The DC Animated Universe Weekly Review - Batman: The Animated Series

 Batman: The Animated Series

Episode 80

Second Chance

 

When you know your characters the writing appears to be easy and this Two-Face centric story reflects that.  Two-Face is about to undergo surgery to fix the scars on his face and make himself Harvey Dent again.  His evil split personality has been suppressed and this is that last part in curing him.  Nothing goes according to plan in the world of Gotham and before the surgery starts Dent is kidnapped by some goons. 

 

During Batman and Robin’s investigation they speak with the usual Dent hating suspects but don’t turn up any results.  Batman is able to deduce the culprit is actually Two-Face himself.  Two-Face doesn’t want Harvey Dent’s kinder personality to remerge so he created a plan to stop it.  Batman is able to capture Two-Face but he’s sent back to Arkham for more mental health before they try the surgery again.  So ultimately Two-Face wins.  There’s a glimmer of hope he’ll recover but we know it only gets worse as the DCAU evolves.  

 

A plot twist can make or break many television episodes and in this case it works.  The idea that Two-Face is plotting against his other persona is brilliant.  Two-Face’s plans to sabotage Harvey Dent are within a realm much more grounded in reality than Scarface.  Scarface wouldn’t think twice of killing the Ventriloquist even though it would kill himself in the process.  That’s one of many reasons Scarface is a complete douche in Batman’s Rouges Gallery.  Two-Face on the other hand may hate Harvey Dent but knows he cannot kill him without killing himself.  A much smarter villain who knows his limitations and works with them.  

 

Written by
Joseph Ammendolea
Owner/President
“I Like To Play With Toys” Productions®
ILikeToPlayWithToysProductions@Yahoo.com

The X Generation - All The Small Things

 Cuculi presents Live Beats music of the 90s & 00s.

 

The DC Animated Universe Weekly Review - Batman: The Animated Series

 Batman: The Animated Series

Episode 79

Riddler’s Reform

 

Riddler’s third episode in the series and the last where he’s the featured villain.  Each episode with him lost some pizazz and this is his least exciting.  He’s allegedly reformed and made a new series of toys which are selling well.  Batman doesn’t believe he’s changed.  Riddler keeps dropping clues about his crimes and eventually traps Batman in an inescapable situation.  Batman survives though and the Riddler is taken off to Arkham unable to solve the riddle of how Batman beat his trap.  Batman tells Robin at the end of the episode he escapes the explosion by using the safe as protection.  There’s a great moment at the end when Riddler is in Arkham Asylum ranting over and over about Batman beating his trap.

 

This episode is par for the course at this point.  The Riddler comes off as redundant and desperate.  It’s a far cry from his first appearance where he’s calculating and clever.  In the first episode Batman beats him but Riddler still escapes. In this episode he’s captured and broken.  Certainly not a bad way to close out a character but the plot or how it was accomplished could have been better.  Granted our standard for episodes is far too high since there have so many amazing BtAS episodes at this point.  Even a bad BtAS episode far exceeds the best episodes of other series.  

 

Written by
Joseph Ammendolea
Owner/President
“I Like To Play With Toys” Productions®
ILikeToPlayWithToysProductions@Yahoo.com

Zack Snyder's Justice League - DCEU Review Series

DCEU Review Series

Zack Snyder's Justice League

2021

Director: Zack Snyder

 

This film is four hours long and horrendous.  Whedon has the excuse of working around what already existed.  Snyder has no such excuse.  He was on a mission to prove his version was superior.  The problem with Snyder is his superhero films were too meta.  He’s obsessed with the “what if” scenarios of comics which only super nerd fans would enjoy.  He didn’t even try to make a film that the 40-year-old woman in middle America would enjoy.  When making a film that absolutely needs to be a mega blockbuster, it has to have broad appeal. Fanboys be damned. 

 

The film is broken into 7 agonizingly painful parts.  Each part is equally drawn out, boring, and could be cut down to 10 minutes.

Part I

Snyder opens his film with everyone depressed about Superman being dead but takes 40 minutes to establish that.  They hated him in his first two movie appearances but now love him because he's dead.  There are some nice visuals but nothing to keep the eye and nothing of interest with the characters, dialogue, or story.  

