Batman:Under The Red Hood Movie Review 141

Batman:Under the Red Hood is an animated movie and it is the eight in the DC Universe Animated Original movies line. Bruce Greenwood is the voice of Batman here when usually Kevin Conroy does it. Greenwood does a good job, but to me Kevin Conroy will always be the voice of Batman.The Joker is voiced by John Di Maggio and again, Mark Hamill will always be the voice of The Joker to me. These two quibbles aside, this movie is a very entertaining one with a good story and good action.

The story begins with R'as al Ghul voiced by Jason Isaacs of Brotherhood fame and he is lamenting getting into business with The Joker. We cut to the The Joker beating up Robin in Sarajevo with a crowbar and cackling as he does it which is classic Joker stuff! This Robin is the second Robin who is called Jason Todd. He took over from the original Robin, Dick Grayson, who is now Nightwing. Batman is seen hurrying his way to save Robin but he fails to get there in time. BOOM!!The building explodes and Batman is seen with the dead body of Robin.. Now the credits roll and things get going!!

It is now 5 years later and the Gotham City mob bosses meet up for a chat as they always seem to do! Someone called The Black Mask has taken over the city and they don't know what to do about him. Then out of the shadows, the mysterious Red Hood appears. He offers protection from Black Mask and Batman as long as they pay him 40 percent.To make them comply he shows them a bag full of their top guys' heads. Naturally, they agree!

This sets up a confrontation with Batman later on as Red Hood is part vigilante and part crime lord. Is he a good guy deep down or is he just another bad guy? Who is he? Where did he come from? Jenson Ackles voices the Red Hood with Neil Patrick Harris voicing Nightwing. Wade Williams voices Black Mask and you will recognise his voice as he played Bellick in Prison Break. There are some other great voice work by Gary Cole, Kelly Hu, Phil LaMarr and Dwight Schultz of A Team fame.

The story here is very good and the movie only takes one hour and fifteen minutes. There are some great action scenes with fights and explosions, all leading up to a showdown at the end!! The Joker is involved also and this movie is very good. If you like the animated series of Batman and the animated movies, then you will love this so check it out now!It gets marked down only for the voices of Batman and The Joker as they will always be Kevin Conroy and Mark Hamill!!

Batman: Under The Red Hood-8/10

Dante's Inferno:An Animated Epic Movie Review 104

Dante's Inferno:An Animated Epic is a direct to DVD animated movie that is a spin off from the Electronic Arts video game of the same name. It is animated by Film Roman who also did Dead Space: Downfall. That was an animated movie I loved but never actually wrote a review so if you have not seen it, check it out now! A total of six animation studios were involved in Dante's Inferno and there are slight differences between each sequence. Dante's Inferno is about the Hero who is funnily enough called Dante and he has to journey through the Nine Circles of Hell. These are- Lust, Limbo, Gluttony, Greed, Anger, Heresy, Violence, Fraud and Treachery.

Dante's Inferno has some brilliant animation that is breathtaking and it is a joy to watch. This is also an adult movie as there are scenes of nudity and lots of graphic violence. So this is one to watch when the kids are gone to bed!Dante hacks his way through Hell and the blood flows freely as he does so. There are some great action sequences and  great use of slow motion as Dante heroically fights his way through. The voice over work is excellent with the always brilliant voice of Mark Hamill who voices The Joker in Batman: The Animated Series and the Hobgoblin in Spiderman: The Animated Series. He playes a main character in a little known franchise that you have probably never heard of called Star Wars!!!!!In Dante's Inferno , Lucifer's voice is guy called Steve Blum who has a deep voice that is perfect for the Devil.Dante is going through the Nine Circles of Hell to rescue his beloved Beatrice who is voiced by Vanessa Branch. He will stop at nothing to win her back, but he finds out that he will have to face his own demons too...

I would definitely recommend Dante's Inferno to anyone who likes horror and animation. It is exactly as it is titled. It is an animated epic that everyone should see so either rent or buy this movie now!!!

Dante's Inferno:An Animated Epic- 10/10

Superman/Batman:Public Enemies Movie Review 55

Superman/Batman: Public Enemies is an animated movie and naturally enough stars Batman and Superman! I was a huge fan of Batman:The Animated Series and this movie will appeal to you if you liked that also. Clancy Brown gets top billing here and I liked him from films such as Highlander and the TV series Earth 2 and Carnivale. Carnivale was a very underrated show with great potential and it was a pity it got cancelled!


But, I digress! If you know of Clancy Brown then you will know he has a very deep and clear voice which makes him perfect for voice over work. Here he voices the evil Lex Luthor who once again has a devious plot up his sleeve to rule the world and get rid of Superman once and for all!Superman is voiced by Tim Daly who was in the Sopranos and the TV series Wings which I liked a lot as well. Kevin Conroy voices Batman as usual and we wouldn't have it any other way! Also in the voice over cast we have Xander Berkeley as Captain Atom, Corey Burton as Captain Marvel, Allison Mach as Power Girl, John C McGinley(from Scrubs) as Metallo, LeVar Burton aka Geordie La Forge as Black Lightning and Rachel MacFarlane(from American Dad) as Nightshade.


