DC Superheroes in Film (Theatrical and Streaming) (Page 19 of 19)

Watching Marvel's WHAT IF? with the full motion animation, lush and dense environments, smooth camerawork, hyperkinetic editing, compelling shot composition, immersive soundscape, high energy voice acting -- and I have to wonder, why exactly are those DC Universe Original Animated movies still being made? They look stiff and immobile compared to WHAT IF?

The original BATMAN and SUPERMAN WB animated cartoons used simple character designs for smooth animation on a TV schedule and budget, but the DC Original Animated Features choose a mid-point of realistic designs, a moderate level of motion, and as recently as CATWOMAN: HUNTED, the overall effect is stiff cardboard cutouts moving back and forth on a two dimensional plane. There's never the sense that the actors are in the same room; they feel like they were recorded on separate dimensions of existence

The DC Universe Original Animated features look like amateur student films. They diminish the DC brand as cheap and rushed. I don't think it's due to any lack of talent; the movies are probably being made in too little time with too few resources. I don't understand why they're allowed to exist. They can't be that profitable and they're at best average.

While the recasting for WHAT IF is mostly fine, it's certainly preferable to have the performer who originated the live action role continue in the animated tie-in. The contracts for WHAT IF weren't in place, but they sound like they will be on James Gunn's animated films for DC.

I said that the DC Universe Original Animated features all looked cheap and amateur. However, I have to say, that was a generalization and there is a more nuanced opinion to be had. There have been a number of standouts: the JUSTICE LEAGUE NEW FRONTIER feature had a slick, simple set of character designs with smooth animation. GREEN LANTERN: FIRST FLIGHT looked very nice, probably because being set in space meant the artists didn't have to do too many characters or cityscapes. GOTHAM KNIGHTS was beautiful, probably because the format of short stories suited the budget of these projects.

However, for every NEW FRONTIER, there seem to be four or five mediocrities like SUPERMAN: MAN OF TOMORROW, a strangely inanimate feature that lacks music and motion and has a tedious visual presentation of Superman's feats. And this cheap looking film was meant to be the debut of the new run of DC animated films.

I note that RETURN OF THE CAPED CRUSADER and BATMAN VS. TWO FACE, both recent animated sequels to the 60s BATMAN show from Warner Bros. Animation, look beautiful. While not at the full motion level of WHAT IF where the camera can move through the environment, these two films clearly had fight choreography and a sense of visual intensity that is not to be found in SUPERMAN VS. THE ELITE. And I notice that the BATMAN: HUSH feature is very close to the same level of RETURN and TWO FACE, but CATWOMAN: HUNTED is stiff and lifeless.

Another thing I noticed is that a lot of the poorer films like SUPERMAN: MAN OF TOMORROW, SON OF BATMAN, BATMAN VS. ROBIN, BAD BLOOD, and CATWOMAN: HUNTED have strangely stilted voice editing. A character says a line, there's a half-second to a full second pause, and then another character voices their response. There is a conspicuous lack of conversational interaction and pacing. It's very obvious the voice actors didn't record together. But then in GREEN LANTERN:  FIRST FLIGHT, BATMAN: HUSH and the two 60s films, there's overlap and reaction in the performances even though it's likely those actors didn't record together either.

It seems to me like everyone involved is very talented, but Warner Bros. wants a certain number of features each year and allocates time and budget based on predicted unit sales. A sequel to the 60s BATMAN TV show featuring Adam West, Burt Ward, Julie Newmar and William Shatner will sell better than a SUPERMAN feature. My guess would be that the Adam West project gets a larger budget for animation and a lengthier schedule, not only for visual quality, but so that the editors can edit and mix together the voice tracks to create reactions, interruptions, overlapping dialogue and other elements of natural conversation.

Meanwhile, SUPERMAN: MAN OF TOMORROW gets less money and a shorter schedule, and less time to create the illusion of conversation in the sound editing process. There are probably any number of these animated films that, due to the release schedule, didn't get the refinement and care they needed.

A lot of these projects seem to have had a lot of time and money put into the box art and into booking 'name' actors for a few days of recording, but significantly less put into scripting, animating, recording and editing. I hope that under James Gunn, DC animated projects will find a way to achieve a higher level of artistry and quality.

