ANI-MOVIES, *The Road To El Dorado

For DreamWorks' third theatrical animation release as well as their second traditional animated production, The Road To El Dorado was a mostly original story inspired on the old Road To... movies starring Bing Crosby and Bob Hope. Written by former Aladdin screenwriters Ted Elliott and Terry Rossio, plus directed by former Asterix animator Eric Bergeron, the film already had a fair pedigree behind it. The musical score was composed by John Powell and Hans Zimmer, along with original songs by Elton John and Tim Rice, so the soundtrack was real humdinger. Despite all this, the film underperformed at the box office not even making all its budget back. The musical comedy adventure went on to become a favorite among families and animation fans when it was later released on cable and video.

During the 16th Century, Spaniards Miguel and Tulio end up stowing away on Cortes' campaign to South America, but they make off in a lifeboat along with Cortes' horse Altivo. The three of them finally find land and use a map they happened to swindle that is supposed to lead to the mythical city of El Dorado. After a melodic trek through the jungle, Miguel and Tulio locate the outer gates to the city as a lovely young native named Chel was making her escape from El Dorado with the city security chasing her for stealing a divine treasure. The natives mistake the two Spaniards riding a horse as gods and guide them through a watery tunnel which is the opening for the secluded city of gold. Migel and Tulio plot to use their godly ruse to make off with a bunch of loot and return to Spain rich, although the priest Tzekel-Kan is trying to use the presence of these "gods" to steal the thunder of the kindly chief, and Chel wants to leave with the newcomers by loving it up with Miguel. Tzekel-Kan learns that the men aren't really gods and uses his unexplained but genuine magic to attack them with a giant jaguar statue, but they manage to trick the wicked priest into falling into a whirlpool that conveniently streams him to outside the city where he comes across Cortes and his men searching for El Dorado. Knowing that conquistadors are coming, Migel, Tulio, Chel, and Altio use the boat they were going to use for their trip back to Spain with their treasure and block the underground entrance which leaves Cortes free to pillage the rest of Mesoamerica and conquer the Aztec Empire. The surviving adventures ride away on horseback to find their next journey, setting the way for a sequel that never happened.

The Road To El Dorado might not have been the best seller DreamWorks was hoping for, even though it did become the sleeper favorite of Gen Zers. There is some gorgeous animation, catchy songs, and comedy gold, especially the bromance between Miguel and Tulio which is a first for an animated feature where the two main leads are both human males, neither of which are princes. Kevin Kline and Kenneth Branagh are humor incarnate with their Crosby/Hope homage, and Rosie Perez is alluring as Chel, plus voice acting veteran Jim Cummings plays multiple roles including Cortes. The movie might have been a bigger hit upon its initial release if they had geared it slightly more towards younger viewers and merchandised the heck out of it like Disney.

ANI-MOVIES, *The Nut Job

Even though screenwriter Lorne Cameron previously worked on Over The Hedge, the similarly themed animated feature The Nut Job is its own separate entity as it is based on the short Surly Squirrel created by former-Disney animator Peter Lepeniotis which came out a year before Over The Hedge. Released somewhat independently by Open Road Films as their only animated franchise to date, The Nut Job is another funny animal movie with cartoon nincompoopery, but unlike DreamWorks they manage to keep the pop culture references to a bare minimum. With a trio of animation studios behind it, The Nut Job managed to make four times its budget back, as well as a sequel three years later, even though much of the funding for this was provided by the South Korean government. The movie of course decided to forego the hiring of professional voice actors and just filled out the cast with whichever celebrities that would sign up for it, even though this doesn't completely work against it.

In a small town during the 50s, a wily outsider squirrel called Surly along with his silent partner Buddy get kicked out of the park they live in after accidently setting fire to a tree containing all the other animals' food for the winter. Surly and Buddy then find a nut shop which is really the front for a gang planning on robbing a bank by a tunnel they dug under the safe. The outcasted rodents plot to making off with a huge bundle of nuts, but the power-hungry Racoon who runs the park animals sends the fairer female squirrel Andie to go out searching for food along with the well-meaning squirrel Grayson who sees himself as the hero type. Surly works out a deal with Andie to split the nuts loot with the help of the park animals. There are several parallels going on between the humans' bank heist and the animals plot to steal the nuts, and there are numerous misunderstandings as well as betrayals between all the characters, both critter and criminal. Racoon continuously plots to keep control over the animals in the park even if that means having some of them killed off in the literal nut job which comes back to bite him in the tail as Surly is one of the few ones that notices how much Racoon is trying to screw everyone over. There is lengthy chase between all the crooks in the end and Surly managing to reveal what a jerk Racoon is. Grayson is seen as the hero supplying the park with enough nuts and made the animals' new leader while Surly and Buddy decide to live in the city secretly helping Andie out, sort of like their own personal Batman.

The Nut Job is a funny enough movie which is more than just taking an old Looney Tunes short and stretching it out to feature-length. The animation is moderate for fully-CGI, although not entirely up to Pixar's level of quality. The voice actors are adequate with Will Arnet doing yet another talking animal, Liam Neeson as the corrupt Racoon, Katherine Heigl as Andie, and Brendan Frasier reworking his Dudley Do-Right impression as Grayson. Most of the other characters are forgettable, especially the humans and the pug Precious who gets unnecessarily involved and was thrown in merely for filler material. The most unforgivable sin of the film is how the American producers caved into the urges of their Korean investors by turning the closing credits into one big music video set to Gangnam Style complete with an animated version of rapper Psy dancing along with the other characters despite the fact that the movie takes place during the 1950s.

How Anime Influenced My Adventures With Superman: Season 2 Edition

The second season of My Adventures With Superman carries on its anime inspiration that it did from Season One. Season Two picks up with more otaku references and eye catchers. Studio Mir is still behind the stellar animation and focusing on the anime genre like they did with Legend Of Korra and Voltron: Legendary Defender. This season brought the bigger menace of Brainiac, and the addition of Superman’s only known living relative, Supergirl.

Season Two sees Clark learning more about Krypton by a memory of his father Jor-El while Amanda Waller learns about his vulnerability to Kryptonite. Lois and Clark grow closer after he helps break her father General Lane out of prison. Luthor allies himself with Waller and supplies her with a robot army while Superman contacts his equally powerful cousin Kara who previously made friends with Jimmy. The youthful alien is really under the influence of the genocidal android Brainiac who is the one responsible for the destruction of Krypton. Kara kidnaps her cousin Clark, although he manages to get through to her after she learns the truth of Brainiac’s galactic crusade to bring all life under his mechanical empire when he’s not destroying whole civilizations. Waller sets up the Human Defense Corps to protect Earth from aliens as Lois and Jimmy head to space with Brain and Mallah who just happen to run into Kara as she was planet-hopping. Brainiac takes over Superman’s body and begins his assault on Metropolis. The HDC fail to stop the psychotic robot even though Lois and her friends break Clark free. After various standard anime power-ups, Superman and the new Supergirl demolish Brainiac in a final battle at the sun along with the help of some reformed villains from Intergang and Task Force X. The door is left open for more trouble from Luthor as he sets up his own business with Slade Wilson.

Instead of building up to Brainiac like he was the final boss of a video game, this season went straight to making him the main source of conflict with Kara acting as his willing agent. This streamlined the story considerably and left just enough time for Clark and Lois relationship to flourish. They continue to grow as individuals and as a couple with all the shonen action tropes added in to the plot.

Speaking of shonen stereotypes, Season 2 is weighed down with way more of these than Season 1 did. Superman and Supergirl both gain new outfits and unlock different powers such as projecting a force field during moments of great stress. Like how he was written in the Silver Age, whatever power Superman needs to have to resolve a certain situation like manifesting freezing breath. He even gets a fiery glow around himself just like Super-Saiyan mode. Season 3 will probably have the Man of Steel shooting out rainbow beams from his hands creating disposable miniature versions of himself.

The DC Universe gets somewhat expanded here too as we’re introduced to other alien races. Hawkman’s people from the planet Thanagar are shown to be nearly extinct thanks to a brainwashed Supergirl. We’re also introduced to a hint of the Green Lantern Corps when Superman must fight a hologram of one. This is supposed to lead into an upcoming spinoff animates series titled My Adventures With Green Lantern starring Jessica Cruz that will be produced by co-showrunner Jake Ryatt.

