It has been a long time since the ancient year of 2019. It ended a decade with many big hit animated films, so I want to celebrate the best from this era and briefly go over the worst. I looked through the list and marked every animated film I saw from this decade, then I made a separate list of all the Five Tree Star and One Tree Star films.
There were 17 Five Tree Star movies and Fourteen One Tree Star films, so better than I expected.
7/17 in the best category are Direct-to-Video. For the worst category it is 7/14, but the theatrical releases dominate the bottom half.
By studio Warner Bros wins the best category with 9/17. More impressively they have 7 in the top 10 and 3 in the top 4. Disney came in second with 4, and those are the other picks from the top 11. Scary only 2 studios had every film in the top 11. Paramount had 2. Sony and Fox each had 1. Shockingly my favorite studio, Universal, had zero.
For the worst category by studio Warner Bros this time comes in last with 7 (but again most were at the top of the list, not the bottom). Clearly I watch more Warner Bros movies than any other studio. Fox has 3, Disney has 2, and both Universal and Paramount only one each. Shockingly Sony is the only big studio to stay off the list (I thought The Emoji Movie was so bad it’s good).
Just for fun here is a list of all the animated films I saw from last decade
I am surprised this movie is not better known. I keep hearing people say they want a movie where Batman is the hero antagonist, and this is that movie. It is really a Suicide Squad movie, and I hate The Suicide Squad. This movie addresses so many of my problems with them and fixes them.
It is directed by Jay Oliva and Ethan Spaulding. I have reviewed many great movies by them and many sucky movies by them. Seeing them together with another winner makes me happy, like two hit or miss creators teaming up to help each other. It feels like old friends giving each other a boost.
It starts with Waller trying to kill Riddler for currently unknown reasons. Batman saves him, and the portrayal of Batman is established. As a hero antagonist Batman is portrayed more like a slasher villain who never kills that we root for her, rather than showing the fights from his point of view. HE shuts off the lights and our view goes dark. We hear him more than we see him. Sometimes the camera is the point of view of a goon getting beaten up by Batman. Style wise both the words and movements are similar to The Dark Knight Returns. My only problem is Batman’s visible pupils. There is a reason Bill Finger got Bob Kane to remove them.
Batman sends Riddler to Arkahm, so Waller gathers her Task Force X to break in and kill him. Her team is Black Spider, the assassin, Deadshot the shooter, Captain Boomerang, the throwing guy, Killer Frost, the killer, King Shark the muscle, KGB Beast, the guy who is there to die (considering he is a devout Russian I would think Waller would hate him and want him dead), and Harley Quinn the Arkham expert.
Unless she is written by Paul Dini I normally hate Quinn, so I am happy to see an exception. For one the traditional costume but with a bare midriff is a very good balance of her different outfits, and it offers some needed color from all these neutral colors (Killer Frost’s blue is more icy death blue). She is actually funny here. Also she is introduced watching The Looney Tunes Show and biting somebody’s ear off who takes away her screen. She has good tastes in comedy.
Immediately King Shark and Killer Frost start flirting and Deadshot is established as the veteran of the team. Waller reveals she has places bombs in their brains and will kill them if they try to leave. KG Beat tries to leave and is killed. Considering he came back from the grave when Batman murdered him in the comics (yes) I doubt this will last but it surprisingly does.
One of my main problems with Suicide Squad is everybody acts way to chummy towards Waller. Here everybody clearly hates each other except for King Shark and Killer Frost. It is refreshing seeing our team of protagonists not like each other, and they act more realistic for a team of villains forced to work together.
Waller keeps calling them “convicts” and threatening them, and Deadshot promises to get her in the future as payback. Based on their interactions last time Deadshot was the only survivor, and he liked his old team much more than the current one.
Quinn keeps flirting with Deadshot and getting angry whenever Joker is mentioned. She also regularly says “Yahtzee.” Both of these have key meanings later.
Waller wants Riddler dead as he took files of all her Suicide Squad stuff and is threatening to put them online. Waller is sending them to destroy the files, and she secretly gives Frost the other job of killing Riddler.
Everybody hates Captain Boomerang. Black Spider even debates just killing him. I think he is around since he is a cockroach. He bugs everybody, but he is a survivor.
The next few scenes are about showing Deadshot’s hated leadership. Everybody else knows they are probably about to die and mostly want to enjoy life while they can. Deadshot wants to kill Waller and get back to his daughter, so only he is taking this seriously. He is playing dad to children he hates like the one who everybody dumps their kids on. They put up with him, as he beats them up and gets them from point A to point B. He and Boomerang get along the worst.
They send Quinn to get captured, and Batman is trying to find out where a bomb is. Joker is locked in Arkham but hid a bomb somewhere that can kill half the people in the city. Waller is fine with this thinking it will keep Bats off their tails, while Task Force X is not happy they now have even worse odds of surviving.
They use disguises after that to get in (I see no reason Quinn had to be captured then but oh well). There are around here multiple naked fan service scenes (without actually showing any nudity. It is PG-13 rated, so if that is a deal breaker avoid this movie). Many things go wrong, but they pull through thanks mainly to the quick thinking of Deadshot and Captain Boomerang.
