Agnew's Mind He's got a long journey ahead of him.

World’s Finest as Public Enemies

    by Mike Agnew Jr.

The third DC straight-to-DVD animated movie was released the other day, Batman /Superman : Public Enemies. This movie was based on the Public Enemies graphic novel and in no way strays from the made-for-adults genre of super-hero movies DC has been releasing. (See my explanation)

The basic plot is that Lex Luthor is now president of the United States.  The country has fallen on rough economic times and crime is on the rise.  Luthor hires a handful of super-heros to clean up the streets for the government "unlike some other vigilantes who think they are above the law" a.k.a. Superman and Batman.  So Luthor frames Superman right from the beginning and places a billion dollar bounty on his head.  This gets every villian and hero up off the couch and hunting down this duo.  Let the melee begin.  This movie has a slew of characters in it:  Grodd,  Solomon Grundy, Power Girl, Captain Atom, Giganta, Mongol, Mr Freeze, Captain Marvel, Killer Frost, Hawkman, and many more characters make an appearance including Alfred Pennyworth, Bruce Wayne's butler.  There are also references to the Flash and the Joker and a match up between Batman and all the different "freeze" characters.

The voice acting is perfect thanks to the return of the original cast from the Batman and Superman Animated Series: Kevin Conroy as Batman, Tim Daly as Superman, and Clancy Brown as Lex Luthor.  This gives the movie that authentic feel and adds a little LOST-esk-ness since Clancy Brown played Kelvin Inman (the army sergeant/ Dharma button masher on LOST) and Tim Daly voices the "Previously on LOST..." at the beginning of some episode.(Although denied by the writers and probably Dewitt too, I still believe it's him). There are also some guest voices from Allison Mack of Smallville and John C. McGinley of Scrubs.

One of my favorite moments, and probably one of the most shocking was kiss shared between an overweight Amanda Waller and a krypto-roiding Luthor.  A few moments later Waller turns on him and, after a long pause, Luthor exhales a curse under his breathe.  Again....not a kids movie....but very funny.  One quick note about the size of the characters....The original Public Enemies graphic novel was illustrated by Ed McGuinness who has the ability to make characters look huge.  He actually puts muscles on top of muscles.  So when you watch this movie just make a note that they animators actually toned down the size of the characters....except maybe Powergirl....but for that you will have to watch.