The character of Brainiac is a tipping of the hat to 80s anime as his form is totally different in this series as opposed to his prior designs. He regularly looks like a green-skinned human with wiring on his bald head, but now he appears as a fully mechanical android much like the Paranoids from Gall Force which were gelatinous lifeforms living inside robot bodies like the Daleks. Instead of being a cold emotionless AI, Brainiac here takes a cue from the MCU’s version of Ultron and added more of an actual personality to the emotionless villain who is voiced by Michael Emerson. After previously playing an older Joker in The Dark Knight Returns animated feature, Emerson portrays a more sadistic and malicious Brainiac like his character on Lost as he is motivated to saving Krypton’s culture by eliminating all other life in the universe to preserve his world's way of life, even if that meant destroying the all the Kryptonians to do so.

The characters still maintain their anime-influenced look, most especially Kara as her disguise for blending in on Earth was taken directly from Dragonball Z as she’s dressed exactly like Android 18. Supergirl’s original outfit even gives off the look of an Evangelion Unit with huge shoulder mounts. There is also a greater sense of body shape diversity as Batman’s occasional girlfriend Silver St. Cloud here is a tall muscular woman, plus a gender-flipped version of Flash’s enemy Heat Wave is a muscular woman who carries on a lesbian relationship with Livewire who oddly helps Lois in her mission to reach Superman and defend Metropolis against Brainiac. Slade Wilson remains a disappointing blue-collar take on Deathstroke, and Luthor is just a young preppy teen who's just waiting to get his hair blown off. Jimmy evolves a little bit too as he leads his new Flamebird news crew and jokingly goes through his initial five-million-dollar investment throughout the course of the series.

The mecha designs in this season are also reflections of various anime titles. The transforming sentries working for Brainiac appear as simple android droids capable of causing problems for two Kryptonians, but very angular in form void of any real humanity. Most of the alien weapons also shoot out missiles inspired by Macross and other space anime.

The greatest anime homage in this are the fight sequences which are right out of Dragonball, My Hero Academia, and Demon Slayer. The animation takes full advantage of the fact that these are fighters with powers like super-speed and flight while firing heat-vision from their eyes. It’s very crisp and sharp containing and great attention to detail aside from how fast they might seem to the naked eye.

Season Two of My Adventures Of Superman digs even deeper into the otaku mindset. There are plenty of callbacks to recent and classic anime titles. Supergirl especially does her best as an alien first visiting Earth as a fish out of water which has been used in several otherworldly girlfriend scenarios. Anime fans can watch this without seeing Season One if they have a basic enough idea of the Superman mythos, although since each season is only ten episodes each, it wouldn’t take too long to get through either set in a short amount of time.

R.I.P., Val Kilmer

 

Avengers: Doomsday. What about Bob?

 

Masters Of The Universe: Relevation VS. Revolution

Masters Of The Universe is one of the more enduring franchises to still survive the weird market of the 1980s. The toy line was created by Mattel at first to compete with Star Wars as well as to stand as its own succession into the field of sci-fi/fantasy which included coming up with its an original animated TV series from Filmation of He-Man And The Masters Of The Universe and its sequel She-Ra: Princess Of Power. Despite Filmation's limited resources and reusing the same footage and animated sequences throughout each episode, both shows were viewed as being a fixed figure among 80s cartoons. This lead to several spinoffs, both animated and live-action, but when it came to following up the original series most of them went in their own direction. Then after coming out with a successful reboot of She-Ra, Netflix focused on doing another MOTU animated series, this time produced by Clerks creator Kevin Smith, otherwise known as half of Jay and Silent Bob. Even though Smith already had a history of creating his own View Askewniverse along with several comic books and other geek-centered properties, so having one the biggest fanboys working on revitalizing the MOTU saga seemed like a good idea.

This began in 2021 with Revelation which was released in two separate parts consisting of five episodes each. The first part had He-Man and Skeletor seemingly dying which leaves the rest of Eternia to pick up the pieces of the mess the lead characters left behind, and the second half has less substance as it dealt with various people gaining the Power of Grayskull and its impacts on the universe. In 2024, a new 5-episode series titled Revolution continued where Revelation left off with Eternia being invaded by the Horde and several truths about the past finally being revealed. Both Revelation and Revolution left their impression with old and new MOTU fans, even though most were turned off with the second half of Revelation to even bother with Revolution. Let's see the differences between both titles and see which one did more justice to the MOTU legacy.

Both series were animated by studios DR Movie and Powerhouse which treated this like a theatrical feature with a dynamic style and a real flare for bringing back the 80s nostalgia to modern audiences who have grown up on anime and video games. The production was also blessed with amazing vocal talents and a soaring musical score that immerses you in the world they've created. The premise behind this was that the series acts as a pseudo-sequel to the original He-Man cartoon along with elements from the MOTU movie and other sources such as the various comics and characters' backstory that were explored in expanded media. So, Revelation treats the original She-Ra cartoon as non-canonical which slims the narrative solely to the regular cast of Eternia instead of Etheria.

Revelation starts with a huge battle between He-Man and Skeletor once again for the secrets of Castle Grayskull which leads to the alleged death of the lead hero and villain. The remaining part of the first half shows Teela along with her new partner Andra going on a quest to restore the Sword of Power along with other friends and former enemies like Evil-Lyn. Teela and her party travel from the hellish Subternia to the heavenly Preternia to reforge the Power Sword and resurrect Adam whose secret identity as He-Man is out in the open, even though this also brings Skeletor back to life who claims the Power of Grayskull for himself. The second half might have had Skeletor ultimately winning if he hadn't lost his power to Evil-Lyn who destroys Preternia and plans to wreck the universe. Teela stops this by becoming the new Sorceress and restoring order with Skeletor crawling back to Snake Mountain which has been taken over by a mysterious new cybertronic idol called Motherboard that secretly works for the Horde lead by Skeletor's old boss Hordak.

Revolution picks up with Adam's father Randor dying leaving him to take the crown of the kingdom of Eternos, even though a blue-skinned stranger named Keldor from the forbidden island of Gar arrives claiming to be the elder brother and true heir to the throne. Afterwards, the newly cyborg Skeletor attacks Eternos and starts to infect its citizens with a nanites which takes them over. Keldor helps them fend off Skeletor's attack, and He-Man declares him the new king while he sends the Sword of Power to be modified by his old friend Gwildor from the live-action movie to enhance it to counter this new technology in one big swoop. Hordak arrives on Eternia, his agent Motherboard takes over Grayskull, while Skeletor realizes that he really was Keldor this whole time and has a final battle with Hordak to settle their rivalry. Teela gains the powers of the three Eternian animal gods so she can remake Preternia and help He-Man defeat Skeletor. There's a stinger at the end showing Hordak still alive and being sent back to his leader, Horde Prime, thanks to a mysterious Horde captain.

Story wise, both Revelation and Revolution handled the MOTU lore well. It’s not a direct sequel to the Filmation shows since nothing of the first She-Ra show gets brought up here, and aspects from the live-action movie were also thrown in. Revelation broke more ground as it went off the beaten path and shows what the supporting characters would be like if the main protagonist and antagonist weren’t around anymore, and its first half is a long fetch quest trying to restore a magical artifact, even though the second half wastes a lot of time deciding who is really worthy of wielding that kind of godly power. Revolution on the other hand dug much more into the prior MOTU established history by incorporating elements from different He-Man resources such as the DC Comics and the 2000’s animated series. It brings up the fact that Skeletor is really He-Man's uncle and that he used to work for the Horde when they first invaded Eternia. Even though he is given cybernetic implants to make him compliant to the Horde, Skeletor managed to break free of his programming and discovered the truth of his past thanks to his hidden personality of Keldor who is just as ambitious as his present self that wants to usurp Hordak and his forces. 

Comparing the characters in both shows is a sliding scale as well. Adam himself is either dead for most of the time or shifting to his Hulk form in Revelation, whereas in Revolution he’s more aware of the weight of his decisions, even though giving up the kingdom to a total stranger like Keldor was pretty dumb in hindsight. Teela struggles in the first series to find her identity and comes off being a whiner to most viewers, but in the second she’s reaffirmed her role as the new Sorceress and just trying to work out her feelings for her childhood friend. One of the most surprising story arcs is Orko becoming a full-blown mage, even though he had to die to have that happen like when Gandalf changed his color from Gray to White. The biggest character elevation of all was Evil-Lyn who after finally breaking from Skeletor’s influence manages to rise to being the new Big Bad, then redeeming herself by helping the good guys save the planet for which she becomes a Cosmic Enforcer that is the MOTU equivalent of the Green Lanterns. Beast Man went through some changes in Revelation but is completely left out of Revolution. 