Quinn gets distracted by Joker, and he is great here. His scenes are limited helping him not steal the show. Troy Baker does a masterful impression of Mark Hamill (interesting fact: Baker also voices Batman in many animated movies). Quinn tries to kill him or free him and shoots at him. Joker later realizes she ruined his prison so he can escape. Maybe she was trying to let him out and maybe she was trying to kill him. I think she was trying to let him out. Sure she flirts with Deadshot but she regularly gives him death glares when he is not looking, those shots are too precise to be accidental, and they both like saying “Yahtzee” when happy.
They know Batman and security will be after them, thus King Shark convinces them to play yesterday’s footage. Deadshot does not hide that part of this is to throw off Waller so he can killer her later. Fortunately Batman realizes the people on tape are from yesterday’s shift and comes to help.
When taking out the security lights Boomerang delays long enough for the alert to come, and only Deadshot is mad since the rest just want to fight somebody already. King Shark does most of the work. This whole time Deadshot and Boomerang are clearly trying to kill each other.
After another scene showing how much everybody hates Deadshot and only keep him around since he is the best in an emergency. Quinn gets them to the convicts’ stuff where they find some weapons, the hard drive they need, and Quinn’s mallet which she is having trouble moving properly almost like it is now heavier (hmm.)
Then Batman shows up. This fight is great. The music is wonderful. The color gets brighter so we can see the action as Batman takes advantage of their terrible teamwork to wipe them out, bring the house down so nobody can look for a body, knock out Black Spider, change clothes with him, and steal his identity.
He rejoins the remaining 5 members with his own utility belt, but they see the hard drive was not there and Frost has left them to go kill Riddler. When she goes to kill him the camera keeps focusing on the marks from their infused bombs, and Riddler makes the preplanned plea for his life. He knows how to defuse the bomb. She knows he is telling the truth since Waller did not simply blow him up.
At this same time is when Joker escapes thanks to the damage Quinn made. He even takes back half of the horrible things he did to her.
They reconnect with Frost and Riddler. To disable them he needs some technology in the medical center. In probably the only scene in the movie members of the team (Frost and Shark) actually work together to solve an obstacle. Honestly it is pretty underwhelming with how much fun it is seeing our protagonists hate each other. Meanwhile Black Spider dressed as Batman (they hardly hide it) is stumbling around injured.
Riddler’s plan is to use all the electricity to overcharge all the bombs while “Black Spider” offers to stand guard. Waller calls them, as Deadshot plays stupid claiming they are in the medical center to deal with Spider’s injuries. She activates the bombs, but Riddler disables them. King Shark’s shock did not work for some reason and he dies. Joker sees “Batman” stumbling, but before he can kill him he dies from the bomb. Joker uses the commlink in his ear to figure out Task Force X is there.
Riddler figures out who Batman is disguised as. Bats gets Deadshot to spill the beans and Joker shows up. This results in Bats getting shot and fleeing. Quinn leaves the others to rejoin Joker. He hits her so he can confirm the bomb is still int he mallet.
The remaining three are Deadshot, Captain Boomerang, and Killer Frost. They see all the cops and all the supervillains Joker broke out.
Now the chaotic final battle. A bunch of criminals are trying to break out of Arkham. Quinn and Joker are trying to get out and destroy Gotham. Batman is prioritizing Joker. The cops are focused on the criminals. That leaves Killer Frost, Boomerang, and Deadshot trying to get out as the remaining members…
No, as soon as they see a landed police chopper they can escape in Frost knocks the others over for a head start. Now it looks like the final 2 are the hated enemies Boomerang and Deadshot, but Boomerang runs off too. As should have been expected for a team that hates each other they ditch each other. That is why I hate Suicide Squad but really like this movie. It takes my hated tropes with them like thinking we should root for them and believe they get along and ditch all that.
From what I hear this climax is divisive. Either too dark and confusing or fun and chaotic. During the escape attempt Batman subdues most of the criminals and Killer Frost is killed. Boomerang gets captured.
Deadshot, Joker, and Quinn battle on the chopper with the bomb, before Batman gets there. After all the craziness from earlier I find this ending fight underwhelming. It is more of a typical good fight scene the DC DTV films normally have. My favorite gag in it is the Joker’s instructions for disabling the bomb is to cut the red wire when they are all red.
After winning the fight in spite of Deadshot getting away Bats is furious at Waller for all the problems she made. She is not scared of convicts and vigilantes turning her in, as she is unaware of what is about to happen.
My biggest gripe with The Suicide Squad concept is how is Waller still alive. She reveals herself to all these killers after giving them ample reason to killer her. Why not use a fake identity like Rip Hunter does? How is she still alive. In the very end she sees a red dot pointing right at her. It ends with Deadshot smiling.
I love that his daughter is there with her teddy bear. She can enjoy the show.
I really enjoyed this movie. It takes a comic book team I call the dumbest in the industries and makes it very good. It gives a unique portrayal of Batman as the antagonist for an entire movie. The unlikable and evil protagonists really makes this stick out from the other 106 DC movies I have seen. My main problem is the twists and turns are very predictable.
