ANI-MOVIES, *Justice League: The New Frontier

Based on Darwyn Cooke's Elseworlds mini-series, this was the second of the DC Universe line of direct-to-video animated movies based on DC Comics. The movie has no ties to the Justice League/Justice League Unlimited TV series or the Justice League: Crisis On Two Earths movie. In fact, the actual "Justice League" barely appears in the movie except for a quick shot at the end featuring the founding members of this timeline's JLA.

Set in an alternate 1950s, the former Golden Age heroes such as the Justice Society have gone into hiding after being persecuted by McCarthyism. Superman and Wonder Woman are now agents of the American government, and helping to end the Korean War. Elsewhere, the shapechanging Martian, J'onn J'onzz, was accidently brought to Earth, and assumes the identity of Gotham City detective, John Johns. Former Air Force pilot Hal Jordan is recruited by Ferris Industries, which is secretly part of the U.S. military planning a manned flight to Mars after J'onn's initial existence is made known to them. During the flight, Hal realizes the rocket is carrying weapons to Mars as an accident causes it to explode in space, but he is rescued by Superman. However, J'onn is captured by the government. As this is going on, a mysterious force known as The Centre has been influencing criminals and others throughout the world. Aware of the impending threat, a Green Lantern heads to Earth, but is injured when Hal's rocket blew up, so he passes his ring over to him even though Hal has no idea how to use it. The Centre then reveals itself to be a giant flying island that literally has dinosaurs crawling out if it, and attacks Paradise Island. Wonder Woman barely escapes to warn Superman and the others, but Supes himself is taken down by it. This leaves the task up to the remaining heroes, including Flash, Batman, Green Arrow, J'onn, Adam Strange, the Challengers of the Unknown, and the Blackhawks. With the help of Ray Palmer's(the Atom)shrinking tech, and Hal Jordan emerging as the new Green Lantern at the last possible second, they manage to send the dying Centre out into space. Following this, the heroes are exonerated, and a new team is formed under the logo of the Justice League.

This film stands out pretty well as far as a home video release. The animation is above the par of its TV counterparts featuring Bruce Timm's crew, although Darwyn Cooke himself played a large part in the movie's production. Andrea Romano's selection of voice actors stand out too, with David Boreanaz as Hal Jordan, Neil Patrick Harris as Flash, Kyle MacLachlan as Superman, and Lucy Lawless is perfect as the more-Amazonian-than-normal Wonder Woman. For anyone who has a love for the fantasmagorical style of the Silver Age of comics, this one is a must.

JESI THE GENIE, *Part 6: Page 11

Story by Jer Alford. Art by Isabel Marks.

*ANI-MOVIES, *Final Fantasy VII: Advent Children

After years of waiting for a followup to their original groundbreaking RPG video game, Square Enix(original Squaresoft)finally got around to doing this feature animated sequal as part of their Compilation Of Final Fantasy VII series which also included two video game prequals, a game sequal, and an anime prequal. Even though it was originally supposed to be about a 20 minute-long feature, but was instead turned into a full-length movie at the demand of the fans. It was animated by Square Enix themselves, who of course also did the original Final Fantasy: The Spirits Within movie as Square Pictures, and was directed by FF regular, Tetsuya Nomura.

It starts off where the end of the Final Fantasy VII game left off with Red XIII doing his Lion King impression, but then cuts back to 498 years later, which is 2 years after where we last left our heroes. Apparently, the Planet survived the attack of the Meteor, although the main city of Midgar was destroyed. So the survivors open up some cheap condos in the smaller town of Edge. Whiny emo-clown Cloud has become a delivery boy and adopted Marlene(Barret's kid)plus a boy named Denzel who is a dead ringer for Roxas from Kingdom Hearts. Cloud and Denzel are suffering from a new disease called Geostigma, but the not-so dead Rufus Shinra really has it bad. He tries to enlist Cloud to help him and some of the remaining badboy Turks from stopping a trio of biker dudes who are apparently looking for the head of Jenova's head. Jenova was the cause of all the monsters and darkness on the planet, and also Sephiroth's "mother". Kadaj, Yazoo, and Laz want to use Jenova's head to bring all the pieces of her together along with children infected by the Geostigma to cause the destruction of the planet. They gather all the children to Edge to try take down a large statue in the middle of the city which they're convinced is where Jenova's head is buried other, and then summon up a horde of demon dogs plus one mutha of a dragon. Cloud along with the entire old AVALANCHE crew show up and stop the monsters, then begin a long chase with Cloud trailing down Kadaj. Jenova's power tuns Kadaj into a resurrected Sephiroth, and he has an epic sword battle with Cloud. Cloud pulls some "Knights Of The Round" attack on Sephiroth which kills him(kinda), and Aerith's spirit makes some magical rain that cures everyone's Geostigma.

