI-MOVIES, *Injustice

Based on both the first video game and the Year One comic book prequel series, Injustice show what would happen if Superman lost all inhibitions and tried to bring his own brand of "truth and justice" to the entire world. Originally starting out as a spinoff of Mortal Kombat Vs. DC Universe, the Injustice video games took characters from the DC Universe(s) and had them each on the same power level thanks to a special super-pill which would allow characters like Black Canary be able to survie an actual fist fight with General Zod. None of that level of combat translate in the movie adaptation as its later on in the story, but is more of how the world would react to a serious paradigm shift with its super heroes.

Set in another version of the standard DC Universe, the Joker with Harley Quinn kidnaps Lois Lane, and exposes Superman to a Kryptonite-laced faceful of fear gas, forcing him to see Lois as the monster Doomsday. The resulting fight kills Lois and her unborn child, sending Superman into a vengeful frenzy, and impales the Joker. Under Batman's orders, Green Arrow secretly takes Harley into custody to save her from Superman's wrath, while the Man of Steel slowly divides the Justice League and the rest of Earth's heroes as he along with Wonder Woman establish a new world order. Batman heads up an underground network of vigilantes to maintain peace on a street level, while Superman's influence spreads stopping all wars, and using hi-tech monitoring systems that he forced Mr. Terrific to acquire. Superman tries to send the inmates at Arkham Asylum to a secret prison, but Batman gets in the way, resulting in Robin accidently killing Nightwing who later becomes this universe's version of Deadman as "Deadwing". Robin convinces Superman to ally with his grandfather, Ra's al Ghul, and creates a superpowered android named Amazo to be the first of an army of mechanical monitors. Amazo blows a major fuse while patrolling Smallville, and Superman is shocked to find out that Ra's gave it similar powers, causing the deaths of Hawkman and Cyborg. Batman's remaining heroes arrive to help take down Amazo, while Mr. Terrific uses a dimensional gateway to bring in a Superman from another universe to battle his corrupt counterpart. A Lois Lane from a totally different reality still pregnant with her Superman's child to convince this tainted Superman to surrender, leaving Batman and the remaining heroes to salvage the rest of their Earth.

The task of folding an entire comic book maxi-series along with portions of the first video game into a single feature-length production doesn't play out as tight as a longer movie or mini-series might have had a better chance at. Key characters like Lex Luthor are completely absent, while others like Flash get either killed or taken down off-screen, and numerous plotpoints are other rushed or rewritten in an attempt to streamline the narrative of this massive saga, which means leaving out the other 4 volumes of the Injustice prequel comic, and pretty much all of the first video game. The singular story on its own is decent, but works more like an alternate universe 2-parter from the Justice League animated series. The Injustice movie makes for a good enough watch for fans of DC superheroes, although hardcore admirers of the original source material might be turned off by the abridged plot.

Dr. Loomis! Dr. Loomis!

 

ANI-MOVIES, *A Timeslip of 10,000 Years: Prime Rose

One of Osamu Tezuka's obscure and more risque manga was this the basis for this made-for-TV feature. Prime Rose was a sci-fi/fantasy embracing the Mad Max and Conan genres that had dominated the early 80s. The 4-volume manga was developed into a full-length production, the difference was though is that Tezuka tweaked the anime to more fit his original vision.

Set sometime in the future, a demonic spirit takes over a defense satellite named Death Mask, and splits it in half, one part landing in a Japanese city, and the other in Dallas, Texas. Both cities are sent 10,000 years into the future where the Earth is a wasteland, and the two civilizations are broken up into the agressive Guroman and the peaceful Kukurit, which continue to fight for dominance. A time traveller from around the same era Death Mask, Gai Tanbara is tasked with going into the future both cities were sent to for investigation, even though this "Time Patrol" claims to have found traces of these civilizations from this point in time, meaning they don't need to investigate it at all if they already have proof of their existence. Gai's annoying brother tage along to be the Scrappy-Doo of this story, and the two become seperated as the occupying Guroman forces taking over. The pretty Emiya is the daughter of a Kukurit merchant, and catches the eye of the Guroman governor. She runs off to learn swordfighting by an outcasted warrior, who later reveals he's her father, and the former king of Kukurit. Emiya's real name is Prime Rose, and she set out to defeat the Guroman forces, and allies herself with Gai to confront the demonic force responsible for all their suffering.