As you can see, Warner Bros assembled a top notch cast! Superman/Batman: Public Enemies begins by showing the economy in trouble, so in desperation the people vote in Lex Luthor as president!!!When will people learn??Democracy doesn't work!!! Just kidding!!Luthor decrees that either superheroes submit to him or be outcasts and criminals and most do, but only reluctantly. Luther offers to meet Superman and bury the hatchet but then tries to kill Superman with a hefty dose of Kryptonite!!!Superman defends himself but Luther makes it look like an assassination attempt on him, the President. Batman helps Superman escape but now they are being hunted as criminals. When there is a billion dollar bounty on their heads, every superhero and supervillain is trying to catch them!!Meanwhile, there is a huge asteroid made of Kryptonite heading towards Earth so time is running out for everyone on the planet! With Superman being hunted and unable to stop and asteroid, things do not look good!!


There is some great action in this movie as Batman and Superman team up, fighting everyone in sight and the story linking the two is very good. Batman and Superman are portrayed as best friends so that's good but I wish Batman was a bit more to the front in this. He is vital at the end, though , so it just about makes up for having him down behind Luthor and Batman. As with a lot of animated movies, the story is well-written and puts some live action movies to shame. What it deals with is: are Superman and Batman above the law they are protecting or should they be subject to it? Once they capture the bad guys, do we care if they break he laws themselves? It is an interesting dynamic and makes you wonder are they vigilantes that should be stopped or people we let do what they want? Yes, I know that they are just superheroes, but it is an idea that got me thinking anyway!!


I hope they keep making these movies as the animation is top quality and the stories are great. The excellent voice over cast in this shows that stars like doing animated movies so that is good. I would urge you to see this movie as it's only an hour long and great entertainment!!if you have any young children or younger brothers/sisters, they will love it and you will too, as I know I did! Are we not all big kids at heart???!!!

8/10.

Ice Age 3:Dawn of the Dinosaurs Movie Review 44

This is the third installment of the Ice Age series. Having seen the first and second movies, I was interested in this one. I don't love animated movies, but this was amusing.There are plenty of well-known voices such as Ray Romano, Queen Latifah,Denis Leary and Sean William Scott to mention but a few.

So, we begin from where the last movie left off.Ellie(Queen Latifah) and Manny(Romano) are still together and Ellie is pregnant. They are both busy with preparing for their new baby and their old pals are feeling a bit left out. Diego(Dennis Leary) is finding it harder to be the predator that he was and it is depressing him. Sid(John Leguizamo) is fed up with Ellie and Manny's obsession with the baby and he finds some abandoned eggs in a cave and adopts them as his own. He doesn't put them back and they hatch. They are baby dinosaurs!
Of course, the mother of these little babies comes looking for them and she takes her babies back and she takes Sid with her underground. The other animals club together with Manny, Ellie and Diego and they go to the underground jungle where there are dinosaurs living. They meet a weasel called Buck(Simon Pegg) who has only one eye. He tells them that he has been chasing a huge dinosaur called Rudy for a long time and that is how he lost his eye. He leads the group through the jungles and he helps them get to Sid and rescue him.
They are in danger when Ellie goes into labour and gives birth to her little baby. There are dangerous dinosaurs around and they have to fend them off. Sid sees the baby and he is sad to know that his adopted babies are not his any more. They are attacked by Rudy who tries to eat them all. They are saved by the mother dinosaur who kills Rudy. Sid has to say goodbye to his little babies and they work their way home. Buck stays underground as he doesn't think that Rudy is really dead and he wants to chase him down again. They all remain together as a family...
This is a kid's movie, but it isn't bad at all. There were some decent laughs and it wasn't boring at least. You will either like these types of movies or hate them. If you don't like animated kids movies, then don;t watch this. But, if you like a warm hearted tale of friendship with some laughs thrown in, then this is worth seeing...I am giving this one a 7/10.

Vexille Movie Review 34

Vexille is a movie I have meant to watch for ages as it seemed interesting so I finally got around to it! It is written and directed by Fumihiko Sori.Vexille is a CGI anime sci-fi tale set in the future about robot-android technology and what it means to be human. It starts with the narrator telling us about Japan and how it has totally embraced robot technology. The United Nations bans the making of robots who look like humans but Japan keeps on its own path and withdraws from the UN. It puts itself into isolation and deports all foreigners and puts the country in lock down basically. They set up a grid to stop communication and it also stops spy satellites looking at them. Ten years pass with nobody knowing anything about what is happening in Japan.

The name of the movie is taken from the heroine, Vexille, who is a member of a U.S. special forced team called SWORD. In a pre-credits scene like the James Bond movies, her sword team intercept a clandestine meeting of a Japanese man and several politicians. She almost captures him but he gets away by cutting off his leg!!! His leg is revealed to be bio-organic which basically means he is an android so Vexille's team is sent on a secret mission into Japan to find out if there are more androids and how the country is getting on.

The movie continues on with twists and turns that any mainstream movie would be proud of and the storyline is the best part. It is intriguing and along with the action sequences makes a very entertaining movie. The quality of the images produced is visually stunning and even if you have never watched a movie like this, I think that you will be impressed. The story is gripping and it seems to be influenced by Frank Herbert's Dune. If you have read Dune, you will see creatures looking like the sand worms from that book. Vexille is not for children as there is a certain amount of swearing and the story is complex.

You may be saying no, I don't watch animated/CGI movies , but give Vexille a chance and you may change your mind. If you like science fiction stories, you will like Vexille as it deals with how far we are taking technology.I would give it 10/10 only it does take an idea from Dune, but that is good material to copy! This is a very entertaining movie and I urge you to check it out on DVD.

Vexille 9/10.