 

Some dudes go to blow up a bank but Wonder Woman is there to stop them.  They take a bunch of people hostages, including children.  Why would people listen to a guy with a machine gun after another guy sets a timer on a bomb to kill them all?  The logic doesn’t make sense.  If you’re going to die anyway, might as well make the best effort to avoid the blast, getting shot doesn’t matter.  Also, why are there 30 kids hanging out in a bank?  Kids don’t hang out in banks.  Snyder’s version of “save the cat” is absolute bullshit. 

 

The Amazons decide to fiddle with their glowing motherbox and the lamest villain for a DC film shows up, Steppenwolf.  He’s so lame, incredibly lame.  With the help of his parademons Steppenwolf beats up a bunch of women who are dressed like Russel Crowe in Gladiator.  There’s a million slow motion shots that aren’t needed and Snyder might have forgotten that he’s not making a sequel to his film 300.  The tag team amazon runaway with the glowing box is a bad rip-off of the infinity gauntlet being tossed around in Avengers End Game. Steppenwolf gets the box anyway which makes the entire sequence of events useless.  Whedon cut all this crap and rightfully so!

Part II

Steppenwolf sends out his parademons to find other motherboxes.  We are slowly introduced to all the major players, ones we know, ones we don’t know.  The ones we know they flip through quick, they don’t need more character development.  The ones we haven’t met yet, we get backstory.  None of it is particularly compelling and it doesn’t really progress the plot but with Snyder the plot doesn’t matter and the villain is lame. Trying to steal a bunch of alien boxes is a lame story.   Steppenwolf has a ton of lame vague chit chat with Darkseid’s lacky, Desaud.  They are building up to Darkseid being the big bad in the DCEU like Thanos was in Marvel but it’s pointless when your movie universe sucks. We get our bad guy backstory and this all takes 30 minutes.  

 

Part III

It opens with Flash’s introduction.  The problem with speedsters in comic films now is that they’d been perfected in X-Men: First Class.  Every film who does a speedster now just copy’s that film.  Even prior to X-Men: First Class, the TV show Smallville did speedsters with the fast guy moving normal and everything else moving slow.  It’s logically the only way to show it but no one is breaking new ground with the effect.  Why over do it, which is what Snyder does in the Flash introduction. Billy Cudrup playing Flash’s dad was definitely a nice touch, he’s a phenomenal actor and belts all his performances out of the park. 

 

Then we get Cyborg’s origin story. We keep getting character introduction and it’s so forced.  These introductions are boring and it’s as bad a Suicide Squad reintroducing everyone a billion times in the film.  Get to the plot! I’ve said it before, Cyborg’s design is absolutely ridiculous.  He’s more robot than human, it doesn’t look cool. All he has is half a face, the rest is robot.  Young Justice did a far better design of Cyborg and way better character development. Everything Snyder’s Justice League got wrong with Cyborg, season 3 of Young Justice got right. One might argue it’s unfair to compare a cartoon show to a feature film but given the runtime of this film, Snyder drags this story out longer than any TV season.  Fisher clearly prefers this version because he has much more screen time.  What’s really drastic is Cybrog is supposed to be aged 17 or 18 and Fisher is well over 30 when he made this film.  He doesn’t even come close to looking like a teenager.  His acting was also schlock.  He sounds like he’s holding his nose whenever he talks.  Fisher’s overly dramatic theater acting movements are cringe.  It’s bad casting for no reason whatsoever. 

 

Mercedes gets some product placement in order to fund the $70 Million redo on this fanbot requested film version.  We get cameos from JK Simmons and Amber the turd Herd.  Their acting is bad.  Amber Turd because she’s a bad actress.  JK Simmons is a really good actor who was the wrong choice for James Gordon.  Simmons is too loud to play Gordon, too much presence. 

 

This also took forty minutes.  

Part IV

 

At almost the two hour mark we finally get the first fight between Steppenwolf and Justice League.  Whedon’s version accomplished this in an hour.  The extra hour in Snyder’s first half wasn’t any more interesting and wasn’t needed.  Aquaman shows up at the end of this fight and in a much cooler way than Whedon’s version.  He’s not too useful but it’s a nice reveal. Thirty minutes of my life I’ll never get back 

 

Part V

 

It just won’t end.  This film is absolutely painful.  At this point the team plans to bring Superman back from the dead.  It's a total ripoff of the creation of Vision in Avengers: Age of Ultron.  The sequence takes forever! I am watching this film regretting that I made the decision to provide reviews of all the films in the DCEU.  Personal root canals are more interesting and entertaining than the Snyder cut.  

