I’ve been a little lukewarm about the recent animated output
from DC Comics. Don’t get me wrong, I’m a sucker for the world’s greatest
superheroes, and it’s very hard to outright disappoint me when you have a film
with Batman in it. But I’m somewhere between “devotion” and “obligation” when
it comes to direct-to-DVD features like Batman vs. Robin, most recently. News that Bruce Timm, he of Batman: The Animated Series fame, was returning to the animated DC
universe brought leaps of glee. I rushed to the store on its debut (shunning as
I did its earlier digital release), and...?It’s okay. It’s not Bruce Timm’s best work, but it is diverting enough; it’s far from DC’s recent disappointing work, but Gods and Monsters is disappointing in a different kind of way.
Imagine if you will a Justice League from a harsher world: Superman (Benjamin Bratt) is the son of General Zod, raised by Mexican laborers; Batman (Michael C. Hall) is actually the vampiric Kirk Langstrom, known to comics devotees as Man-Bat; and this world’s Wonder Woman (Tamara Taylor) is a warrior descended from the gods of New Genesis. The world fears them, and someone is murdering scientists in a bid to frame the Justice League.
I’ve often lamented the loss of Timm’s art style in DC’s animated films – in fact, I called out Flashpoint Paradox for its “choppy and bargain-bin” animation. Timm’s style has always seemed clean, perhaps because it’s quite literally the stuff on which I was raised, but he’s also in possession of an exceptional flair for design. This film’s trinity all have distinctive, original looks that convey difference while maintaining an echo with their counterparts. You’ll hear me throughout this review praise the character of Bekka, Gods and Monsters’ Wonder Woman analogue, but I must also say that I’d buy a vampiric Batman action figure in a heartbeat.
On the subject of Bekka, amid the dismal lack of female superheroes in the current renaissance, she’s far and away the most compelling character in the film. (Cinema King second-rates Batman? Say it ain’t so!) Visuals aside, Bekka’s character is intricately crafted, with a compelling personality, engaging snark in an otherwise gloomy film, and a backstory that’s worthy of Superman: Red Son in terms of alternate takes. But where Red Son had Superman’s rocket landing in Moscow rather than Smallville, Bekka hails from Jack Kirby’s Fourth World saga, the epic narrative of opposing god-planets. Timm’s visual style borrows from Kirby’s wheelhouse, but it’s Bekka’s flashback that embraces Kirby most directly, much to the glee of this reviewer. Each character gets a flashback sequence to fill out their origins, but it’s Bekka’s that I’ll be flocking to rewatch first.
Illutrating these points of difference is ostensibly a highlight of any divergent-timeline story, and director Sam Liu paces these out quite well, interspersing them throughout the film in a clear manner without frontloading all the backstory. (And don’t worry, you don’t need to have read the tie-in comics or seen the Machinima shorts, though the latter are strongly recommended.) In fact, in some ways, these are more interesting than the main plot itself, which is a bit underwhelming. Let’s say this – anyone who’s read a fair share of comics will crack the mystery almost immediately.
That brings me to my first qualm with the film (of which I have two) – who is this movie for? As all alternate takes usually do, Gods and Monsters fills itself out with a who’s-who of parallel universe versions of DC’s vast tapestry. In place of Lois Lane, we have ace reporter Lana Lang; Amanda Waller is president, Batman was the college roommate of Will Magnus, and micro-scientist Ray Palmer has a lab aide named Ryan. Now, if you’re steeped enough in DC lore to get the references, there’s a chuckle to be had – of course the power-savvy Waller would end up president – but in these moments the film doesn’t depart enough. The names are the same, and so too are the personalities, which makes this alternate-universe exercise seem a little too same old, same old. On the other hand, if you don’t know who Will Magnus is, that subplot doesn’t really go anywhere or do anything for you.
My second complaint about Gods and Monsters is that the movie never answers a central question about its team, one which could have made for a fascinating movie altogether – how did this Justice League assemble in the first place? Because Timm (a cowriter, with Alan Burnett) gave us such very engaging points of departure for the trinity, he in turn gave us characters that are monstrous mirrors of the Justice League proper – and by extension their path to collaboration was probably a bit rocky. They are, as the title tells us, both gods and monsters, and what drives three such individuals to work together? Gods and Monsters hops over the second act in favor of an underboiled third-act mystery, when I suspect the real meat was in what we didn’t see.
If it’s all addressed in the rumored sequel, spinoff comics, or second season of Machinima shorts, that’ll be fine when we get there, but as a standalone Gods and Monsters doesn’t stand enough apart to be another home run for Timm. It’s disappointing in a different way; where Son of Batman was disappointing because it never rose above the level of “generic Batman adventure,” Gods and Monsters is a bit of a letdown because it displays enough promise to remind us of what Bruce Timm is actually capable. At the end of the day, though, it is still a Bruce Timm product, which puts it at least shoulder-height above most of the other comics cartoons out there. But it does need to bear that qualifying adverb of “enough” – it is good enough, entertaining enough, and creative enough, but it isn’t transcendent in the way that I suspect most DC disciples expect.
No comments:
Post a Comment