Batman is not pleased about Superman always getting top billing.
The prospect of superheroes working for the government is older than Frank Miller’s “The Dark Knight Returns” (1986) in which it was popularized. Not as old but still venerable is the Lex Luthor becomes president scenario. However these themes still resonate. Superman/Batman: Public Enemies (SBPE) took advantage of both, crafting an entertaining movie without really adding anything or evolving either theme.
"Hey Bats, where's the remote? This channel's the worst."
That is okay in this case. The direct-to-video release throws in enough cameos, dream fights and shout outs to satisfy even the most ardent DC comics geek. Here is the one sentence synopsis to set it up:
Good guy versus good guy? To her credit, Nightshade lasted longer against Superman than most.
Economic travails and civil unrest lead to scheming Lex Luthor being elected president (on a third party ticket) allowing him to continue his vendetta against superheores and stroke is own ego while also granting opportunity to set Superman up as a criminal and while Batman tries to get his friend out of this jam a huge meteor of Kryptonite on a collision course with Earth conveniently enters as the ultimate plot complication.
"Mr. Luthor sir, we've got a visual on the plot complication." "I told you I wanted to see Dancing With the Stars!"
It is more Superman story than Batman, however that does not mean Batman gets short shrift or even lacks screen time. It just means the major story elements are more Superman centric. As usual, we were gratified to see Batman hanging with the heavy hitters, although we feel he should have used his brain a little more.
These are NOT the heavy hitters we're talking about, but they're "cool". Is that "Captain Cold" next to Mr. Freeze? We like the goofball, but what a name! So who is the guy in the back then, "Baron Brisk"?
"Are you Sarah Connor?"
Many popular and classic voice actors participated or returned to don their capes and microphones, including Tim Daly as Superman, Clancy Brown as Lex Luthor, and Kevin Conroy as Batman. (You know Luthor’s slippery voice from the first instant you hear it.) The roster is replete with popular names despite some only needed to record a couple lines for “cameo central”.
Black Manta!? He is one of our favorite minor villains, but one of the last we expected to see.
The art direction was hit or miss. Perhaps they bit off too much. Superman looked fittingly sculpted as did most of the male heroes. Batman’s costume was straight out of an Alex Ross painting. We think Ross makes fine paintings but that does not necessarily mean those costumes taken directly make for good animation models. In this case it did not and always seemed a little “off”.
BTW, what's the trackball for Bruce? Playing "Marble Madness"?
Someone was paying a lot of attention in male anatomy class. That or Superman has found that those late night commercial ab devices really do work!
Some DC universe character you care about will make an appearance in this roster busting movie. We like Mongul. A great character. While his appearance was welcome, it was a little disappointing in both look and improbable conception. Power Girl played a large supporting role, but we found the take on her design in every respect to be underwhelming (except voice). Compared to the sculpted men she seemed blobby and misshapen.
Power Girl's look did not match. It was like she was dropped in from another show. She wore this same expression in all her scenes: Cross-eyed and confused.
"When do I take Tylenol?"
SBPE was “villa-palooza”, with villains coming out from under every rock and falling from second and third tiers at DC. Despite this they also went to great and sometimes contrived lengths to get hero fighting hero. You know, the age old match ups geeks and comic lovers argue about. In comics, DC loves pitting new heroes up against Superman to establish their “cred”. They realize afterward that they are on the same side of course. “Ha ha old chap. No harm done!”
The fights were well choreographed albeit one dimensional slug fests on most occasions. (If it could in any way be punched by Superman, it was.) The animation quality was good, and there are no issues on that front.
Green and purple. Luthor knows to keep his armor in the classic villain's pallette.
The modern trend making Superman and Batman friends contrasts against the more adversarial relationship they had in Miller’s Dark Knight. However the buddy film template works with plots like this one. With many fun moments and only minor disappointments SBPE should be a definite for any fan of the genre.
Captain Atom is...
...da' bomb.
Check out Our Take on
Superman/Batman: Apocalypse [2010]
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F o r t r e s s T a k e s 
Great review Fortress Guy. Love how you combined the photos with the scenes discussed.
Nice. I haven’t seen this yet, but the original Loeb/McGuiness tale was always worthy of adaptation. It looks like it sticks fairly close to the comics, which is grand. Gotta watch it now!
We never read that comic. We judged the movie and its themes on their own merits and overall it did not disappoint. From a brief overview we read on the comic, we got the impression that only some minor plot points were changed. Understandable as the mediums are so different.
Those screen shots really stand out. If anything gets me to watch this movie-to-video flick it’s the art direction. I can see there were issues with anatomical realism/proportions, but overall, from your beautifully rendered clips, I am digging the clean, clear, and detailed animation style. My fondness for 2-D usually wins me over. But you also said the plot was decent, or at least delivered appropriately enough so that even the fans would appreciate it–and that also counts in my book too.
The two shots, one of the fortress-type building and the other of a man in red and yellow colors (who thankfully looks muscular sans the Atlas-like strappings) are pretty nifty. Did you have to paste those images together from several screen shots? They look really nice. I have to scroll my page to see the whole thing. 🙂
Poor cross-eyed Power Girl, heh. But if they happened to botch up the body, I do still like the styling of her face and hair. It stands out from the typical long-haired, womanly-featured females I’ve seen before. Those eyebrows are intense, I like that. Perhaps the confused look even makes her look more unique. *hmms*
Catchy review, especially with the screen shot one-liners. Nice Terminator reference. I think that’s my favorite, along with the animated gif.
Work goes into those tall shots, thanks for noticing. They are indeed multiple caps grabbed from vertical pans and take some effort to match, especially when there are moving elements like smoke. However they add fun visual interest to the take, like that huge tower.
The red and gold hero is Captain Marvel (Shazam!). We noticed too that his build is a little more compact than that chosen for Supes. We think Captain Marvel slugging it out with Supes is one of those dream fights we mentioned.
If we had shown more of Power Girl’s body, you would have seen the “blobbyness”. Instead we chose to focus on her perpetually roller coaster eyebrows and askance expression. As the sole female hero with any decent sized role, you would think that they would have been more careful with her design. Maybe the production team suffered from character overload. We mean it was crazy the amount of DC heroes, villains, wanna-bes and goofballs they crammed into an hour and six minutes.
Pretty nice screenies there. And I guess you’re right, Lex turning Megalomaniac in the end was really that predictable, but it was really so soon. I thought they’d leave us confused for long.
Mongul is always a treat to see! This is on blu-ray so I planned on picking it up soon and the attached screenshots you’ve added jsut make me more excited to see it!
Got any thoughts on what the Superman/Batman sequel should be? I’m crossing my fingers for Supergirl, (it was the direct sequel to Public Enemies, after all).
We have not read any of the printed material. Judging from the feature alone, Supergirl might be interesting to fit in. Certainly she seems more interesting than the way Power Girl was depicted.
Is there the requisite Supergirl versus Power Girl showdown in the printed sequel?
Haha, not in Superman/Batman 2: Supergirl (Its really a retelling of Supergirls origin). But in Supergirl’s first solo feature, yes, there’s a fight between Power Girl and Supergirl. Not as great as I expected, but still appreciated.
I think there’s enough speculation about what the sequel to this might be, its worthy of its own post back at Watch the Movie. I’ll get to work on that!