 

Superman comes back from the dead. Cyborg’s dad dies.  Steppenwolf gets all his motherboxes. He did this part in thirty minutes. 

 

Part VI

 

Everyone but Superman tries to figure out how to track the motherbox to stop Steppenwolf.  Superman reunites with Lois Lane and Martha Kent on the Kent farm.  The farm scenes are so poorly shot it’s sad.  It’s also clear a ton of effort was put into it to make it look nice.  Snyder doesn’t have any clue how to do poignant and touching.  

 

Steppenwolf unites the motherboxes to destroy the world or something.  The heroes begin their assault for the big climactic battle.  They win. The day is saved.  It takes forty minutes and it’s all slow-motion action sequences.   Why, why, why, why? Because Zack Snyder is a masochist. 

 

Epilogue

 

All the heroes go their separate ways to lead into new movies in the DCEU.  Cyborg’s "the big wrap up story" in the film.  His dad does a boring voiceover trying to sum up the film.  It’s all pointless words tied together but mean absolutely nothing.  So glad Whedon cut Cyborg’s part down.  Lex Luthor escapes from prison, he’s chilling on a yacht, Deathstroke visits him.  Luthor cuts a deal to kill Batman, reveals Batman’s secret identity.  No mention of an Injustice League which was exponentially cooler.  

 

We’re thrust into the future, the world is a wasteland.  Lots of boring exposition chit chat with Batman, Deathstroke, Flash, Amber Turd, Cyborg, and Joker.  An evil Superman shows up, but oh wait it’s just a bad dream Bruce Wayne is having.  Then we meet a really crappy CGI version of The Martian Manhunter.  Stop changing comic characters to look worse than their original comic! 

 

The dream sequence Bruce Wayne has is a crappy advertisement for a movie that will never get made.  Snyder knows this, why did he add it as his closer?  He must have been delusional to think WB would hire him back.  Why would he even want to work with them again after doing him so dirty?

 

The mistake we made as a society was praising Zach Snyder for remaking Dawn of the Dead and taking out all the high art elements from the original.  It somehow justified all his film decisions afterwards.  How does a filmmaker get worse with age?  This version does manage to show Darkseid multiple times but since the DCEU is thankfully dead who really cares about buildups to installments that will never get made?  He really serves no purpose except to advertise movies that are never going to get made.  The film was in a full screen format suitable for old school tube televisions.  No clear reason why Snyder did this other than to be counter to Whedon’s version.  Not a terrible choice, just a pointless one. 

 

The ultimate assessment is Whedon’s version is better but only because it’s shorter.  Both versions are horrible.  A terrible film, with a lame villain, boring characters, bad dialogue, a dumb plot.  Skip these at all costs.  

 

Written by
Joseph Ammendolea
Owner/President
“I Like To Play With Toys” Productions®
ILikeToPlayWithToysProductions@Yahoo.com

The X Generation - Basket Case

 Cuculi presents Live Beats music of the 90s & 00s.

 

The DC Animated Universe Weekly Review - Batman: The Animated Series

 Batman: The Animated Series

Episode 78 

Showdown

 

The best Ra’s al Ghul episode in the entire series, the entire DCAU.  Ra’s organization the Society of Shadows kidnaps a really old guy from a retirement home.  Ra’s leaves a tape for Batman and Robin to listen to as they drive to the airport to stop him.  On the tape is Ra’s telling a story dating back to 1883.

 

From there we flashback to a story about Jonah Hex!!!  Since Ra’s is really old thanks to the Lazarus Pits. He’s been causing trouble to the world for a really longtime.  This story has an older Jonah Hex tracking down a bad guy name Arkady Duvall for roughing up a woman and doing a bunch of other crimes.  He’s working for Ra’s and they are planning on invading America as it begins to expand via it’s railroad line.  

 

While Hex is tracking Duvall he discovers Ra’s plan and stops it.  He captures Duvall and turns him in.  Duvall offers him more than his bounty to go free but Jonah Hex will have none of that.  We’re back in the present as Batman catches up with Ra’s and fills in the rest of the blanks with Duvall after his capture.  

 

Duvall was sentenced to 50 years hard labor, no one expected him to survive it except Ra’s but he lost track of him during that time. It makes Duvall over 100 years old because he was exposed to Lazarus Pit as a child. Ra's reveals Arkady Duvall is his son.  Talia isn’t his only child. Ra’s admits that Arkady was too unstable to be his successor and at his advanced age is beyond the Lazarus. Batman lets Ra’s leave with his son since he’s not a bureaucrat who requires lots of paperwork proving paternity like the retirement home likely required.  

