Category: Directed by Sam Liu
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The first act of Gotham by Gaslight is rough. It establishes Batman (Bruce Greenwood) in the Victorian era. He’s fighting with Fagin-types while “Jack the Ripper” is attacking prostitutes. Jim Krieg’s script, which will go on to impress at times, is rather problematic with the first Ripper victim. Director Liu’s already opened the film with…
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There’s a lot to be said about Batman: The Killing Joke, both the comic book and its animated adaptation. It’s another of Alan Moore’s unintentional curses on mainstream comics; listening to his dialogue spoken… it’s clear he was hurrying through the Batman stuff. Or Kevin Conroy just doesn’t do it right. I don’t know. Because…
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Batman: Year One should be much, much better. As it stands, as animated adaptation of Frank Miller and David Mazzucchelli’s comic books, it’s a fantastic proof of concept. It’s no surprise, given much has already been adapted, albeit uncredited, into Batman Begins. I guess Christopher Nolan doesn’t know how to cite. But co-directors Sam Liu…
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All-Star Superman, the comic book, is maybe the best Superman comic book. Based on empirical observation (i.e. the other animated DC Comics movies from Warner Premiere), I assumed All-Star Superman, the animated movie, would be awful. I was wrong. It’s wondrous. It’s not without its problems, of course. The movie is based on the comic,…
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The new wave of superhero cartoons for, ostensibly, adults (because they’re rated PG-13) has turned out a handful of decent pictures. The directors of this one, Montgomery and Liu, separately, directed the entirety of that handful. So I thought I’d try it for them. Plus, this one’s written by Dwayne McDuffie, who’s a comic book…
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I think the only reason I liked this one is because it’s incredibly harsh (no pun). Not only do they have one character–while thirteen years old–killing her parents (after they’re turned into zombies) on screen, she then kills her little brother, now a zombie too (off screen), and later having a little kid die in…
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I’m sure there are some hardcore gay comics less homoerotic than Jeph Loeb’s Superman/Batman, so the prospect of seeing it as a cartoon was irresistible. While Warner Premiere ostensibly intends their latest line of animated DC Comics adaptations for “adults” (i.e. men in their twenties and thirties with the discretionary income to waste it on…
The Stop Button 