The voice actors selected were totally spot on for both shows. Chris Wood who played Mon-El on Supergirl was a fitting choice for He-Man/Adam, along with Supergirl herself, Melissa Benoist, portraying Teela. The Teela from Revelation was voiced by Sarah Michelle Gellar, though more fans seem to prefer Benoist’s performance. Skeletor was played by none other than Mark Hamill who already had experience playing skeletal villains, but then having Keldor voiced by the living legend of William Shatner was too good to be true. For me, it was a thrill having two sci-fi legends simultaneously voicing my favorite 80s cartoon bad guy. There were other Star Trek alumni in the cast such as Jeffrey Combs as Zodak, Gates McFadden as Queen Marlena(originally played by Alicia Silverstone), John de Lancie is booming as Granamyr, Tony Todd is magnificent in the premiere of Scare Glow, and Keith David does his best galactic conqueror as Hordak. Former MOTU actors like Meg Foster, Cam Clarke, and Alan Oppenheimer were given small roles, as well as other animated voice overs by Grey Delisle, Cree Summer, Phil Lamarr, Kevin Conroy, Susan Eisenberg Kevin Michael Richardson, Diedrich Bader, and Stephen Root. Lian Cunningham was terrific as Man-At-Arms and seriously helped drive the story along. The replacements they made for Revolution along with the additional cast seem to work more for the second show’s favor as opposed to Revelation.  

Overall, Revolution was more appealing to old school MOTU fans than Revelation. The animation, pacing, character motivations, and overall layout works better as a 5-episode series instead of a series broken up into two chapters. Revolution checks a lot more boxes for its audience with a largely fulfilling plot and calls to all branches of the He-Man fandom including the new Netflix children's series plus Dolph Lundgren's hair mullet, even though your choice may vary with all the pop culture homages. No word yet if there will be a continuation of this particular saga, but since a new live-action movie is coming out, there still might be some fabulous secrets yet to be revealed in this version of Eternia.

ANI-MOVIES, *Time Masters

Rene Laloux broke some sci-fi movie standards with his animated feature of Fantastic Planet, but nearly a decade later his next full-length production of Time Masters completely fell flat on its face. Based on the Stefan Wul(who also wrote Fantastic Planet)novel from the 50s, The Orphan Of Perdide, Laloux teamed up with infamous illustrator Moebius to create this drawn-out nap of a space story titled Time Masters. This was an indie animated film with some interesting character, ship, and creature designs, but the movie plays out like a prolonged episode of Star Trek: The Animated Series by Filmation. In fact, the story goes on like Star Trek: The Motion Picture with huge gaps spent just looking at the backgrounds and surrounding areas. The story is profoundly thin on plot and doesn't really even become a time travel story until the final act. Whereas Fantastic Planet had some amazing visuals and a good premise behind it, Time Masters is more like a rejected script for Will Smith's vanity project for his son, After Earth.

A young boy named Piel gets marooned on a planet where space wanderer Jaffar picks up the signal from and plans to rescue Piel since he's the son of a friend of his. Jaffar happens to be transporting a pair of exiled royal siblings along with their collected loot to a hidden part of the galaxy but stops on another world to see his old friend Silbad who has knowledge of the planet Perdide that Piel is trapped on. Silbad communicates with Piel via a radio and helps him to find the right things to live on until they can reach Perdide which should take over a month by their own time. A pair of little annoying telepaths stow away on the rescue mission with the others, and they run across a species of faceless winged humanoids under the control of living liquid which Jaffar and his crew manage to stop. Piel meanwhile makes contact with a bizarre centaur-like creature who gives him a ride, even though he loses the communicator. When Jaffar's crew finally reach Perdide, they learn that the entire world was sent back in time by a race called the Masters of Time for a colonization experiment. Silbad grows sick and dies, even though it's revealed that he was actually the older version of Piel from 60 years in the future.

Time Masters has a terrible dub to it, making it incredibly hard to follow the narrative, so you might be better off watching a subtitled French version of it instead. There are seriously low stakes involved and the movie trots uphill trying to get to its revelation. This was intended to be a full TV series, even though it's impossible to see how the plot could be stretched out that long. Moebius' artwork is the main plus to the film, but unless you're wanting to witness a causality loop at a mind-numbing pace, the only thing this animated space tale might be worth a look for is if you're into getting hopped-up on goofballs.

ANI-MOVIE, *The Magic Pony

Russia is one of the overlooked sources of animation when most people think of the global impact of cartoon media. The Little Humpbacked Horse was a 19th Century fairy tale that Pyotr Yershov wrote which went on to become a popular ongoing ballet starring the stock Soviet fairy tale character of Ivan the Fool. In 1947, a 55-minute animated feature was created by Ivan Petrovich Ivanov which was one of the first Russian movies to receive an English dub that even Walt Disney was impressed with. With film restoration not being a priority in most parts of the world, the original cut of the film was in danger of being unwatchable, so in 1975 Ivanov decided to remake the same story, only this time it was expanded to 73 minutes with additional songs and slightly different animation. The original version had classic fluid movement to it, even though the remake did maintain the appearance of this but appeared a little trippy for its time with some scenes done from different angles and alternate backgrounds, along with an entire chapter involving a giant whale.

A long while back, a young Russian boy named Ivan lived on a farm with his two lazy brothers who think of him as a dumbbell, even though he found out that a heavenly mare ascends from the sky and has been the one eating their hay. The angelic horse tries to shake Ivan off when he catches her and won't be shaken off. In return for her freedom, the godly steed gives in exchange a pair of tall black stallions along with a magical talking girl pony called Zip who can also trot into the air. Ivan's brothers take the two stallions to the capitol city where the Tsar favors them, but Ivan arrives with Zip to claim true ownership of the horses and becomes the Tsar's personal horse groomer. This seriously ticks off the prior stable keeper Spalnik who continuously tries to sabotage Ivan's position by convincing the Tsar to send him off on quests to gather various treasure. This included capturing a firebird, kidnapping a foreign princess, and find a magic ring which has him freeing an enormous whale from a curse after eating too many ships. Ultimately, Ivan's adventures get him aged up into an adult and married to the very princess he kidnapped against her will, all thanks to the help of his noble friend Zip.

The remake was dubbed into English in 1977 under the title The Magic Pony featuring cartoon royalty such as Hans Conried and Jim Backus, along with young actors Erin Moran and Johnny Whitaker. The dub is good with Backus and Conried being over the top, although the Americanized pop songs they put in place of the original Russian songs is not all that welcome. A restoration of the 1947 film has been successfully completed which also received its own English dub, but the 1977 edition is a better fit for American audiences. The remake is available on VHS and DVD, but not on any official streaming services at this time.

ANI-MOVIES, *My Neighbors The Yamadas

Yonkoma manga are the Japanese equivalent of American comic strips, although instead of a left-to-right strip it's a vertical top-to-bottom narrative traditionally in four panels. One of these had a good run in the 90s titled Nono-chan by Hisaichi Ishii, although it was originally titled My Neighbors The Yamadas as it was a slice-of-life comedy about a dyscfunctional family which later geared its focus more on the family's daughter and her school life. Nono-chan went on to get its own TV anime in the early 2000s, but the primary manga managed to get a feature-length animated movie by Studio Ghibli in 1999. This was directed by Isao Takahata instead of Hayao Miyazaki as this Ghibli founder also directed Only Yesterday and Pom Poko, plus would eventually direct the Oscar nominated The Tale Of The Princess Kaguya. This anime movie wasn't a complete story as it was a series of short episodes featuring the daily lives of the Yamada family. The animation can fluctuate between very basic to cinematic with detailed fluid motion mostly in the beginning and the climax with the inner vignettes simple deadpan humor.