 

Such a great ending and it puts the villain in the right, in his own evil way.  All he’s doing is reclaiming his child to care for him.  Ra’s has many crimes to answer for. Taking his son out of a retirement home isn’t one of them.  The inclusion of Jonah Hex in the episode is outstanding.  His best TV appearance, it even tops many of his stories in the comics.  

 

Written by
Joseph Ammendolea
Owner/President
“I Like To Play With Toys” Productions®
ILikeToPlayWithToysProductions@Yahoo.com

The X Generation - Dammit

 Cuculi presents Live Beats music of the 90s & 00s.

 

The DC Animated Universe Weekly Review - Batman: The Animated Series

 Batman: The Animated Series

Episode 77  

The Lion and the Unicorn

 

Batman goes to England…international spy Red Claw is back and causing international problems.  She kidnaps Alfred trying to get a password to something that will basically destroy the world.  Alfred was apparently a former spy before he gave it all up to be a butler.  She gives him a truth serum to get the password to access a system which apparently never changed after he quit his job.  That’s poor company management and the agency he works for needs to up their security protocols.  Red Claw gets the password out of Alfred just as Batman and Robin show-up to stop her. 

 

We could make the claim Red Claw was an under utilized villain in the series but that’s not really true.  She just doesn’t fit in Batman’s world.  Batman protects Gotham and Red Claw is a scourge of the world so she doesn’t really fit in Gotham.  If every time she stations herself in Gotham to do international evil spy stuff and Batman stops her, her failures would be on her.  By kidnapping Alfred she’s forced back into the world of Batman and that’s even a stretch.  

 

Ra’s al Ghul works as an international evil villain for Batman because Talhia al Ghul is in love with him.  Ra’s would steal Wayne Enterprises tech or pop up on Batman’s radar because of how dangerous he is.  There’s a relationship there that works.  Red Claw isn’t as menacing as Ra’s because she’s an evil spy for hire.   Ra’s is a terrorist who wants to rule the world.  

 

Written by
Joseph Ammendolea
Owner/President
“I Like To Play With Toys” Productions®
ILikeToPlayWithToysProductions@Yahoo.com

Josstice League - DCEU Review Series

DCEU Review Series

Justice League aka Josstice League

2017

Director: Joss Whedon/Zack Snyder

The film opens with Batman fighting some monsters from the planet Apokalips and Commissioner Gordon saying this is happening because Superman is dead.  Then there’s a montage of people being bummed out because Superman is dead. Wonder Woman stops a bank robbery.  Then we’re subjected to introductions of all the other league members since less than half the team got their own films prior to this film.   

 

There’s a truckload of exposition. We learn Steppenwolf is the villain.  Sadly not the iconic 60s/70s rock band.   This Steppenwolf is truly the lamest DC villain someone could choose for a Justice League film.  He’s barely tolerable as a bad guy in the comic and this dude is supposed to unite the most powerful heroes in DC to form a team to stop him.  There was a cool reference to the Green Lantern Corp in a flashback sequence. 

 

The costume design of the heroes is lackluster at best. Batman and Wonder Woman’s costumes are okay.  Flash is dressed in pieces of red cardboard boxes.  Cyborg is just half a face and the rest is a robot. The robot sections looks like a silver version of Flash, cardboard boxes wrapped in tin foil.  Also, he should not be considered a cyborg when only half his face is human.  Cyborg should just be called a robot since he only has half a human face. It’s a horrible design. The best Cyborg design was in Young Justice where he was actually half human/half robot.  All these complaints are Snyder related and Whedon had to use with them.  Aquaman’s costume is all shiny for no reason whatsoever.  

 

We have the “everyone meets the big villain in the middle of the movie battle” which literally happens in the middle of the movie.  The gag that got Whedon in hot water between Gadot and WB executives lasted less than a second and isn’t funny.  Flash saves Wonder Woman but trips and lands on her boob then makes a weird face.  The dude ruined his career over a boob joke about a woman who doesn't even have big boobs.  He kept inserting little gags that Flash has a crush on Wonder Woman throughout the movie.  It wasn’t endearing and was more creepy.  Also given Ezra Miller’s horrible conduct off camera after this film, it really doesn’t resonate well at all.  Gail Gadot had every right to avoid physical contact with Ezra Miller.

