DVD Review: SUPERMAN/BATMAN: PUBLIC ENEMIES

I’m going to jump right in and tell you that I hate the animation style of this movie. I prefer the clean lines of Batman The Animated Series to the subpar character work of this movie. If you don’t have the budget to make it look better than a Saturday Morning Cartoon, then go for style instead of clarity. It’s just that simple. That doesn’t mean the movie is bad, just not as pretty as I’d like it.

The Public Enemies story is about a world where Lex Luthor becomes the president of the United States of America, and ends up outlawing caped crusaders unless they come work for him. Lex’s group of Heroes includes Black Lightning, Power Girl, Katana, Starfire, Major Force and Captain Atom… if you’re not familiar, then don’t worry, Power Girl is the most famous, and not because she’s a great super hero but because of other assets.

The real story starts when a meteor the size of a small country is headed for earth in a week. The entire thing is made of Kryptonite. Luthor has a genius plan to destroy the meteor with a new enormous missile, but claims that he needs to meet with Superman just incase they need a back up plan. His real goal is to trick Superman into a fight with new Secret Service agent, Metallo, who’s powered by a Krytonite core, evening the playing field between the two. A large battle ensues with Batman coming to Superman’s rescue, Metallo gets away, but is soon found dead. Superman is framed for the crime and Luthor puts a bounty on his head for 1 billion dollars.

Superman and Batman embark on a mission to clear Superman’s name, stop the giant meteor from hitting earth, and try to stay alive while super villains from all over the DC universe try to take Superman out for the bounty. It’s definitely a good story… at least in theory. The execution, especially in the second half is so bad that it becomes laughable.

Comic books have a level of well… comicness they can get away with before an adult, no matter how big of a fan, starts to just laugh and remark on how stupid what they’re watching truly is. This came in the last act for me. The entire film started to break down into action sequence after action sequence, which can be fine, but that means you’re missing out on what could be the bets Batman detective story of all time. Batman having to prove Superman isn’t a criminal? Well you can see how cool that could be right? Instead that entire plot line is almost completely thrown away, Batman is never really a “public enemy” and we get one of the douchiest moments I’ve seen in these films…

Much of the dialogue in Public Enemies are cliches that feel like they’re out of a bad Schwarzenegger film. To top that off, most of the banter between Batman and Superman comes off more than a little homo-erotic, and very catty. If they spoke like this on the big screen people wouldn’t openly moan at how bad it is. Even Kevin Conroy, who IS BATMAN can’t save this film.