The movie opens up with the Yamada parents Takashi and Matsuka at their wedding with Takashi's mother Shige giving the newlyweds words of inspiration on how to navigate their lives together. After this, the majority of it shows the couple living with Shige in a house in the suburbs and their two children, elder son Noboru and younger daughter Nonoko. Despite the yonkoma eventually redirecting to Nonoko, most of the film is centered on her brother and elders. We see how consuming ginger can make you forget, how a simple meal can make you feel better, and why it's important to not involve your nosy parents in your love life. The film bookends with Takashi giving a speech at a friend's wedding similar to that his mother gave at his which ends up getting entirely improved since Matsuka accidently gave him her grocery list instead of his own prepared notes.

My Neighbors The Yamadas is dripping with melancholy and doesn't really instill any huge rewatch value, even if you're a fan of old Japanese superhero shows like Gekko Kamen which gets an entire five-minute segment with Takashi pretending he's the masked motorcycle raider. There's sometimes when the animation breaks its standard simplicity to show the badass grandma trying to coax some rowdy hooligans into doing good instead of just being loud, but the lucid point of view that is prevalent throughout the movie might actually bore some younger viewers with a total lack of story structure or coherence. The dub cast is relatively good with James Belushi playing the stout father, Molly Shannon as the doting mother, and Simpsons regular Tress MacNeille as the grandmother, plus David Ogden Stiers providing the narration as it would be nearly impossible to piece together all the non sequitur gags into a 104-minute-long anime movie. You can skip spending the extra money for watching this in your next annual Ghibli film fest as there isn't any dynamic animation in it. and just catch it on streaming.

ANI-MOVIES, *He-Man & She-Ra: The Secret Of The Sword (40th Anniversary Celebration)

Four decades ago, The Secret Of The Sword broke animated movie tradition by releasing a theatrical motion picture acting as a prolonged toy commercial. Filmation had already broke ground with He-Man And The Masters Of The Universe in 1983 based on the hit action figure line which was intended for young boys. However, one thing they didn't pick up on since there wasn't an abundance of cartoons geared toward girls is that they would gravitate toward a kid-friendly fantasy series, so nearly half of the He-Man fanbase were actually girls. This got Mattel trying out a new line of "action dolls" combining their success with Barbie and MOTU featuring He-Man's long-lost sister. The new She-Ra: Princess Of Power line had the transforming magical girl and her friends fighting against the evil machinations of Catra as she tries to take over the Crystal Castle on the planet Etheria, at least that was the premise of the original story that was sold with the toys. When Mattel was adapting it for with Filmation, it was rewritten that the new enemy faction of The Evil Horde would be She-Ra's acting nemesis instead of being another group of bad guys for He-Man to fight on Eternia. The Secret Of The Sword was essentially the first five episodes of the She-Ra animated series in a single feature, the show of which wouldn't premiere until half a year later, so even if you missed the movie in cinemas, you could just watch it in the span of one week at home after school in the 80s.

Starting out in Eternia, Adam gets sent to the alien world of Etheria by the Sorceress of Grayskull to find the owner of a magical sword that's an exact duplicate to his Sword of Power except that it has a jewel in its hilt. Adam finds that the world is being taken over by a galactic empire called the Horde commanded by the shape-shifting cybernetic Hordak, so he transforms into He-Man to fight this new adversary but discovers the captain of this army is the one he was meant to give the sword to. Adora is really Adam's twin that was stolen from Eternia when Hordak originally tried to conquer it along with his apprentice Skeletor, which Adora finds out after the Sorceress gives her a lore dump via interdimensional telepathy. Adora uses this new Sword of Protection to change into the super-powered She-Ra and teams up with her brother to free a kingdom in Etheria while causing problems for Skeletor while making a quick stopover in Eternity. Adora ultimately decides to stay with the Great Rebellion on Etheria who are still battling the Horde while He-Man goes back to being the bouncer at Grayskull.

The Secret Of The Sword does house some better than average animation for Filmation compared to that which was done for the He-Man cartoon, especially Etheria's trippy backgrounds that are similar to a Roger Dean album cover. The movie totally flips the established MOTU continuity on its head and introduces a totally different world and characters to the catalog. It was unusual to have She-Ra's main enemy be an entire space armada bent on conquering her planet instead of a pesky single cat-themed villain. This was voice actor's Melendy Britt's next project with Filmation as both She-Ra and Catra who had previously done the voices of Batgirl and Catwoman on The New Adventures Of Batman, so you'll notice some similarities to Catra and Catwoman's feline speech patterns. The Secret Of The Sword got the jump on having an 80s toy getting its own movie at least a year before properties like Transformers did which alone makes this a tentpole event, even though in retrospect you could nowadays simply watch it as the beginning of the original She-Ra animated series. This started a new wave of animated projects and merchandise focused on adventure stories for young females like Jem and helped revolutionize the entire magical girl genre which up until then was just youngsters using their powers to help people out and elevates it up to the warrior princess level. Even though the character of She-Ra borrows much from Mary Marvel of the Shazam Family, her first outing set the stage for a whole new type of heroine, so if not for She-Ra then there wouldn't be any Xena or Sailor Moon. The Netflix remake went several steps further by completely removing She-Ra from the majority of the MOTU continuity which ultimately helped the character get a whole new fanbase making her become a gay icon for millions of fans. You can skip viewing The Secret Of The Sword if you're going to see the 80s cartoon anyway, but if you just want a quick setup of what the original series was like than this compilation movie is a must see.

ANI-MOVIES, *Winds Of Change

Originally titled Metamorphoses, Hello Kitty's home company of Sanrio put out a joined American/Japanese full-length movie in 1978 retitled Winds Of Change. After its premiere met with failure, it was released the following year with the new title and some minutes cut after taking a whopping three years for American animators to complete it. This was meant to be Sanrio's take on Fantasia and inspired by Disney's Golden Age movies. The movie was an anthology of tales all starring the same characters portraying in various fables written by the ancient Roman poet Ovid he branded Metamorphoses. Winds Of Change featured bizarre dreamlike imagery with the entire film being narrated by Peter Ustinov who also did all the voices, which had the knighted British actor going back and forth between playing the characters both male and female, along with telling the story in a sometimes Hitchhiker's Guide To The Galaxy motif. This approach with Ustinov both works for and against the premise of the movie as it makes it difficult to follow the various plots going on.

The movie stars a universal male lead called Wondermaker who takes on the roles of different characters in Greek mythology. The first one is of the hunter Acteon who is turned into a deer by the goddess Diana after he sneaked a peek at her when she was having a bath, which leaves our newly transformed deer to be eaten alive by his own hunting dogs. The second chapter is the tale of Orpheus as he follows his bride into the underworld, although here the afterlife is run by the Roman god Pluto and not Hades. Thirdly is of a spiteful girl being infected with the curse of Envy which makes her long for the attention of the god Hermes. The penultimate story is of Perseus and his quest to slay Medusa who gains the favor of other gods after helping stranded old folks. The finale is of Phaeton, son of the sun god Helios, as he makes off with his dad's chariot driven by a trio of fiery flying horses which causes all kinds of cosmic calamity.

Winds Of Change is an estranged bundle of weirdness as future animator of The Boy And The Beast, Takashi Masunaga tried to direct this farce, but to little success. The soundtrack was done by Alec Costandinos and Billy Goldenberg who padded it out with original disco music, each song of which fits the story their backing, but it still seems out of place with Greek myths. Despite this being a Sanrio production, it was not intended for children as there is some major violence and full-frontal nudity which is pretty nasty since some of them are shriveled-up gorgons. The film also keeps flipping back and forth between Greek and Roman god names and flubbing the original source material. Peter Ustinov taking on the role of everyone and everything in the movie has its moments, especially when he's doing the divide goddesses, but his recitation of each fable bounces between generic storytelling and Looney Tunes levels of movie riffing. As one of the first combined efforts between animation studios on both ends of the Pacific, Winds Of Change is a singular grotesquerie with nothing else that possible compares to its outlandish style.

ANI-MOVIES, *Porco Rosso

Before Talespin but after Dastardly And Muttley In Their Flying Machines, the field of cartoon animals as fighter pilots was limited to the occasional Snoopy daydream until Porco Rosso came out in 1992 from Studio Ghibli. Based on Hikotei Jidai's manga, the anime adaptation was directed by Hayao Miyazaki who you might have heard of. The quintessential animator worked on this after astounding audiences across the globe with Kiki's Delivery Service which he did just before his original swansong film of Princess Mononoke, even though he's reset that clock several times since then when it comes to his retirement. This film mixes in high-flying adventure and fantasy in a post-WWI setting with awe-inspiring details and old fashion cartoon shenanigans.