 

The entire film is obsessed with the motherboxes.  They’re a big deal in DC.  It serves as the equivalent of the teserack or infinity stones via the Marvel universe.  It’s derivative and boring.  They decide to use the motherbox to bring Superman back to life and that’s a good 15 minutes of predictable plot. Superman wakes up but he’s all wonky so a fight breaks out.  There’s like one cop there with his gun drawn during the fight.  Lois Lane shows up and Superman stops fighting and just takes off with her. 

 

They decide to launch their big attack without Superman and that’s basically the last thirty minutes of the film.  Antics ensue, Superman shows up toward the end of the battle.  He helps them win the day.  The film wraps up with Ma Kent’s farm being saved because Bruce Wayne Bought the bank and gave it back to her. Everyone goes back to their lives a little happier.  There’s a boring ass voiceover from Lois Lane summing up the film.  The coda cuts back to Lex Luthor escaping from prison. That breakout never has a payoff in the DCEU. He hints at starting the Injustice League.  It’s actually the coolest part of the film because we see Deathstroke and are actually interested in what those possibilities could be.  

 

The film is boring.  The characters aren’t fleshed out enough but you can tell Whedon tries.  He’s big on character development in his work.  The action isn’t particularly spectacular.  The villain is so terrible and lame.  

 

The person who might have actually fixed this film is Michael Bay.  He has a similar film style to Zach Snyder and would have added the right balance of cheesy generic audience jokes. And if he didn’t save it, no one would have cared because all his movies suck anyway.  

 

Written by
Joseph Ammendolea
Owner/President
“I Like To Play With Toys” Productions®
ILikeToPlayWithToysProductions@Yahoo.com

The X Generation - Down

 Cuculi presents Live Beats music of the 90s & 00s.

 

The DC Animated Universe Weekly Review - Batman: The Animated Series

Batman: The Animated Series

Episode 76

Baby-Doll

 

One of the worst episodes and most annoying recurring rogue in BtAS.  Babydoll is just so annoying.  Her gimmick is she’s a fully-grown adult that looks like an eternal child.  She was a TV star that failed to achieve the same level of popularity after her show went off the air.  So she flips out and kidnaps her former co-stars and tries to kill everyone.  

 

Batman and Robin investigate the kidnappings and track her down.  They defeat her goons.  She is eventually captured by Batman after some dramatic crying scene.  The gimmick is annoying, her motivation for being a criminal is lame, her character isn’t fun.  It’s all creepy and the baby voice she puts on is nails on a chalkboard.  How this got passed the inception stage is baffling.  A rare miss in DCAU and rare miss in BtAS.  

 

Written by
Joseph Ammendolea
Owner/President
“I Like To Play With Toys” Productions®
ILikeToPlayWithToysProductions@Yahoo.com

The X Generation - Free Falling

 Cuculi presents Live Beats music of the 90s & 00s.

 

The DC Animated Universe Weekly Review - Batman: The Animated Series

 Batman: The Animated Series

Episode 75

Bane

 

The man who broke the Bat! His appearance was quite a surprise since he only appeared in the comics a few years earlier.  There’s a lot of fear in the episode just based on his comic book reputation.  The show doesn’t go that dark and Batman eventually defeats him.  

 

They do a great job setting him up as a formidable foe for Batman and his origin is kept simple.  Bane escaped from a prison in South America after being given an experimental concoction called venom.   It’s basically a super steroid that makes him really strong.  Rupert Thorne hires him to kill Batman.  Bane shows up, beats up one of Batman’s physically stronger opponents Killer Croc to prove he’s tough.  Robin gets kidnaped; they don’t bother to unmask him for some reason.   Batman shows up, faces off against Bane, defeats him. 

 

There’s a moment during the epic battle you think Bane might win and Batman pulls off a miracle.  It was a nice twist for anyone who read the comic and saw Batman get his back broken.  This version Bane in the series fits and he gets tougher in later episodes.  He never truly reaches the terror scale of the comic but the audience is still left with a rather terrifying villain. 

 

Written by
Joseph Ammendolea
Owner/President
“I Like To Play With Toys” Productions®
ILikeToPlayWithToysProductions@Yahoo.com

Justice League/Zack Snyder's Justice League - DCEU Review Series

DCEU Review Series

Justice League/Zack Snyder's Justice League

2017/2021

Director: Joss Whedon/Zack Snyder

How do we tackle this installment in the DCEU?  There are two versions.  The half Zach Snyder/half Joss Whedon version and the all Zach Snyder version which came out years later.  The internet is on fire with all the theories surrounding how this fiasco happened and the news changes regularly every few years.  Let’s try to sum it up as simple as we can knowing the Hollywood politics backstory could become dated within minutes of this posting.  