I'm watching THE DEATH OF SUPERMAN (2018) and REIGN OF THE SUPERMEN (2019). It's not great, a passable but never phenomenal adaptation of the storyline. It's unfortunately sabotaged by the DC animated films before it, and, strangely, Jerry O'Connell, whom I'd forgotten had been voicing Superman.

This run of films, called the DC Animated Movie Universe (DCAMU), was established in JUSTICE LEAGUE: THE FLASHPOINT PARADOX (2013) where the Flash's time travel antics create this DC timeline that served as an ongoing continuity for most of the animated films from 2014 - 2020. The first installment was JUSTICE LEAGUE: WAR in which Superman was voiced by Alan Tudyk and Jerry didn't even play Superman until the DCAMU's Superman's second appearance in THRONE OF ATLANTIS.

The DCAMU team seems to have little enthusiasm for Superman. Jerry's Superman debuts in February 2014 in the Justice League ensemble and isn't Jerry; he doesn't appear again until January 2015's THRONE OF ATLANTIS and is finally Jerry; Jerry's Superman has small roles in JUSTICE LEAGUE VS. TEEN TITANS and JUSTICE LEAGUE DARK; he doesn't get a movie of his own until July 2018 and it's THE DEATH OF SUPERMAN, which kills him off.

In addition, THRONE established that Superman and Wonder Woman were dating; DEATH OF SUPERMAN refers to an offscreen breakup and Clark is now dating Lois, and has to establish the Clark/Lois relationship in the very same movie where Clark dies. We have spent so little time with Jerry O'Connell's Superman that his death means very, very little.

Jerry is... peculiar. His voice doesn't have the natural authority and confidence that I associate with Superman; it has a comedically unsteady, dramatically uncertain quality to it. He doesn't instantly convince as Superman. In addition, Jerry's Superman is written as so uncertain and self-doubting that Jerry only gets a few instances to play the confident, self-assured Superman.

When Jerry is called upon to play Superman as more like Tyler Hoechlin than Quinn Mallory, Jerry excels... but his hyperconfident Superman voice sounds so little like his unsure Superman voice that it almost feels like a different actor, and Jerry doesn't do particularly well at combining these two sides of Superman into a unified character. The problem may not even be Jerry, but whatever circumstances in which he recorded his dialogue and the direction that he received. Certainly, the script is not on his side.

Very, very strange. THE DEATH OF SUPERMAN and REIGN OF THE SUPERMEN again seem like two cheap animated films where more time and effort was spent designing the blu-ray box art than making the films.

I started watching JUSTICE LEAGUE DARK. Then I remembered: I'd seen half of the movie with my niece a few years ago, but then we got distracted by her mother coming home from the airport with luggage and we turned the TV off to help her unpack. And then...

IB: "What were we doing before your mother came home?"

LAUREN: "Were we watching CONSTANTINE?"

IB: "No, it was a cartoon."

LAUREN: "Oh, right! We were watching a DC animated movie where Matt Ryan is the voice of Constantine. Should we finish it?"

IB: "I think we got to the part where the villain shows up and the villain's either Dr. Fu Manchu or a racist Chinese caricature that's as racist as Dr. Fu Manchu."

LAUREN: "I don't think we need to finish watching that."

How does Tom Welling's Clark differ from Henry Cavll's Clark in your view?

Your thoughts interest me.

I don't think your memory is off, but I would offer some nuances. You may think I'm contradicting you at first, but once you get to the end of this, you'll find that I agree with you.

Speaking strictly in terms of the writing: the SMALLVILLE version of Clark Kent's character didn't hold together very coherently. The most glaring fault in the way Clark was written throughout the series was actually summed up by you when you remarked, "Throughout Season 8, Clark is trying so hard to save Davis Bloom from his fate as Doomsday. If Clark had tried as hard to save Lex as he tried to save Davis, I don't think Lex would have gone evil."

For most of Seasons 1 - 7, Clark's confidence in human nature seems nearly non-existent. Even when he loses his powers, he maintains The Secret towards Lex; he joins a football team of bullies and psychopaths; he has no dedicated ambition to use his power to save people and never seems to go on patrol -- there is something very lacksidasical and callous about how someone with Clark's powers self-isolates on a farm for most of Season 7. The only thing he seems to care about is Lana.

Season 8 rebooted Clark's character significantly to who he probably should have been by Season 2: he is actively pursuing his goals of serving the world as a superpowered first responder, he is going on patrol, he is building a network of allies and support staff, and Lana is in his past.. However, this drastic improvement also created some oddities in character-continuity.