Prime Rose is a confusing watch, both from a narrative perspective, and from the linear dynamics of time travel which contradict several plotpoints. The animation is reasonable for the early 80s, but not cinematic quality. There's a few changes with the characters from the manga like Emiya now having purple hair instead of being blonde, and the Guroman governor in this version being totally bald. The manga hasn't been released in English at this time, but the anime is a decent release through Retro Crush, even though there is some misplaced subtitles in this Japanese language edition.

ANI-MOVIES, *Sherlock Holmes And The Great Escape

Surprisingly not being a remake of Hayao Miyazaki's Sherlock Hound anime TV series from the 80s, this production from China is based on the light novel series by Lai Hao and Yu Yuen Wong, The Great Detective Sherlock Holmes. The books tells cases of the opium-addict investigator in an anthropomorphic universe, which only differs from Sherlock Hound as all the characters in that were all dogs. Sherlock is still a canine person in a world of other various animal people, even though the horses are still just horses. This CGI movie is an adaptaion of the second of the 5-volume series, each one acting as its own seperate story.

Set in 19th Century London, Sherlock is on the hunt for the gentlemanly thief White Storm, who is like a Robin Hood stealing from the corrupt rich to give to the downtrodden. Sherlock deduces the thief is Mack, an illusive man who secretly visits his orphened daughter every year on her birthday, and captures him on his annual visit. Mack then spends the next four years in jail, with his daughter now old enough to get married to her childhood sweetheart, so he escapes from prison to attend her wedding. This fires up the hatred of fellow prisoner Scarface as he used his own escape plans without him, and manages to evade the hapless police to get his petty vengeance, even though he managed to break out of jail on his own! Sherlock and Mack team up to capture Scarface who has captured Mack's daughter. There's a ending teaser where Sherlock realizes that this whole four year affair was really the machinations of the mastermind Moriarty, hinting at a sequal that so far doesn't seem to be happening.

Sherlock Holmes And The Great Escape has some impressive 3D animation, keeping the look of illustrator Wong's character designs. The character designs and mannerisms are token anime-themed, as several Chinese productions are inspired by Japanese entertainment, most especially in the scenes where Sherlock describes how a crime scene played out. The plot itself deviates severely from your standard Sherlock Holmes mystery as its made fairly clear who the original suspect was, and then adding a large thug as the main bad guy for the 2nd act. If you're looking for enjoyable Sherlock movie with talking animals for your kids to watch, then you might be better off watching The Great Mouse Detective, or at least catch the Sherlock Hound anime that this is clearly ripping off.

Where the Hell is the buddy cop movie starring these two?

 

OBSCURE O.V.A.S, *Prefectural Earth Defense Force

Having no relation to the Monster Attack video game spinoff, or the live-action 50s movie(aka: The Mysterians), Prefectural Earth Defense Force was at first a limited gag manga from the 80s parodying tokusatsu shows like Ultraman. Kouichirou Yasunaga created the manga, and the doujinshi gained enough traction to get Studio Gallop to take it up as a one-shot special, even though the anime is formatted as a 3-episode series in a single production, which was groundbreaking for the dawn of OVAs. Titles like Project A-Ko helped boost the market for anime spoofs, but this OVA helped carry it along the genre for the otaku market on both hemispheres.

A prefecture in Japan has been targeted for being conquered by the evil criminal organization, The Telephone Pole Group, mostly because their plans for world domination are better off being localized to a single section of a nation to begin. To counter this, the governor hires the baseball club of the nearby high school, consisting of only three members. They are given a boost from a foreign student from India who just happened to be turned into a missile-launching cyborg after a doctor fell in love with the idea from watching The Six Million Dollar Man. The villains consist of a standard leader with a thing for crowns and capes, a free lunch hording floozie, and a near endless army of masked minions. Despite there being superhero hijinks abound, alot of the plots deal with the characters overreacting to each other's efforts, leading to massive explosions resulting in tons of property damage.

Most of the humor and subject matter are slightly dated since it's from the early days of anime fandom, but it does make this OVA something easier to watch as opposed to a spoof like Project A-Ko which makes fun of numerous Japanese and American pop culture icons. Prefectural Earth Defense Force was available only in America on DVD directly through ADV Films' online store, meaning it wasn't readily for sale at your local Best Buy or most anime con dealers. There are some surprisingly impressive animation sequences in the OVA, which make it worth a watch if you're curious enough about retro anime, although it is hard to come across an affordable copy.