 

Zach Snyder who tortured us with the turds Man of Steel and Batman vs Superman was slated to direct the Justice League movie.  Justice League (JL) is DC’s big superhero team-up comic.  All the big DC Comics players are in the JL roster. During the making of JL Zach Snyder’s daughter tragically kills herself.  And depending on which story you believe, he either steps away from the film to focus on his family or DC uses it as an excuse to force him out of a film they don’t have much confidence in.  At that point Joss Whedon who had massive success with Marvel’s Avengers (Marvel’s big team-up comic) steps in to complete the film.  

 

These are two directors with totally different styles.  Therefore Whedon is tasked with taking a bleak depressing director and trying to recraft his work into a Whedon styled film.  The result was a huge factor in ruination of Joss Whedon’s career.  Actors in the film clashed with the new director.  The most public instances were with Ray Fisher (Cyborg) and Gal Gadot (Wonder Woman). 

 

It’s hard to shift through rumor and fact when it comes to Whedon. The consensus seems to be he’s a jerk.  Most Hollywood folks are.  Fisher publicly called Whedon unprofessional after the film was released.  Some could argue it was sour grapes since his character’s storyline cut down to almost nothing in Whedon’s version.  Other’s see it as retaliation from a tyrannical director who had a vendetta against the actor.  It didn’t help Whedon’s stance when Buffy the Vampire Slayer/Angel actress Charisma Carpenter revealed Whedon’s horrible treatment of her during their time together on the show that made him famous.  Her fellow castmates from the show supported her claims and Whedon’s career was destroyed in matter of days.  

 

The other incident involves Whedon writing a joke where The Flash crashes into Wonder Woman and lands on her breasts. Gal Gadot refused to film the gag.  Whedon got pissed at her and threatened to ruin her career or tie her to a train and run her over or something.  Whedon blames it on a language misinterpretation, Gal Gadot refutes that claim and says she completely understood the context of what he was saying.  At that point top Warner Brother executives had to get involved to diffuse the situation.  None of that is good for filmmaking.  Top brass do not want to be mediating arguments between its stars and directors. Whedon eventually reworked the shot to use her stunt double.  Given the type of human being Ezra Miller turned out to be, no one can blame Gal Gadot for wanting to limit contact with him.  

 

It appeared there was a bit of a cast revolt when Whedon agreed to take over the film.  Whedon agreed to write a new film around what was already filmed and complete the project in 60 days.  Cast members loyal to Whedon were disappointed they were now making a film they didn’t sign up for. The back-office Hollywood politics and sympathy for Snyder’s loss, Whedon came onto the set with a deficit.  His overall demeanor and work style did not help ease tension and probably made the entire situation much worse.  The amount of stress placed on him from the studio must have been exponential and he’s dealing with a cast and crew who aren’t receptive to this change.  If Whedon had approached the cast and crew with a more open and upbeat attitude, basically if he wasn’t a huge jerk, the movie might still have tanked but he might have salvaged his reputation as a filmmaker.  The lesson to learn from Whedon in this scenario is if you’re an established filmmaker, do not take over another director’s film unless he dies or he personally asks you too.  

 

Joss Whedon’s Justice League is released, it’s hated by fans and critics, makes more than double its budget back. It’s forgotten fairly quickly after that.  As the years go on Zach Snyder starts a campaign among his fans for a push to finish his version of the film.  Rumors have it that Snyder had paid bots flood the internet to manipulate social media algorithms that would trend people wanting his version.  It thus tricked the executives into thinking there was a demand for his version of the film.  Warner Brothers caved and dropped another $70 million dollars into completing the Snyder version and these two cuts of the film now exist.   Neither version is good and it’s Snyder’s fault.  Whedon had to work around what was made which resulted in an uneven film.  Snyder had complete control over his version of the film and with an extra two hours, did nothing to make it better.  Since the Snyder version is not considered canon in the DCEU it’ll get reviewed at the same time we review “Josstice League” instead of its chronological release placing in the DCEU.  Sadly we’re stuck watching the same crappy movie twice in a row for a total of 6 hours. 

