Superman/Batman Public Enemies is an adaptation from the comic book of the same name (Public Enemies took place during the first six issues of the series). The original comic premiered in 2003 and was penned by veteran writer Jeff Loeb with illustrations by Ed McGuinness. The series was understandably successful being that it featured artwork from some of the industries most popular artists (the aforementioned McGuinness and the late Michael Turner) and starred the two most popular characters inhabiting the DC universe. Loeb had built a strong reputation earlier in his career with notable stories like Batman the Long Halloween, Superman for All Seasons, Daredevil Yellow, Spider-man Blue and others. The strength of these books came from Loeb's great use of the mystery genre as well as his ability to tell very intimate, character driven stories. Sadly it was when Loeb started writing more "epic" and "blockbuster" comic books - like Batman/Superman - that he lost his way. Since then Loeb has been responsible for helping make Smallville the television series an absolute abomination, played no small part in ruining the hit show Heroes (for which he was fired) and wrote my nominee for worst mini-series of the decade Ultimatum.
With Public Enemies falling into the "not so good" portion of Loeb's career, one has to wonder why DC animation chose to adapt it into a full fledged animated movie. I'm sure they have a lot of "good" reasons for this, but my guess is that it was purely sales driven. Batman and Superman sell far better than lesser known DC properties (Wonder Woman, Green Lantern) and putting them together into a "Buddy" movie just makes good financial sense. All you need is an existing story that teams them up and you're all set. Of course I could be way off base on this, but I'm willing to bet I'm more right than wrong.
Normally I try to keep my reviews generalized in regards to plot detail, but for this review I'll be recounting pretty much the entire story, spoilers and all (you've been warned). The story for Public Enemies is this. Lex Luthor has been elected president of the United States and he's going to fix all of America's problems while at the same time taking a hard line stance against vigilante justice. So if you want to be a hero you need to go legit and work for the government, and by government I mean Luthor. Naturally our heroes Superman and Batman don't trust the new Commander and Chief and will have none of this. The thing is Luthor actually does a good job. Crime goes down, work is plentiful and the future is looking bright ... then we find out a Kryptonite asteroid is headed for earth (Dammit I knew I should have voted for McCain/Palin). Luthor's plan to save earth involves blowing up the asteroid with missiles, but others think he should enlist the help of heroes like Superman just in case the missiles don't work. So Luthor does just that, he publicly asks Superman to meet with him to discuss the impending crisis and let bygones be bygones. But it turns out to be a trick. Luthor only wants to meet with Supes so that he can frame him for murdering his old archenemy Metallo. Now a fugitive, Superman and Batman try to figure out a way to both stop the oncoming asteroid and clear Superman's name. Making matters worse for our heroes, Luthor has placed a 1 billion dollar bounty on their heads, thus making them a target for every villain - and most heroes - on the planet. At this point in the story things are holding together ok. Granted the idea of a doomsday asteroid is unoriginal and clichéd, but it doesn't look like this is going to turn into a train wreck or anything.
The second act of the film is primarily made up of fights ... lots of fights. I'll be honest, it's pretty darn cool. The action is fast paced, intense, beautifully animated and epic in scope. Rarely have I seen such a large cast of unique characters used in an action/adventure cartoon. Once the fighting winds down we learn the identity of Metallo's real killer and Luthor's plan begins to unravel. Oh and the missiles Luthor shot at the asteroid don't work. Alright we got just one act left and our movie is still doing alright. Nothing short of a complete meltdown could derail us now. What are the odds of that?
Upon entering the third act a now exposed Luthor begins to go crazy declaring that the asteroid is necessary to thin out humanities numbers. This insanity is attributed to the continued injections of synthetic Kryptonite and steroids that Luthor has been giving himself since earlier in the movie. Batman and Superman fight their way through some more opposition before confronting Luthor and demanding that he provide them with data on the asteroid so that they can stop it themselves. Luthor doesn't help of course, but his assistant (or maybe it's the vice president, they don't really say) gives them what they need and they take off to Japan to enlist the aid of some super geniuses (I think they said he was the new Toyman or something). Luthor escapes his assistant, hops into a battle suit and takes off after them. Now by this point things have gotten a little weird with the whole "synthetic Kryptonite" and "mad man Luthor" stuff. Our metaphorical train is starting to careen out of control, but that's ok. As long as the climax works all is forgiven. Wow that bend up ahead sure does look sharp, I hope we don't jump the track.
Entering the film's climax Batman and Superman meet up with our mysterious Japanese savior. Turns out he's a kid with a giant robot fetish. Wait, who said anything about giant robots? Well as luck would have it the super smart adolescent that Superman and Batman go to for help loves big Gundam sized robots (like most boys in Japan), thus he provides our heroes with a giant robot to fly up and destroy the asteroid with (Lookout! The train is starting to tip over!). But this isn't some Voltron wannabe. No this robot was built to look like both Superman and Batman (Oh God, we've gone off the rails!!). Let me put that another way, half the robot looks like Superman and the other half looks like Batman (Noooo the humanity, good God the humanity!!!). If that sounds really corny don't worry, that just means you're still sane. The movie does its best to try and make light of the situation, almost as if they're trying to disarm our reaction by acknowledging how insane this looks. The result is still the same though, the audience gets taken out of the moment. This is what you've been building up to for the last sixty minutes, a giant robot? I don't know what the rationale was for doing something so overtly lame, but no matter how I look at it this is stupid. If you make the argument that this is some kind of throw back to good old "cheesy" comics then the whole story should have been in the same vein. Added too that is the fact that this is a PG-13 movie. If you're going to go do something childish then make the movie PG and aim it at children. In fact if you removed the cursing and toned the violence down just a little, this could easily pass for PG. That's why I have such an issue with the choice of source material. The producers knew this story didn't quite fit their DTV line (which has been more mature and aimed at older viewers) but they used it anyway.
Alright, I've come this far so I might as well finish up my synopsis. Basically Luthor shows up and tries to stop Batman/Superman from saving the planet. Superman gets into a big slugfest with Luthor while Batman flies our super cool robot into outer space and blows up the asteroid. At first Superman thinks that Batman perished in a heroic act of sacrifice, but it turns out he's still alive inside of the robots control module. When Superman finds out he simply flies on up and brings him back home. Luthor goes to jail, the world is saved, everyone cheers and I die a little on the inside.
Now you may get the impression that I don't like this movie, but that's not entirely true. The truth is there are a lot of things about this film that I really enjoyed. Not only does it reunite the voicing cast from the original Batman and Superman animated shows (Tim Daly, Kevin Conroy and Clancy Brown) it also has excellent animation, cool character models (based on Ed McGuinness's art style), tons of action and a solid musical score. Even the writing I've been so critical of has good moments. In particular I enjoyed Batman/Superman's banter as well as the exploration of ideological differences between the two heroes. To give some frame of reference as to where I would put this movie on my list of favorite DTVs it would fall somewhere below Superman Doomsday and above the Ultimates movies by Marvel. If you love action or Superman/Batman then you should pick this up, it's a fun movie but doesn't live up to the standard that Wonder Woman and Green Lantern set.
