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Appleseed: Ex Machina

  • Title: Appleseed: Ex Machina
  • IMDB: link

About three weeks ago I brought forth the anime about a stunning young woman and her cyborg partner.  Both Appleseed and the sequel Appleseed Ex Machina are done in beautiful CG animation, making the films badass characters look even more badass as they flip around in combat.  The story sort of takes off with the same idea as last time, the two main characters, Deunan Knute and Briareous the cyborg, combating against evil to keep their Utopian society.

The story isn’t so plain and straight forward, the villain is different this time and there is a twist.  The team, Deunan and Briareous are split up!  That doesn’t sound like much of a twist without the knowledge of her new partner.  Briareous is one of a kind, well that is until they made Tereus.

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Batman: Mask of the Phantasm

  • Title: Batman: Mask of the Phantasm
  • IMDB: link

“I need it to be different now.  I know I made a promise, but I didn’t see this coming.  I didn’t count on being happy.”

The return of Bruce Wayne’s (Kevin Conroy) lost love (Dana Delany) to Gotham and the arrival of a new mysterious villain are the ingredients to what is, at least so far, the best Batman film ever made.

Taking pieces from both Frank Miller’s Barman: Year One and Mike Barr’s Batman: Year Two this animated flick gives us a new villain for Batman to fight and ghosts from the past which must be confronted.  The best scenes of the film involve the flashbacks of Bruce Wayne weighing his new feelings for Andrea (Delany) versus the vow he made to his parents.  Of all the Batman movies made Mask of the Phantasm does the best job of capturing the continually tortured soul of Bruce Wayne on screen.

Also included are flashbacks scenes of Bruce Wayne’s first night out as a vigilante, with missed success (something missing from Batman Begins) and a look back at the first moment Bruce Wayne donned his famous costume in one of the best Batman scenes ever.  Neither Tim Burton nor Christopher Nolan have given us anything as perfect in this simple shadow non-reveal reveal of Batman’s first appearance.

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Batman: The Animated Series Redux

  • Title: Batman: The Animated Series – Volume Four
  • tv.com: link

After a couple of years working on the animated Superman cartoon Bruce Timm, Paul Dini and their team returned to the mean streets of Gotham to present The New Batman Superman Adventures.  The hourlong block was divided into one episode of Superman and one of Batman, including a few crossover episodes. 

The new Batman episodes revamped the look of the show into a darker and sleeker look while keeping the original style.  Dick Grayson had moved on, Tim Drake would become the new Robin, Batgirl joined the team, and Batman took to the streets of Gotham to pursue the cowardly lot of villains.  For reviews of previous seasons click here for Season One, Season Two, and Season Three.

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Batman Goes to Camp

  • Title: Batman Forever / Batman & Robin
  • IMDB: link
  • IMDB: link

After Tim Burton‘s Batman Returns didn’t live up to the box office expectations of its studio, Warner Bros, the two parties peacefully parted ways and Joel Schumacher was brought in to reinvent the series to skew more towards kids than adults (Wikipedia says it, so it must be true!).  Let me say, as someone who was seven- and nine-years old when these movies came out, Schumacer did his job and he did it well.  These were my favorite movies at that young, and now evidentally very very stupid age.  These movies are full of horrendous dialogue and terrible plotting.  To be sure, these are the kinds of movies you can only totally appreciate before you are learning at a fifth-grade level.

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Batman: Gotham Knight

  • Title: Batman: Gotham Knight
  • IMDB: link

In light of the Batman theme, I went out and bought the new Batman: Gotham Knight yesterday.  I was extremely excited when I first heard about this, six mini-sodes to key us in on what The Dark Knight has been up to since Batman Begins, sounds like a good time to me.  Unfortunately, the extremely painfully short episodes, or blips as I would call them, left me confused and less than happy.  None of the episodes ties in together, so if you look at it as if you will be able to follow a plot then you will be lost.  Those fans who have seen every episode of the old cartoons, every movie and read the comics will know exactly what is going on here.  I have seen more than enough episodes and all the movies, but that isn’t enough, so beware if you are on the same page as me.

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