In Seasons 1- 7 Clark having killed any number of supervillains by throwing them into sharp objects or turning their powers on them or heat visioning them or electrocuting them in the heat of combat. Season 8 abruptly has Clark not only declare that he doesn't kill, but acts like that's always been the case, particularly when Clark judges Oliver Queen as morally bankrupt for (supposedly) blowing up Lex Luthor with Luthor's own bomb, to the point of kicking Oliver off the Justice League (only for everyone on the League to take Oliver's side once Clark isn't looking).

The result is that Clark looks like a hypocrite even though, paradoxically, this was probably the first time the writers had really tried to stay true to the comic book character. It's very strange: the show consistently insists that Clark believes in the decency of all human beings and has a high moral standard, but in actuality, Clark is distant and aloof and guarded and didn't practice in Seasons 1 - 7 what he preaches in Season 8.

Henry Cavill's character seems to have all of the flaws described above: Clark kills in the heat of combat and if angry, he might well do it again. He fights with rage and fury when his mother or Lois are threatened and is otherwise tightly wound and coiled up. As a child, Clark saved a schoolbus full of children and was told by his father that perhaps he should have let them all drown.

Clark's father was later caught in a tornado and commanded Clark to stand by and do nothing to save him lest his powers be exposed to the public; Clark complied. These experiences have left Clark doubtful and shaken, untrusting and suspicious of others. His father didn't trust the world to treat Clark well or to see his powers used for good.

When Clark throws a punch against a superpowered alien invader, it devastates small town buildings, shatters skyscrapers. In MAN OF STEEL, Clark is undoubtedly surrounded by 200,000 dead people in the wreckage of the fight with Zod when he flirts with Lois and kisses her, implying a certain disconnection from human experience.

We could assume that, in MAN OF STEEL, Clark spent weeks after the Kryptonian attack digging out bodies and survivors and rebuilding the city just as he was trying to find survivors of the Capitol in the ULTIMATE EDITION of BATMAN VS. SUPERMAN... but we never see it and it's never discussed.

And, as with SMALLVILLE, this version of Clark was drastically rebooted into a distinctly altered personality. The depiction of Clark in JUSTICE LEAGUE under Joss Whedon's direction and writing is noticeably very different: Clark in JUSTICE LEAGUE is indulgent, happy to let some little boys interview him for their podcast, and answering all their questions with thought and sincerity.

He describes kindly how the S-insignia is not an S, but a river, that winds and flows, representing the flow of hope. When asked what his favourite thing is about Earth, Clark genuinely ponders the question and smiles brightly as he answers.

Later, Clark bursts into the battle against Steppenwolf, but just as quickly flees when he hears the cries of civilians in danger and turns his attention to them first, engaging in a friendly competition with the Flash to see who can save more people.

Ultimately, the writing of Tom Welling's Clark and Henry Cavill's Clark, at least to me -- have a lot of the same problems. Both depictions suffer from a distinct lack of proactive compassion and empathy whether it's for guest-stars, extras and potential collateral damage, or their local communities. They are focused on juvenile soap opera crap (Lana or Lois) instead of saving lives.

Both versions of Clark display little to no trust in human nature, hide from their problems and struggles, are motivated by a fixation on a woman, and are passive until they are reactive. However, Welling's Clark is a defensive fighter who seeks to contain and immobilize while Cavill's Clark seems to fight with decades of pent-up frustration and fury.

But -- that's the *writing*. The memories that Slider_Quinn21 has shared of Tom Welling and Henry Cavill seem to be less about the writing and rather the impression that these two actors left on Slider_Quinn21's mind. And in terms of the performances, these two actors could not be more different.

Henry Cavill is a very aloof, guarded actor who, when playing troubled characters (like Clark in a Zack Snyder movie), holds his characters at a distance from their actions and their supporting casts. Cavill's characters are burying their secrets, insecurities, demons and fears away from the world while still bearing the weight of them. Cavill adopts a distant and somber presence for this.

The result is that Cavill's Clark can seem really joyless -- except when Cavill is performing a Joss Whedon script where he has to save civilians and tell jokes, and suddenly, Cavill's aloofness is replaced by a glowingly warm, commanding charisma.