Set in 1929 Europe, the Adriatic Sea off the coast of Italy is filled with sky pirates who pillage innocent ships. The only hope for the civil sailors is a bounty hunting pilot from The Great War originally named Marco Pagot, although for some reason he is under a curse where his face has been magically replaced with that of a pig and is called Porco Rosso. The pirates hire the flashy American flyer Curtis to take out Porco and does so when the piggy pilot is secretly taking his one-of-a-kind seaplane to Italy, even though the Italian police are looking for Porco considering him an outlaw. Porco gets his aircraft remade thanks to the brainy young Fio Piccolo who gives it a whole new engine and accompanies Porco back to his hidden island home to complete the plane. Once they return home, Porco and Fio get ambushed by the combined forces of all the pirate gangs and arrange to have an aerial duel with Curtis which if Curtis wins gain him Fio's hand in marriage since he was rejected by Porco's old girlfriend Gina who runs a local tavern. The sky fight ends in a draw, so the two rival pilots settle their difference in a wet boxing match which Porco eventually wins. Fio returns home to become a successful aircraft maker, Curtis gets a career as a genre movie star, and Gina still waits for Porco to someday come back to her as a full man.

Porco Rosso is unusual as it had two completely separate English dubs for it, one by Japan Airlines specifically done for in-flight movies so passengers could experience a bit of cultured anime, and the other was done for the international market by Disney which was eventually bought up by GKids. The American dub is pretty spry with Michael Keaton as Porco, Cary Elwes pulls of a convincing American accent as Curtis, and none other than Rose Quartz herself Susan Egan as the classy Miss Gina. Miyazaki and Ghibli pulled out all the stops to make this one of the most enjoyable feature-length anime of the 90s. Even though this isn't intended for all audiences, it's still a great family film that the kids will love.

Stop right there, Mr. Silver Space Guy!

 

MISC. MANGA, *Unico: Awakening

So confident was Scholastic in this Americanized reimagining of Osamu Tezuka's Unico manga that they rolled out the cash for a full-animated trailer, the publisher's Graphix line of graphic novels for youngsters took the first volume of this ongoing franchise very seriously. The original manga was created by the God of Manga back in the mid-70s and received two hit anime movies released through Sanrio. Scholastic wanted to do a modern-day adaptation of the hit manga, so writer Samuel Sattin who had penned the Cartoon Saloon's graphic novels based on their animated films, and artist Gurihiru who drew the Avatar comic book sequels got together to make the new project which was initially financed through a Kickstarter campaign. Unico: Awakening is a colorful romp that covers the origin of the little unicorn and his first story arc.

If you've seen The Fantastic Adventures Of Unico, then you basically get the same tale here minus the segment where a little demon is part of the show. Unico is born from a unicorn that was just birthed by a space anomaly, and the adorable little equine becomes so adored by mortals that it starts to rile up the envy of the goddess Venus who bids the elemental Zephyrus to take the one-horned critter to the Hill of Oblivion for banishment. Zephyrus instead takes pity on Unico and continuously takes him from one part of space and time to another to hide him. Venus hears about this and sends her minion Night Wind to fetch Unico, so Zephyrus fights back by getting the last of a batch of magic flowers to free Unico from Venus' grasp which leaves the goddess in a weakened state plotting revenge. During all this, Unico is helping a cat become human to act as the stand-in daughter for a lonely old woman which ends in an epic fantasy battle right out of a JRPG with a giant monster.

Unico: Awakening is set to have a follow-up coming out soon titled Unico: Hunted which continues the reboot story, although whether or not there is going to be any other volumes after that is yet to be seen. This first graphic novel does have stunning visuals and dynamic color reaching back to the retro designs that made Osamu Tezuka an international icon. The book is very kid-friendly and enjoyable for all ages, even though there are some scary visual, especially the Lovecraftian final boss that an adult form Unico must battle which includes getting one of his wings get torn off. Scholastic's take on an anime classic is a welcome addition today's market which is so determined of bringing people from the real world into a fantasy realm instead of the other way around where mythical creatures roam the mortal plane.

ANI-MOVIES, *Watchmen: Chapter I & II

As if the various editions of the 2009 live-action film weren't enough, or that there already was an all-encompassing motion comic, as well as a live-action mini-series that acted as its own conclusion to the original source material, Warner Bros. along with Paramount thought that they'd squeeze one more drop out of the still-beating heart of the Watchmen franchise. The sad fact that this was the official ending of the DC Animated Movie Universe. Since the Tomorrowverse was concluded with the Crisis On Infinite Earths trilogy, there hadn't been any other direct-to-video animated films based on any DC Comics material. For the longest time, Alan Moore's Watchmen was a DC Comics title, but only within the last few decades has it been treated like yet another parallel universe to the regular DC Comics reality. Even though there have are several kinds of expanded media based on the 80's comic book series, including an original animated feature of the Tales Of The Black Freighter story within a story that was eventually spliced with the complete live-action movie to make the Ultimate Cut of the film which was released a while later. Instead of choosing an unexplored production based on DC's enormous library for potential stories, one of which was planned to be the long sought after Kingdom Come, Warner decided to just retread the already bare material just like they did when they remade Superman: Doomsday into a 2-part movie. This duology wasn't even animated within Warner Bros like the last two crappy Mortal Kombat cartoon films, as it was produced by Studio Mir who have an impressive record with X-Men 97 and My Adventures With Superman, however it was created entirely in 3D cel animation that makes it look even cheaper than the Battle Of The Super Sons debacle. There's is little here that any watcher couldn't have gotten out of the previous adaptations.

The two movies follow the original comic book series with a few additional touches. The Tales Of The Black Freighter is blended more into the narrative like someone actually reading a comic book along with the events of the main plot. Aside from this bonus, the only thing a past viewer of any other versions of this story is the fact that its animated and that it keeps the majority of the intended dialogue.

Watchmen: Chapter I and Chapter II would've made things easier if it was just initially released it as a single feature. Splitting this up into two separate release was just another act of corporate greed and absolutely unnecessary. This was such a waste of resources as the money spent on this prolonged production could have funded a better selection from the DC Comics library. So, the DCAMU ends not with a bang, or a whimper, but a click of the remote control, making this an even bigger practical joke than Ozymandias' plan.

ANI-MOVIES, *The Lorax

A year after the unmatched Dr. Seuss first put out his book The Lorax, an animated TV special premiered on TV in 1972 by DePatie–Freleng Enterprises who most cartoon fans would remember from the Pink Panther show. Decades after Dr. Seuss passed on, there was a mad rush to turn most of his beloved stories into full-length motion pictures, some of which were in suspiciously done in live-action. There was an animated movie version of Horton Hears A Who put out by Blue Sky Studios in 2008 but wasn't a big success. Since the public was getting more concerned about climate change, someone at Universal Pictures thought it would be a good time to do a big budget CGI adaptation of The Lorax too, despite the fact that is a uniform short children's story that just barely filled the TV airtime of the original special. As their first completely animated film after the first installment of Despicable Me, Illumination stuck an entire mountain range promoting their extended edition of this classic story into a whopping 86-minute-long movie. Directed by Illumination regular Chris Renaud, this film turned out to be nothing more than a product endorsement for several companies to put their logos on, most of which were highly to blame for the environmental screw-ups that there were at the time. It's hard to get behind a film dedicated to conservation when there are entire landfills of Lorax merchandise that no one cared for at the time.

Set in a dystopian wasteland where all the trees have been cut down, the town of the Thneedville is separated from the rest of the world by a giant wall sealing its citizens off from the truth of their outside world. A tween named Ted is pining for his next-door neighbor Audrey who longs to see a real tree. Ted's grandmother tells him to find out what happened to the trees from a stranger living outside the city known as the Once-ler. The movie periodically goes back and forth between the Once-ler telling his tale about he was the one who caused all the trees down to make a product with a thousand uses called the Thneed which attracted the warnings of the mystical Lorax who speaks for the trees, while going back to Ted hearing this story over several nights. The film's flashbacks have the audacity to show the past Once-ler being a retro hipster who quickly gives into corporate greed and totally ignoring the Lorax's warnings even though the two of them develop a small friendship when he first starts out his business just before the fuzzy orange spirit goes back up into the heavens. When the flashbacks are finished, the rest of the movie is one pointless chase sequence with Ted trying to plant the last seed that the Once-ler gave him to show the others in Thneedville much to the chagrin of the town's founder. The only saving grace is that this version of the book has a conclusion that brings a slightly more enlightening conclusion to it.

