It’s time for another Batman book review. Batman’s books tend to be pretty good, but can it keep it up? Robin gets a lot of screen time in this story, so while Batman is still the main character, he doesn’t get to do as much. The Mad Hatter’s not a very interesting villain, but he’s definitely better than Hugo Strange.
Batman and Robin go to watch a movie in theaters, but they are going to watch it in 3D! This is pretty big and something that they didn’t want to miss. Unfortunately, the shady glasses guy delays them and they barely make it to the movie in time. What makes things even worse is the fact that Batman has to give his glasses to a little girl since hers broke. Batman still watches the film, but it would seem that he missed out on the true experience. Batman tells Alfred to order him a pair and Robin disappears. Batman figures that Robin is already on the case, but is that really what happened?
Well, the book didn’t do Batman justice in the detective department, but he can’t always be a genius right? He wasn’t able to figure out that the villain was using his secret identity to trick people into putting on the 3D glasses. The Mad Hatter isn’t much of a threat so he doesn’t get to fight Batman at the end. Unfortunately, there aren’t really any fights in the whole book. This one’s more of a mystery/thriller I suppose. At least, that’s what they were trying to do.
I’m not sure that Robin would be mind controlled so easily, but that’s a minor gripe. A bigger gripe would be that nothing seemed to happen in this book. All of the chapter books for DC have been small in length, but more tends to happen. In the Superman and Green Lantern books, we get intergalactic fights and a lot of action. This one under performed in those areas, but Batman got to appear. I suppose that is what counts in the end.
So, if you’re a fan of the DC superheroes, then I recommend this book. It’s a good read and while it’s incredibly short, at least it won’t bore you. You’ll be done with the book in a matter of minutes. Batman is mostly in character and the Mad Hatter isn’t a great villain, but he doesn’t get to appear too much. There may not be any action, but it can be fun to see the heroes interact. If you want a true DC experience with lots of action, check out The Death of Superman!
Overall 5/10
Long name eh? Well, Transformers Prime was such a success that they went ahead and added a movie. This would maybe clear up some of the loose ends that the show didn’t wrap up and give us a complete ending to the series. While that proved to be a little too much to ask for, the movie did give us some more robot action! So, how did it go?
Well, Unicron has woken up and he wants to destroy Cybertron. To accomplish this, he wakes up Megatron and decides to inhabit his body. Meanwhile, Optimus Prime and Wheeljack head to space to find the Allspark. It’s a noble endeavor, but they left the other Autobots on a hostile planet with Decepticons and Predaking. I definitely has to wonder if Optimus Prime’s decision was a good one. In another subplot, the other Autobots decide to look for the Decepticons who are still hiding somewhere.
If you’re wondering what the Decepticons are up to this time, they’re still cloning the Predacons. They’ve created two more of them and they manage to crush two of the Autobots. Because of this, Ultra Magnus doesn’t really get to do anything for the whole movie. PredaKing still rules the dead Predacons, but it’s a pretty lonely existence.
Well, I think the problem with this film was that it juggled too many subplots. The different story lines were all over the place and the film just wasn’t long enough to show them all. Many scenes were rushed while others were longer than they needed to be. Optimus Prime and Unicron has their climatic fight, but it was only 2-3 minutes. Maybe 5 at the most. The fight was over before it had even begun.
Starscream and Shockwave are really the last two Decepticons on the loose since Knockout is captured aboard the Autobot base for the most part. Towards the end, he looks even worse as he makes a critical decision. Starscream does pretty good for the most part and he even fends off two Predacon warriors. His ending is pretty ambiguous, but I’m confident about his chances. My key reasoning is that Shockwave is attacked by dozens of Predacons at one point, yet he appears almost unscathed towards the end. If he could defeat them while stuck in his alt mode and being crushed, Starscream can definitely take 3 of them on.
Bumblebee’s voice is still hard to get used to. Why does he always get a “hardcore” voice? First he sounded like Ichigo Kurosaki in War For Cybertron and now he sounds like Batman Beyond. I still don’t care for the character, but at least he sounds cool. The other Autobots weren’t especially cool either and they just lacked something. Not even Optimus Prime could stay epic as he had to rely on underhanded tactics and team assists to finish his fight. Some Autobots like Arcee and Ratchet get the shaft. Arcee doesn’t really get to fight at all and she acts pretty out of character for some of her lines. Megatron’s ending was definitely good, but it was definitely cheesy. Ah well, we can’t win them all!
Either way, we’re here for the fights, not the characters or the plot! The fight scenes are pretty good and the best one was probably Ultra Magnus and Smokescreen vs the two Predacons. Unicron against the majority of the Autobots in the base was also pretty fun. Unicron definitely had a lot of cool abilities and his fights were fun to watch. I just wish that he could have fought for a little longer.
Spoiler alert, Shockwave is still out there! I think that there is definitely room for a sequel. With Optimus Prime gone, Bumblebee can be the new leader until Rodimus steps in. Shockwave can hire some new recruits and then the series will have restarted. Maybe he could even bring in Soundwave. If anything, I think that this movie would lead in pretty well to Regeneration One if not for some major plot lines.
One pretty positive thing about the film was the soundtrack. They threw in a couple of good opera musics and there was even a retro G1 theme thrown in there. The music was fun to listen to and it made the film more enjoyable. Any scene is always made that much better when there is a good beat to listen to.
The Dinobots do not appear in the film which is pretty sad. I was definitely hoping that they would appear, but I guess we’ve got Transformers 4 to look forward to for that….maybe. The Predacon army was all right, but while they were a lot of them, they didn’t really stand out. Once again, the Autobots were heavily outmatched, but they made it to the end thanks to a lot of lucky breaks and bad aiming on the Decepticon side.
The review may have had a lot of faults with the film, but it was still good. It’s definitely best if you look at it as a few lost episodes instead of as a movie. I think that the series finale was a better end to this part of the franchise, but this one is still good. It does not feel like a film since they kept in the theme song and it didn’t look higher budget, but one could argue that it makes the film more nostalgic. If you want some good popcorn fun, then you should enjoy the film. Of course, if you want the perfect robot experience, you’ll need to check out the original Transformers movie!
Overall 7/10
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