this replaces & abridges an earlier review i did of these movies. i decided to read all the comics these movies are based on to give me more context for understanding the movies. some of these movies weren’t based on any comics, so in those cases i just lightly edited my original reviews. oh, and i didn’t read the death of superman for superman: doomsday because i’ll save that for the more faithful recent adaptation.
the dc universe original movies are a series of high-quality direct-to-video (with a few exceptions that received limited theatrical releases) animated features. i first discovered them when i was working at target in the (probably-defunct) music, movies and books department. i was basically the person in charge of putting all the new releases on the shelf every tuesday. there were these tvs all over the department playing this endless loop of commercials for movies and albums and even books. i know, right? commercials for books?
anyway, they barely ever updated it, and it was so repetitive you usually ended up tuning it out if you had to spend much time in that department, but every now and then a new trailer would be added to the loop. that’s exactly what happened about a week before batman: under the red hood was released. the first time i heard it playing, it snapped my attention away from my boring work routine and i was immediately transfixed. i resolved to pick the movie up as soon as it came out, and my excitement was rewarded with a frankly pretty great animated superhero flick.
as soon as i found out that there was a whole series of one-shot movies of similar quality, i started watching them. i didn’t always like them as much as under the red hood. in fact, it’s still at or near the top of my list for best movies from this series, but the overall model of releasing high-quality animated features two or three times a year is still a pretty exciting one, and i wish more franchises would follow suit.