The Lorax visually is one of the most "Seusseian" of all the movie adaptations of all the other animated and live-action movies based on Dr. Seuss' library. The design of the characters, the creatures, the buildings, and the backdrop feel like their right out of one of Seuss' books. The rest of the film just stuffs in celebrities in the roles of various characters not even appearing in the original story, along with pop culture sub-references and radio-wannabe songs. There is no substance to this with bad writing, zero motivations, and is completely clueless when it comes to what message it's trying to deliver. This might be a reasonable thing to show to toddlers to keep their attention for a little time while the parents take a quick nap during the middle of the day but otherwise is not worth a look or your attention.

In a world full of Disney Princesses, be a Nausicaa.

 

ANI-MOVIES, *Rio

As the first installment in their second and only other film franchise outside of Ice Age, Blue Sky Studios' Rio was a big enough hit for 20th Century Fox that they felt the need to give it a sequel three years later. The 2011 blockbuster was solo directed by Carlos Saldanha who previously shared the position on Ice Age and Robots. Saldahna first came out with the idea in 2005 about a penguin washing up in Rio de Janeiro, but rewrote it when two different animated movies about penguins came out from separate studios. The movie had four writers, which becomes obvious after you watch the entire movie because there are several different plots spinning around in a single 96-minute feature. Rio stars several celebrity actors simply because they were famous instead of well-established voice actors. The fully-CGI cartoon is a bright cheerful comedy romp, although it gives into a lot of various movie cliches like two characters getting cuffed together, and people just breaking into song considering this wasn't intended as a musical.

A baby blue parrot of the Spix's macaw variety is caught by poachers in Rio and finds his way to Minnesota where he is adopted by young Linda who grows up to be a lonely young woman running her own bookstore. The bird is named Blu is somehow tracked down by ornithologist Tulio who followed his trail all the way to Minnesota and tells Linda that Blu is the last known male of his species with a single female waiting for him back at a sanctuary in Rio. Linda agrees to take Blu there so he can mate with the female called Jewel. The couple barely get a chance to know each other when they are stolen from the aviary by the streetwise kid Fernando who took them for a small band of bird smugglers that are assisted by the wily cockatoo Nigel who is dastardly enough to have his own musical number. Linda and Tulio go searching for Blu as Fernando tries to help them find the parrots. Blu and Jewel meanwhile get to know each other as they are chained to each other which seriously brings Jewel down as Blu never learned to fly. They get help from various other birds throughout Rio but inevitably end up getting captured by the bird thieves again in a long chase that involves crashing a carnival parade and a drastic getaway on a shotty plane that all the birds escape from leaving Nigel getting grounded. Linda and Tulio eventually become a couple who open a bookstore in Rio where Blu and Jewel have three kids together as they live in the jungle.

Rio was a pleasurable enough watch, although it's hard for most adult watchers to get through it without the habitual need to add a new character every five minutes to the roster. Fox was so set on shoving so many stars into the cast that they forgot to leave in room for an engaging plot that doesn't just lead into one long chase sequence at the end. Jesse Eisenberg and Anne Hathaway portray the lovebirds pretty well, but the insistence of adding in pop culture favorites like George Lopez, Jamie Foxx, and Tracy Morgan begin to seriously weigh the enjoyment down. The animation is above conventional, but the concept of two should-be birds from different worlds getting together would have made for a better concept if this movie wasn't bent on stuffing the bill with more big celebrities. The one good thing this film produced is that the breed of bird it's based on has been freed from extinction.

ANI-MOVIES, *The Lord Of The Rings: The War Of The Rohirrim

After several years passed since the last cinematic excursion to Middle Earth, Warner Bros. and New Line Cinema go once more into the breach with an original story modified from the appendices of J.R.R. Tolkien that he wrote after completing the original The Lord Of The Rings trilogy. Set about two centuries before The Hobbit, this new animated take on the fantasy world is the first one since The Return Of The King animated TV movie done by Rankin/Bass Productions in the 80s. The War Of The Rohirrim is considered an anime even though a good portion of the headlining creators operate in the Western Hemisphere. It was directed by Kenji Kamiyama whose past work includes everything from the original Duck Tales to Blood: The Last Vampire and he had already adapted several English franchises into anime productions such as Blade Runner and Star Wars. This new anime movie is along the same lines as made-for-video animated films from the mid-2000s that tied into existing movie titles such as Highlander or The Matrix, although this time it is a prequel that is not totally canonical with the lore already established in Peter Jackson's prior two movie trilogies. The main anime studio behind this is Sola Entertainment which has also worked on hit titles like Ghost In The Shell and the Starship Toopers animated movies, so this is not uncharted waters for them when it comes to handling an American property. Despite the return of another Tolkien movie to theaters, the film only made a little over half its budget back at the box office.

The story is narrated by Eowyn post-The Return Of The King(the live-action one)as she goes over the early days of the kingdom of Rohan which most Rings fans will know from The Two Towers, in fact this whole movie is almost a remake of The Two Towers except without the orcs. The Rohirrim are the people of Rohan and under the rule of King Helm who earns the last name of Hammerhand after a fight with Freca of the Dunlending tribes lead to the lord being killed in a single blow. Freca's son Wulf sets out to get revenge against Helm and still wanting to marry his fetching daughter Hera who is not your average Disney Princess. Hera is a formidable rider and warrior straight out of Celtic legends that's not trying to live up to Hollywood's woke movement by just being a strong female character in her own right. Wulf forms a pact with Helm's ally Lord Thorne who betrays his king for a slice of Rohan, but Hera gets wind of this and manages to get most of the citizens away from the kingdom just before she burns it to the ground. The surviving Rohirrim go to the Hornburg which most Tolkien fans would know as Helm's Deep, a fortress that Wulf and his forces steadily wait outside for plotting to assault the last holdout for Hera and her people while her father recovers from the prior battle. Helm is so tough though that he rises from his coma and single-handedly begins to systematically take out Wulf's men one at a time sewing discord among the troops believing the king to be a wraith. Hera finds her father later on and Helm gives his life to protect his daughter while freezing to death guarding the fortress gates against the Dunlending soldiers. Hera then challenges Wulf to a duel which he falls for and resulting in the Dunlending's defeat thanks to her cousin Frealaf finally showing up with reinforcements as he becomes the new acting king of Rohan. Hera goes on to join forces with Gandalf and investigate some orcs who were seen near Hornburg looking for the rings of dead soldiers.

The Lord Of The Rings: The War Of The Rohirrim is a fresh look at the never-ending lore of Middle Earth as there always seems to be an extra piece of paper Tolkien stuffed someplace for this family to find and make a quick fortune off of. The animation is peerless blending the Western character designs with traditional anime production. The story flows fairly well, even though the plot hits a few snags every now and then. One thing it the movie's insistence on reminding viewers that this all takes place in Middle Earth like having two random orcs voiced by Merry and Pippin's live-action actors, plus an awesome clash of the titans with a rampaging oliphaunt and the Lovecraftian Watcher in the Water. As this is part of the expanded universe like The Rings Of Power, this had little interaction from Peter Jackson and was largely left up to Sola Entertainment which was inspired by the works of Hayao Miyazaki, most specifically with the great eagles who actually play a part in this one story as opposed to them showing up at the last possible minute as a deus ex machina. Hopefully this feature will gain a larger audience on streaming and Blu-Ray as it seems plenty of fans waited for the film to be made available outside of theaters to finally check it out.

R.I.P., George Lowe

 

ANI-MOVIES, *Over The Hedge

The 90s comic strip Over The Hedge by Michael Fry managed to get its own full-length animated film from DreamWorks Animation in 2006. Adapted by Meatballs writer Len Blum and Brother Bear writer David Hoselton, this feature was directed by DreamWorks regular Tim Johnson and former Disney animator Karey Kirkpatrick. The story is loosely based on the comic as it shoveled in several original characters in order to make this an "Ocean's Eleven with critters" cross-genre movie. Not only was the cast widened to fit this heist movie parody, but it stars several celebrity actors as opposed to standard voice actors which might have made it more endearing. Original comic characters like The Tree That Knows Stuff were completely erased so we could have William Shatner playing an overacting opossum with pop singer Avril Lavigne as his embarrassed daughter. The cast went through numerous celebrities who were first considered to be in the film like Bill Murray and Harold Ramis even though they weren't talking to each other at the time, as well as Jim Carrey and Gene Wilder, but the two main characters were filled by Bruce Willis playing a Hudson Hawk clone raccoon along with Garry Shandling as a worrisome turtle. Paramount released this as they handle most of DreamWorks cartoon flicks, even though they managed to make it a hit, despite the fact that they never made an obligatory animated holiday special from the show.

