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DC Collectables- DC Icons: Swamp Thing
Continuing my quest to re-watch all the DC Animated features to date and give some thoughts regarding 3 key touchpoints: Animation Style, Voice Acting & Story. These are really just rough notes as I watched the movie and might not make a whole lot of sense unless you have recently watched it. See 290-2, 303-2, 318-2, 331-2, 344-2, 358-2 &369-2 for my previous instalments.
Batman: Under the Red Hood 2010
Animation Style- Overall the animation has a nice fluid look, but has an stylized or almost cartoonish feel to it that almost reminds me of GI Joe Sigma Six action figures due to their enlarged hands and chunky feet. The animation designs for all the key players is good and every key character is sporting a fairly traditional look. One minor issue I have is with Nightwing’s hair. This is not to say that I’m asking for the mullet from the Animated Series, I just think it should be a bit longer.
Voice acting- Really strong across the board even if it changes up some of the previous choices. Bruce Greenwood (of Star Trek Captain Pike fame) does well as Batman and Bruce, Jensen Ackles (from Supernatural) does a great job as newcomer Red Hood and Neil Patrick Harris (from everything) is a fantastic choice for Nightwing. John DiMaggio (of Bender fame) worked alright as Joker, but not my favorite as it gives him a bit too deep of a voice. For interesting casting choices there is Jason Isaacs (Lucius Malfoy from the Harry Potter movies) makes an appearance as Ra’ Al Ghul; NEAT!
Story- I’ve often toted UTRH as easily one of the best DC Animated features released and after another re-watch it is easy to see why: It just does everything so well. The flashbacks throughout provide some amazing backstory for those unaware that there even was a second Robin and the prologue with Jason’s death was just brutal. I could really go into a lot of detail as to why this movie is the greatest, but to save me from writing 40 pages breaking down each scene I will just suggest that you watch it yourself. One thing that I will say is that this Animated feature, this cartoon, this “children’s preferred media” has one of the most heart wrenching emotional scenes that I have even seen in a movie and really should be a wakeup call to anyone who thinks cartoons are not on the same level as live action movies.
Pros: Another DC Collectible DC Icons release and another review praising them for an AMAZING figure. The detail on the sculpt is unreal with so many little details throughout. The articulation is similar with all the other Icons and he even comes with some extra hands and possibly the most messed up, creepy looking mutant head thing that I have ever seen.
Cons: I’m not a big Swamp Thing fan so his inclusion in the Icons series before some of the figures that I would have liked to see is a bit of a bummer. He is also a bit light on accessories and would have benefited from some swamp effects? Also, WTF is with that hand head thing?