Written by
Joseph Ammendolea
Owner/President
“I Like To Play With Toys” Productions®
ILikeToPlayWithToysProductions@Yahoo.com

The X Generation - Hash Pipe

 Cuculi presents Live Beats music of the 90s & 00s.

 

The DC Animated Universe Weekly Review - Batman: The Animated Series

 Batman: The Animated Series

Episode 74

Catwalk

 

Not a particularly great episode.  It combos a few plot points which are becoming tropes for BtAS at this point. Catwoman is feeling angst because she can’t be a thief, has opinions about animal conservation, wants to live a more exciting life.  Scarface pops up and hires her to commit a crime.  She agrees but is actually used as a decoy while Scarface steals a bunch of other McGuffins.  She doesn’t like getting played and clears her name.  Batman obviously gets involved and helps save the day.

 

Catwoman was done fairly well as a character but her plots were becoming redundant.  They salvage her at the end of the series but this episode as an angsty Catwoman topped off with douchebag Scarface is more annoying than entertaining.  We stated in his introduction episode that Scarface isn’t a well-liked villain by us.  This episode rings true to that.  

 

One of the better things about Scarface is that he keeps the same lackeys.  The loyalty to his employees is commendable.  Two-Face, Joker, Penguin have new goons whenever they appear in an episode.  Scarface is consistent with his bad guy support team. 

 

Written by
Joseph Ammendolea
Owner/President
“I Like To Play With Toys” Productions®
ILikeToPlayWithToysProductions@Yahoo.com

The X Generation - My Own Worst Enemy

 Cuculi presents Live Beats music of the 90s & 00s.

 

The DC Animated Universe Weekly Review - Batman: The Animated Series

 Batman: The Animated Series

Episode 73

Time Out of Joint

 

The return of The Clock King, while not as exciting as his introduction episode, it’s not a horrible episode.  Clock King is still seeking revenge on Mayor Hamilton Hill.  This time he steals some tech from a scientist that made a device that slows down time for anyone wearing it.  Clock King is using it to steal some items for cash and blow up the mayor.  Batman and Robin are able to stop him “in-time” from succeeding.  

 

The gimmick of a device that can slowdown or even stop time isn’t new to television.  There’s a twilight zone episode that addresses it fairly well.  Giving this device to Clock King is the logical movie.  A man obsessed with time committing time based crimes fits perfectly.  What keeps the episode from being as epic as his introduction is it fails to use Clock Kings obsession with punctuality.  He was a formidable rogue for Batman due to his ability use schedules and timing to his advantage.  That’s not prevalent in his follow-up episode.

 

Written by
Joseph Ammendolea
Owner/President
“I Like To Play With Toys” Productions®
ILikeToPlayWithToysProductions@Yahoo.com

 

Jim Shooter Passes Away

Comic book writer Jim Shooter has passed away from cancer. He's best known for his tenure as Editor in Chief of Marvel Comics from 1978 - 1987. Almost all the stories you love from the Marvel films were conceptualized in some way from creators during his tenure as editor. There's too much to say about his contributions to the comic book world and pop culture.

On a personal note, I was invited on a ride along to film him in his limo, as he toured Long Island comic shops on Free Comic Book Day in 2011. It was one of the coolest experiences I ever had. I showed up wearing my Secret Wars t-shirt (one of my favorite stories), completely forgetting he wrote the mini-series. He complimented my shirt and it jogged my memory that he was the writer. I played it off that it was worn on purpose. 

The rule “never meet your heroes” certainly didn’t apply to Jim Shooter. He was nothing but gracious and kind. He had a wealth of knowledge and spent the day telling stories about his career in comics. At the end of the day he signed a couple of my trade paperbacks that he wrote. An unforgettable experience. 

As the years went on I’d continue to run into him at cons. He was always incredibly awesome, would share insight on how he wrote and techniques he used. As I learned more about him, I discovered he was a generous mentor to anyone who wanted to break into comics. He’d give honest feedback to people who approached him. There are a lot of creators out there who credit their career to Jim Shooter. Not only have we lost a great creator, we also lost a great person. 

Praying for Jim Shooter and his family.

Written by
Joseph Ammendolea
Owner/President
“I Like To Play With Toys” Productions®
ILikeToPlayWithToysProductions@Yahoo.com

Here’s some clips from that ride along on Free Comic Book Day.