Set in the Midwest lives shifty raccoon RJ who owns a miniature golf bag with a dimensional pocket in it capable of containing nearly anything that can be dropped into it, and he's trying to get the last bag out of a vending machine just at the tail end of winter. RJ attempts to make off with the hidden stash of hibernating bear Vincent who wakes up and frightens into losing the entire wagonload of. Vincent gives RJ a week to get him the whole lot of snacks back, specifically a brand of canned chips. Now on the hunt for more food, RJ comes across a new suburban area that just sprouted up during the course of a single season, which also surprises a jumbled family of forest animals who discover that they're turf has been turned into haven for blue-collar workers. RJ convinces the critters lead by a paranoid turtle named Verne into helping him gather a ton of food, although he doesn't tell them he's doing it to pay off a debt to an angry bear. The team manages to gather plenty of food to fill up the hollowed-out log they all live in, so the fussy homeowner president calls an officious exterminator who considers himself the Dirty Harry of pest control. RJ manages to work his way into the animals' hearts much to Verne's dismay who trusts his twitchy tail over giving into RJ's schemes. It gets so bad that they lose all the snacks they took from the nearby houses which lie over the hedge that they live behind. RJ gets them to pull together for one big haul from the irritated homeowner president even though she's rigged her lawn with every illegal kind of vermin snatcher possible. Vincent decides to pick this time to collect his debt while a huge chase between the bear, a ticked-off woman, and a fanatical exterminator. This leads to some fantastic Looney Tunes shenanigans and cartoon sight gags in one long final chase. Things of course work out for the backyard critters, and RJ finds a place in his new family of friends.

Over The Hedge diverges from the original source material quite a lot, so some comic strip purists might find the movie more than a little disheartening. DreamWorks did an exemplary job on the CGI-animated production. The extended cast might seem a little much, but it does pan out as it is a spoof of crime movies. The casting of SCTV regulars Eugene Levy and Catherine O'Hara as the parents of a trio of porcupines is good as they've played Midwestern couples in various other projects, plus Nick Nolte did go out of his way to sound like a bear probably much to the delight of Rifftrax fans, and others like Wanda Sykes and Thomas Hayden Church make it enjoyable, but hands down Steve Carell as the high-strung squirrel Hammy was so memorable that he became the unofficial mascot of the movie despite being a secondary character. This is an unoffensive family flick that covers a wide range of ages and is largely replayable.

Creature Commandos: Season 1 Analysis

After a slight bump in completing his run of the MCU’s Guardians Of The Galaxy, Hollywood executives finally got over themselves and allowed James Gunn to conclude the trilogy. While his status with Marvel was up in the air, Gunn did the more praised sequel to DC’s Suicide Squad, now titled “The” Suicide Squad. With films like the sequels to Wonder Woman, Aquaman, and Shazam not performing well, Warner decided to reboot the DCEU somewhat with The Flash movie into the reconstituted DCU, largely under James Gunn’s supervision. This involves some elements from The Suicide Squad and the Peacemaker TV series, but the first real installment of this new universe was the animated series Creature Commandos created specifically for the Max streaming service focusing on one of DC Comics’ more obscure superhero teams.

The Creature Commandos started out in 1980 in the pages of Weird War Tales about a black ops team during WWII made up of a vampire, werewolf, gorgon, and a Frankenstein lookalike. This military monster platoon went unused until DC’s New 52 with Frankenstein: Agent Of SHADE which included several different supernatural soldiers, including a young female version of Father Time. Up until now, the Creature Commandos only had a few adaptations outside of the comics including a pair of animated shorts done for DC Nation, an appearance on Batman: The Brave And The Bold, and a team up with Sgt. Rock in one of the DC Showcase one-shots. This new Max series was the first time the Commandos got their own show.

Taking place sometime after Season 1 of Peacemaker, the Suicide Squad has been outlawed by the US Government, so Amanada Waller now has to fall back on using non-human recruits for Task Force X which is now referred to as Task Force M for “monster”, also called the Creature Commandos. Lead by Rick Flag Sr. after his son was killed in The Suicide Squad, this new team consists of the Bride of the actual Frankenstein’s monster, Weasel who survived the events of The Suicide Squad, a leftover WWII android called GI Robot, fish woman Nina Mazursky, and former Batman villain Dr. Phosphorus who is an atomic skeleton that can melt anything.

The first mission for this group is in the fictional country of Pokolistan where the Bride was created centuries ago. The ruling Princess Ilana is under threat by the sorceress Circe from Wonder Woman’s people who is leading a rebellion against the crown. Flag and the Commandos have been brought in to protect Ilana, and manage to capture Circe, but this gains the attention of Eric Frankenstein, the Bride’s intended mate who has been hunting her all this time. Circe reveals to Waller that she started her rebellion to stop Ilana from eventually teaming up with the supervillain Gorilla Grodd and taking over the world which she saw in a vision, but it’s all a ruse cooked up by Ilana working with Clayface who had infiltrated Waller’s staff disguised as an Amazonian expert. Flag gets wrecked by Clayface while the Commandos are sent back to Pokolistan to assassinate Ilana. Nina gets killed by Ilana, but the Bride just shoots the Princess anyway since she killed Nina who she now thinks of as being her only friend. The mess gets cleared up with Flag in a coma, but the Bride gets new members into the Commando including King Shark who somehow got caught by Waller again.

This is where the first part of the planned DCU is supposed to launch from in their Gods And Monsters chapter, which by the way has nothing to do with the similarly titled Justice League animated movie. This will continue in the upcoming live-action Superman movie, although how much is unknown, even though Rick Flag Sr. is supposed to have a part in it. All DCU titles are planned to be tied together, but this doesn’t include other DC Comics franchises like The Batman 2 or The Penguin TV series. Creature Commandos did give hints of the larger DCU landscape with brief appearances by token heroes like Superman, Batman, Wonder Woman, and a few Teen Titans, as well as the members of Easy Company from WWII that GI Robot served in, plus a few incarcerated villains such as Chemo and Shaggy Man.

The cast for Creature Commandos was done with the idea of having the voice actors playing the same characters in live-action projects. Frank Grillo as Rick Flag Sr. is a good idea, although it’s hard to see him as being Joel Kinnaman’s father as he’s only a little over a decade older than the Rick Flag Jr. actor. Indira Varma makes for a good take on the Bride, even though she’s minus her extra set of arms she normally sports in the comics. James Gunn’s brother Sean pulls double duty as the voices of GI Robot and Weasel, neither of which would be played by an actual person in live-action. Alan Tudyk returns for yet another DC roll as Phosphorus that also probably be animated in live-action. Zoe Chao is the water-breathing Nina who here is like a female version of Abe Sapien from Hellboy, although her death in the show marks her off the list. Finally, David Harbour as Frankenstein is a good fit, but what part he might play in further DCU storylines is unknown as he is not a part of the Commandos like he is in the comics. Viola Davis returns as Waller, so her future in the DCU is pretty solid. Anya Chalotra as Circe was also good casting as she could play the saucy sorceress in a movie.

A good portion of the series is shown in flashbacks similar to how the first few seasons of Arrow were going over the characters’ origins. The plot cuts back and forth from the past to modern day, like when the Bride was learning how to speak and eventually having sex with Dr. Frankenstein which leads to Eric Frankenstein killing his creator out of a jealous rage. We don’t get much on Weasel or GI Robot’s origins, but how they ended up in Task Force M. Phosphorus on the other hand has a tragic backstory as he was mutated by Batman-regular Rupert Thorne who he murders and takes over the criminal empire of. Nina has it worst of all as she was born with her lungs outside her body and her scientist father altered her into being an amphibian who had to spend her whole life wearing a water suit that kept her alive which left her tormented by other teenagers.