Tom Welling, however, is not aloof or guarded. Tom a paradox: he is an introvert who wears his heart on his sleeve. Tom is a low-key, quiet soul who likes to buy out the stock of children's toy stores and spend weekends in his garage putting them in gift wrap so that he can distribute them to low income families come Christmas.  Tom's inherent thoughtfulness, compassion and decency of character is not a performance, but a genuine expression of his true self.

As a result, Tom Welling's screen presence exudes a superhuman level of patience, goodwill, trust, caring, kindness and belief in the fundamental decency and positive potential of all human beings. There is a delicate caring to Tom's onscreen persona that the camera picks up: the carefulness with which he walks and speaks to others, the humility with which he listens, the patience that he conveys, that makes Tom seem superhumanly kind even when the writing isn't on his side.

MAN OF STEEL and BATMAN VS. SUPERMAN 'suffered' from excessive budgets where Superman's powers are most memorably rendered in Superman punching supervillains, smashing them through walls and buildings and cities. The most memorable images of Henry Cavill's Clark are him flying and punching as buildings (presumably filled with people) are reduced to rubble. This does not create the impression of a great humanitarian.

Despiet Joss Whedon's efforts, Henry Cavill's Superman will be remembered as a cold, distant, troubled Superman of war.

SMALLVILLE had the 'advantage' of a low budget at a time when digital effects were very costly. As a result, SMALLVILLE was limited to only showing Clark's powers in one specific area: the supersave. While Clark was not very proactive in Seasons 1 - 7, he did use his powers at least once an episode, and Clark's feats were always in rescuing people: shielding passengers from their exploding cars, ripping innocent people out of the path of bullets, pulling people out of crashing trains, catching girders before they pulped a human being, yanking people away from fires, catching people as they fell, etc..

As a result, the most memorable images of Clark across 10 seasons is Clark rescuing someone whether it's his parents or or Lex or Chloe or Pete or Lana or some random guest star of the week. Saving people is what Clark did most frequently onscreen in SMALLVILLE. Saving people is where SMALLVILLE put the bulk of the budget. As a result, the common memory people have of SMALLVILLE's Clark is that he is a compassionate protector and rescuer, and the fact that he was a little lax and uncommitted to the job before Season 8 is easily forgotten.

And ultimately, while the first seven seasons of writing let SMALLVILLE down, I think Tom Welling and the special effects artists put in the work to ensure that SMALLVILLE's Clark will always be remembered and loved as for their vision of Clark Kent as a superhuman paramedic, firefighter, first responder and as a character of empathy and compassion.

Ultimately, I think both Welling and Cavill suffered from writing that didn't suit them or their roles, but Welling spent more time saving people and had a more naturally compassionate screen presence (because that's what he's like in real life), so he seems much nicer than Cavill.

It would feel a lot easier to ask Tom Welling's Clark to do your podcast than to ask Henry Cavill's... although Henry Cavill's Clark will do your podcast too, which demonstrates how if the writing is there, the actor can incorporate it into the character.

I vaguely recall seeing Welling in the first 10 minutes of a Netflix/Hallmark movie that I elected not to finish watching because it looked awful. He was wearing a lab coat and he was a doctor in a hospital and my first thought was that Clark was undercover on assignment for the Daily Planet and Lois was hiding behind one of the counters. Tom was standing so tall and authoritatively that I just kept seeing Clark.

**

I finally got around to watching the Season 3 premiere of SUPERMAN AND LOIS and I was struck by how in the crazy Superman fight scene between Superman and a superpowered nutjob, Tyler Hoechlin's Superman is quick to move the fight out of downtown Metropolis and into an unmanned construction zone. Little things like these make Zack Snyder and Henry Cavill look worse and worse.

I wasn't really planning on seeing Joker 2 for a while, but Nando v Movies (a YouTuber I really like) said the movie was more interesting than the first movie but maybe not better.  Now I'm a little interested in seeing for myself what the movie is.

I maintain that making it a musical was a fascinating choice considering the fans of the first movie, but I think if you're going to make a Joker movie with no Batman and then a sequel to that movie, you have to think outside the box.  My "outside the box" approach would be to do a more traditional story but just do it from Joker's POV and make Batman the "villain" - some sort of heightened reality where Joker could hypothetically convince himself (and the audience) that he's the good guy and Batman is some sort of psychopath who keeps stalking and attacking him.  That was, again, something that the Suicide Squad game (a game I have never played) could've done a great job at.  I think Batman could be really scary if done as a villain.

But musical.  Sure, that could work too I guess.