This movie was a payoff for alot of the FF-anitics, although there were some complaints about inconstancies in the story, but were more or less resolved in the special Complete edition of the film when it was re-released on Blu-Ray. The first draft of the movie was supposed to be about Cloud with his newly adopted family that he and Tifa put together, but this was later used as the basis for the Reminiscence Of FFVII segment used on the DVD as a recap of the events from the game. The production involved making the characters look as realistic as possible, but still having weird anime hair and overstylized fashion sense. It was a serious step up from The Spirits Within and most of the FMV scenes from the games, even though you can tell that there's still something some lacking in the characters' facial expressions and movement, but still astounding animation. The dub for it though was really bland, where as the voice actors are good in their own rights, they really didn't give seem to give this any real effort. Plus, the dialogue for both the original Japanese script and English dub was terribly mismatched, and if you watch the deleted scenes you'll see that lots of rewrites were done with the dialogue to already completed footage. The DVD release features a short OVA titled FF: Last Order which is a full accounting of Sephiroth's turn to darkness, and his fight with Cloud and Zack, although this was 2D animated by Madhouse. The Blu-Ray release also has another short of On The Way To A Smile which is an original animation based on a novelle that comes with the Collector's Edition DVD that tells of Denzel's origins. The movie recieved a pretty big buzz when it was first released in America, although it was one of those cases like The Phantom Menace where after its initial reaction on the fan market, it changed somewhat after its presence had been examined a little further. Its one of those things where fans get all worked up for an continuation of something they loved, but when it comes out, they realize that its not all they had hoped for. The other major drawback is that the movie is totally useless to anyone who hasn't played the entire original game. However, this should be seen as a labor of love for fans of the game, and something they will treasure(until they get tired of it).

JESI THE GENIE, *Part 6: Page 10

Story by Jer Alford. Art by Isabel Marks.

Okie Dokie, Lokie. (I understood that reference.)

ANI-MOVIES, *Fist Of The North Star

Probably one of the most bareknuckle post-apocalyptic movies ever was Hokuto No Ken, or as it was known in America, Fist Of The North Star. This retelling of the manga which at the same time was a 109-episode anime TV series achieved cult status in the States when it was first released on dub-only VHS(and very briefly on DVD)through Streamline Pictures, and then recently on bilingual DVD from Discotek Media. It even spawned off a horrendous American live-action movie that makes Dragonball: Evolution seem almost watchable.

After a nuclear war decimates most of the entire planet, the buff-as-Hell Kenshiro(or usually just "Ken")is the prize student of an elite martial arts dojo, each student of which is given a distinct titles. Ken is the Fist of the North Star, which his other brothers want to take away the role of. Shin, the South Star, nearly fataly wounds Ken and takes away his lover Yuria. Ken emerges a year later even stronger than before, and teams up with another martial artist to take on his other brother Jagi. Jagi is now masquerading as the new Fist of the North Star, so Ken blows his head up with his awesome wa-da-da-da-da-da-da-da attack("You're already dead!). Ken finds out from Jagi just before his head a'splodes that Yuria is with Shin in his stronghold in the south. Meanwhile, Ken's stronger brother Raoh has been gathering an army of extraordianary magnitude, and conquering road warrior-wannabes left and right. Raoh sets his sights on Shin's little empire. After pounding the crap out of his fortress, Raoh makes off with Yuria to lure Ken out. Ken goes after them to Raoh's capital, and he and Roah thrown down in an epic fight the likes of which Dragonball or Street Fighter still haven't been able to match. Raoh leaves Ken after gaining some last minute bit of conscious from an orphen girl, and Ken then pursues Yuria who for no explained reason left on her own. The movie has a strange Waterworld-type ending where Ken thinks he's found an oasis that Yuria has sewn, but it turns out to be an illusion.

This movie has achieved a status with even non-otaku on the level of other anime movies like Akira and Ghost In The Shell. The film has that amazing but still gritty 80s brand of animation. There is some serious gore and violence in it, so fans of Quinten Tarantino will totally gush over it. Admittedly the dub is pretty stale, even for one directed by Carl Macek(history's greatest monster!), but if you developed enough of a resistance to his crap from watching Robotech then this shouldn't be too much of a stretch. It is more of an action film then anything else, so guys, just send your ladies to the mall and watch this sandwiched in between Die Hard and Commando!

JESI THE GENIE, *Part 6: Page 9

Story by Jer Alford. Art by Isabel Marks.