Wonder Woman - DCEU Review Series

DCEU Review Series

Wonder Woman

2017

Director: Patty Jenkins

Folks went nuts over this film and it’s not because it’s spectacular.  It just happened to be the best DCEU film to come out at the time.  It’s not terrible but it’s certainly not great.  It’s average.  We get a drawn-out origin story on the island of all women and a little girl version of Wonder Woman with a terrible accent.  We get some boring backstory about a hidden weapon which can kill a god which the all women island has, the twist is telegraphed so bad they could have tattooed if on Wonder Woman’s head.  She’s the god killer.  It’s painful when you can call a twist like that within seconds. 

 

Then she’s an adult and Steve Trevor shipwrecks on this island, a fight breaks out between the island babes and the WW I Germans who were following Trevor.  Why is it WW I? Because DC can’t completely tip off Captain America and set it in WW II.  So they just took a digit off the war.  The Germans of WW I weren’t evil like the Nazi’s of WW II.  Sadly, most folks are completely ignorant of history and don’t even know the difference.  Hollywood called that one right.  

 

All the women on the island talk like they’re cavemen or heavy smokers. It’s incredibly annoying.  Steve Trevor (Chris Pine) does his best William Shatner overacting impression while under the influence of the magic lasso, forcing him to spew out a bunch of film exposition. 

Some woman is making poison gas and Stevie boy has the intel which can stop them.  Wonder Woman is like, yo that’s our mortal enemy Ares (the Greek god of war).  Of course her mother/amazon leader doesn’t want her to go.  She goes against orders and takes off with Steve Trevor anyway.  

 

It moves a little slow on the island with some moments of humor which are mildly amusing.  The moments between Gal Gadot and Chris Pine are enjoyable but even their chemistry doesn’t make the plot any better.  

 

Wonder Woman is swept into the contemporary world of the early 20^th century.  She’s somehow the strongest/wisest person in the world and super naïve at the same time.  There are lots of comedic moments.  Then she starts nagging every guy she meets when things don’t go the way she wants.  Her voice becomes nails on a chalkboard.  We cannot forget Wonder Woman’s awe of Sir Patrick Morgan who’s proclaiming peace and “curse your sudden by inevitable betrayal” he’s actually Ares.  Another lame twist anyone with a walnut sized brain could see from a mile away.

When Steve Trevor cannot convince his leaders to perform an operation to end the war, Trevor recruits a bunch of other randos with annoying accents to infiltrate enemy lines.  Every guy that meets her is in love with her.  Probably the best part of the film is when Diana comes across a traditional WW I battlefield and leads a charge over a “no man’s land” ending a standstill.  The Wonder Woman nag fest wasn’t fun but the action was cool.  And of course in all major fights women have to let their hair down to kick ass, not put it up.  

 

After the cool action sequence, the film completely stops in its tracks to develop the love story between Wonder Woman and Steve Trevor.  Then they infiltrate some party which is also German High Command because all generals throw fancy dances in the middle of a war.  

 

Wonder Woman is convinced some German general is Ares in disguise but everyone with half a brain already knows it’s the Sir Patrick.  When she finally kills the German guy who’s a total douchebag and has it coming, nothing happens.  Then she starts nagging again with that screech because the war doesn’t end.  For all the fun stuff in this movie, Wonder Nagger sucks the energy out.  Ares shows up so now she has to have another fight with the actual big bad. 

 

They spend way too much time talking and not enough time fighting.  Steve Trevor cannot just sit on the sidelines because whenever a girl is the action hero, the male love interest has to have his own moment of saving people.  But when the guy is the action hero, the woman can just be a damsel in distress.  Steve dies trying to prevent toxic gas from killing a bunch of people.  Wonder Woman is busy fighting Ares so she can’t save her man from dying. 

 

She defeats the bad guy.  The war ends.  We get some lame voiceover about love saving the world.  Overall the film is entertaining but it’s really not good. It moves slow and the action does not balance out the boredom.  It’s was certainly the best DCEU film made up to this point but the threshold is low.  It’s a rip off of Marvel’s Captain America, changing just enough around to avoid copyright infringement.  I’d complain about the characters but the film really only seems to have two; Wonder Woman and Steve Trevor.  The rest is background dressing.  Even the villain is barely featured in this story.  DC thought they cracked the formula with this because of all the positive press they received and money they made but it was window dressing.  

 

Written by
Joseph Ammendolea
Owner/President
“I Like To Play With Toys” Productions®
ILikeToPlayWithToysProductions@Yahoo.com

The X Generation - LOVESONG

 Cuculi presents Live Beats music of the 90s & 00s.