The main story is engaging as the Commandos are conflicted between completing their mission while under threat of torture by Waller. This combined with their inhuman nature makes them even more outcasted than the villains used in the Suicide Squad. The Bride and Nina form a working friendship which a lot of fans probably hoped would sprout a budding same-sex romance, but Nina’s death at the end of the season ruins that idea. Season 2 of this show has added a few more faces to the roster, so this will hopefully expand the chance for deeper character relationships.

Creature Commandos has four separate studios behind it including James Gunn’s own Troll Court Entertainment, Peter Safran’s Safran Company who he runs with James Gunn, DC Studios that have handled the DCEU since its inception, and Warner Bros. Animation which has been behind nearly all the company’s production including Looney Tunes, Scooby-Doo, and some of Adult Swim’s programming. The animation is done in 2D, so the token argument of the uncanny valley is invalid. The action scenes are a hard R-rating, especially with Phosphorus just burning through people’s skulls. As a beginning to the new DCU lineup, Creature Commandos is a good starting point, although this ain’t for the Teen Titans Go! crowd, so keep the kids away.

ANI-MOVIES, *Lady And The Tramp

For their first animated movie to be done in Cinemascope, Lady And The Tramp was Disney's adaptation of Ward Green's story, Happy Dan. The comic strip writer went on to do the Scamp spinoff which ran in newspapers for years. The change in format meant Disney had to redo their painted backgrounds, but ultimately delivered a sterling cinematic production which is one of the few Disney classics that doesn't have a traditional villain, plus it's shown from the point of view by dogs with how they see things living in the human world. Even though the movie came out in 1955, the story took a retro approach taking place sometime after the turn of the 20th Century. Despite the film being billed as a puppy love romance, it's more of a slice-of-life from the perspective of neighborhood canines as the romance between the title characters doesn't even show up over half through the movie.

The beginning part has the puppy Lady being given to a husband to his wife for Christmas and how she works their way into their hearts. As time goes by, the couple come to expect a baby, making Lady question what her place in the family is. A wandering stray dog called Tramp fills her in on what it means for a dog when a child is on the way. After the baby is eventually born, Lady learns to except the infant into her life. However, the parents get called out of town for some reason, leaving the baby in the care of their aunt Sarah whose Siamese cats make Lady look like a troublemaker. Lady escapes being muzzled as she runs into Tramp and he shows her what the collar-free lifestyle is like. The two dogs truly bond at the memorable dinner scene which almost didn't make it into the original cut of the movie. Tramp realizes that Lady needs to be with her family, even though a divergence of him scaring some chickens gets Lady in the pound. Lady gets let out by Sarah which literally lands her in the doghouse, but she notices a nasty rat sneaking into the baby's room. Tramp follows the rat up and kills it, making Sarah think that a stray dog tried to attack the baby. The mother and father finally show up and help clear Tramp's name. Tramp is adopted by them, and he and Lady have a few pups of their own, one of which gets his own sequel.

Lady And Tramp contains some of Disney's more memorable animated productions released in between their fantasy romps of Peter Pan and Sleeping Beauty. The movement of the animals has much more detail than was normally given to their regular sidekick critter characters. The cast is amazing with the voice of Droopy, Bill Thompson, playing multiple roles. One voice actor in particular of note it the underappreciated Larry Roberts as Tramp who never went on to do much more in his career after this film came out as the character is a fast-talking carefree loner who likes pulling scams on various humans and other animals. Most longtime Disney fans don't give Lady And The Tramp the credit that it should get because of its simplistic plot, but it's the mundane realism that made for a grand outing for the cartoon kingdom which makes it a great feature for both kids and adults.

MISC. MANGA, *Godzilla's Monsterpiece Theatre

Tom Sciolo has done his own Jack Kirby-inspired takes on franchises like G.I. Joe, Gobots, and Transformers, so when it came to the King of Monsters, he borrowed a title from Sesame Street and made the 3-issue mini-series Godzilla's Monsterpiece Theatre. Each issue was doubled the size of your average comic book, so IDW Publishing put this out in prestige format where we get to see Sciolo's bright colors and thick character outlines. This is one of the first times that we get to see Godzilla take on various literary figures making this as tale of the colossal kaiju mixing it up with The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen. "Godzilla vs. Public Domain Characters" is the best way to sum this up without giving too much away.

Starting out in the middle of The Great Gatsby, Jay Gatsby himself pulls together his own team of monster hunters called G-Force to destroy the rampaging giant lizard. They get help from brilliant minds like Jules Verne and Thomas Edison(although he probably ripped off most of the gear he claimed to have made)and chase the monster from America to England when they get help from an elderly Sherlock Holmes and Dr. Watson's niece who is also a doctor. Godzilla's rampage through London gets the attention of a certain vampire who is currently held up in Carfax Abbey. Dracula kidnaps Gatsby's wouldbe love interest Daisy in an attempt to get Godzilla to follow them to Transylvania, however the Time Machinist from H.G. Wells' story shows up to help G-Force. Dracula hypnotizes the Time Machinist and has him hand over a magical ring that he uses to turn Frankenstein's monster, a wolfman, and a mummy into giants to fight Godzilla. Gatsby himself has the ring used on him and helps defeat the other monsters including Dracula, then the two remaining titans battle it out. Godzilla returns to the ocean while Gatsby returns to his normal size and returns to his lavish lifestyle after Daisy turns him down as she's already married.

The artwork Scioli created for this comic is reminiscent of Hanna-Barbera cartoons and shows like Thundarr The Barbarian which Jack Kirby worked on. The gritty figure designs look like its right out of the Bronze Age of comics and really works for this outlandish premise. Godzilla himself here is more of a plot device in this story than an actual character, but that's nothing new as the monster is usually personified as a force of nature than an actual living creature. Tokusatsu fans should find this as being a different but refreshing change of pace from the regular Godzilla beat-em-up monster bashes, and hardcore comic fans will love the blending of kaiju and steampunk genres.

ANI-MOVIES, *Flow

Having succeeded in his first full-length animated movie Away, Gints Zilbalodis went on to direct the award-winning Latvian project Straume, known in English under the title Flow. Featuring CGI animation, this film took over five years to complete and was co-produced with assistance from animators in Belgium and France. One of the things about this feature was that there is no spoken dialogue throughout the entire movie as it is entirely populated by animals, and not the singing funny cartoon versions that Disney and Looney Tunes has, making this easy to sell to the international market. Flow was animated in the open-source software Blender, so the movie gives off the impression of an open world video game.

Set in a fantasy version of Earth, a great flood is spreading over probably somewhere in Africa, and all the humans have mysteriously disappeared leaving all the animals free to roam the remaining landscape, or at least as the water keeps rising everywhere. A grey cat runs across some dogs in the forest and loses them to find a giant statue of a cat constructed at the top of a mountain as the tide comes in. The cat gets a lift on a sailboat piloted by a rather smart capybara which is the largest rodent in the world, and encounters a large whale as they also pick up a ring-tailed lemur who is really picky about his basket full of shiny objects. They later pick up one of the dogs from earlier who is very loyal to the cat. A secretary bird befriends the cat, even defending it against his flock whose leader impairs one of its wings leaving the bird to join the crew. All five animals sail their boat to a town submerged which looks like it might have been an island city similar to Venice as they head to a base of giant pillars in the distance. They even pick up the rest of the pack of dogs who were stranded on a high temple. Once they reach the pillars, the cat goes overboard but makes it to the base of one of stone columns and climbs it all the way up to find his bird friend waiting for him where it appears to ascend into the heavens. The cat gained some experience swimming, so he makes it on a glass float from the lemur's collection and wakes up in a new forest where he finds the rest of his crew in the boat dangling from a tree. The remaining dogs chase off after a rabbit while the loyal dog helps the lemur and cat rescue the capybara from falling off a cliff. Afterwards the four of them run across the same whale from before beached in the middle of the woods where they think it dies, even though in a post-credits scene is shown to be still alive somehow.

Flow is a one-of-a-kind movie. It's a huge leap forward from Gints Zilbalodis' Away as it stars all animals. Obviously, these are not regular animals as cats would hate swimming in water, secretary birds wouldn't normally befriend felines, and capybaras are only indigenous to South America which is on the opposite side of the ocean. Flow isn't a violent movie, not even giving into the dog-eat-dog nature that animals would inevitably give into in a drowned landscape marooned on a small boat with other carnivores, so this can be enjoyed by the whole family. This sets a new standard in non-narrative films and how animated features will be done in the future.