Batman Unlimited: Animal Instincts

The only reason I gave this entry to the DC animated universe a five is because it's Batman. That's it. What we have here is a futuristic Gotham with the ol' good guys against the ol' bad guys scenario. The basic plot has the Penguin recruiting many of the animal super-villains--Cheetah, Silverback, Killer Croc, among others--to help pull off a heist of, ahem, cosmic proportions. Naturally, the good guys have to stop them and you can guess the rest.

First, the good points. Decent music, fast moving, some good fight sequences.

And now, the bad. The animation looks like it's been scaled down significantly. I'm not expecting Pixar. I am expecting something decent. This wasn't. Batman's suit (light blue) hearkens back to the late 1960's take and it doesn't suit (no pun intended) this day and age. His gold get-through-the-force-field suit reminded me of some lousy Japanese anime...double ungood.

As for the script, again, while War and Peace ain't on the menu, this makes Jack and Jill Go Up the Hill read like a masterpiece. Cheesy, poor humor, poorer lines...the one good thing was the voice cast that did what they could with their parts. I miss Kevin Conroy doing the voice of Batman. He had the bearing. His replacement sounds like a slightly younger version of him, but with no depth.

The actress doing Cheetah sounds like a whiny child, and I got zero sense of menace behind any of the baddies. Not their fault, really; 'twas the script that done 'em in.

Finally, all the old stereotypes of animals being what they are were trotted out, and quite frankly, that kind of thinking should have gone out fifty years ago.

I heard this direct-to-DVD effort was to sell toys. My only question is: How many? Nothing wrong with selling goods to the kiddies, but this video is an insult to any comic book/cartoon fan.