Four Tree Stars.
Next time I am going to make a list of my top animated movies from the 2010s decade. I just need to write a list of every animated film I have seen from the decade. How hard can it be?
Anybody else notice Arthur seems to have a 4 season curse? It hate late the first time but season 5 was the worst yet. Then season 8 was the worst yet. Then season 12 was the worst yet. Then season 16 was the worst. Then season 20 was very bad. It is at least better than season 16, but man was it hard to write this. I started way back in September, but these episodes are the least interesting yet.
When this season was announced the fans were overall happy, and there was lots of speculation it was the final season. A group of fake episode titles were released finishing with “The End,” and I think they looked terrible. It included multiple Kate and Pal episodes, another Arthur’s birthday episode, and some very generic sounding plots. The director, Greg Bailey, confirmed they were false.
Oasis took over from 9 story so the flash animation was finally gone, and after the success of seasons 18 and 19 I was pumped. A few episodes in, and I no longer was.
“Buster’s Second Chance” where Buster has a dream about if he was a genius. Funny details but very generic plot. Why does he not get new memories about his new life? Shockingly a rare time Daniel Brochu did a bad job. Last episode written by Ken Scarborough
“Arthur and the Whole Truth” where Buster and Arthur deal with brutal honesty. This was real good. I especially love that when Arthur fights Buster D.W. just smiles.
“Fern’s Flight of Fancy” where Fern writes a story that gets rejected. Nice Marc Brown joke. Too slow with the story, but the small details are good like day dreaming about starring in sports just to mess up, as I used to have that problem quite a bit.
“Cereal” where Buster makes a podcast about a stupid mystery that gets Arthur in trouble (a bad version of “Arthur Accused”). Podcast thing seems forced modern references. Again some funny small details but weak main plot.
“He Said, He said,” where Carl recaps a Bionic Bunny episode. This episode sucks so bad. This is the worst case of using the month of April to try and get an Autism awareness reward or whatever they call it I have ever seen. The plot sucks, the dialogues sucks, Arthur’s acting sucks, the transitions suck. I just really hate watching this show in April now.
“Bunny Trouble” where the Reads and Compsons have to find a missing rabbit. That is an ugly rabbit. Good job at knowing rabbits do not need to eat carrots. Then it betrays its own message about rabbit diets. It gets predators wrong, as Foxes are a nighttime problem (dawn and dusk specifically). Daytime problem is dogs and hawks. Again a decent episode synopsis ruined by the Compsons.
“Bud’s Knotty Problem” where Bud learns to tie his shows. The Compson comedy is so bad. They are given decent lines and make none of the jokes work, and D.W. makes inferior lines work so easily. I think the actors for them cannot do comedy and accents at the same time. This is just a bad remake of “D.W. Rides Again.” Why doe it end with a random closeup of his eye?
“That’s my Grandma” where Thora becomes the most popular babysitter. I like this opening. Why is Bailey at the amusement park by himself in his tuxedo? It does get boring after that, but at least there are some good jokes, and it really shows how much better the Read actors are than their Compson counterparts. I do like how Grandma deals with the Tibbles. She gets them to have fun using up their energy. More interesting when D.W. makes Grandma come off as crazy person. Nice callback to the Marble episode in season 6 (Grandma won Uni back in a game with The Tibbles).
“Lend me your Ear” where they learn Mr. Ratburn suffers from hearing loss. I miss Arthur’s old suit. This new one is boring. No Spooky-Poo reference? This is a really good episode. Good description of a common problem and how it emerges.
“The Butler Did it” where Mr. Crosswire gets a robotic Butler that Muffy worries will replace Bailey. I know that guy is Chip but he shows up so little it looks like a random guy crashed Ed’s birthday party. This episode does not appeal to me much, since part of my job is babysitting a robot that is in the form of a car. I just cannot take this seriously. There are a lot of references to older episodes, but I just do not find them very entertaining.
Prunella’s Tent of Portent” where… Prunella goes insane? Good idea putting Mr. Ratburn on the dunk tank. Animation is boring. Plot is boring yet uncomfortable. Why is the tent open. Did the writer do any other episodes (this was her first. More in the finale)? At least D.W. had a funny line. This is just one of those episodes that when I turn Arthur on I do not want to see.
“Mutiny on the Pitch” where Francine’s gambit of stepping down as team captain is disastrous for her. That mask did not age well (and quit saying Capybaras are funny. They are dangerous invasive species here in Louisiana). Redoing a plot from “Meek for a Week.” Mr. Crosswire has went from a realistic man and a good coach to a stereotypical idiot rich man. Over the seasons he has transformed into a completely different character. Nice plot and detail that they win the first game thanks to Buster. Even when they lose it is bad for her since they enjoy it. Honestly he is not that bad. That one mistake can be summarized as a simple mistake. I like this ending where Francine admits her mistakes and begs for her old job back. The only problem is thematically it should have been Fern instead of brain scoring the winning goal due to Francine admitting it was a good idea to make her a forward. Might be the best episode of the season.
“The Hallway Minotaur” where George becomes Hallway Monitor. This episode is very stupid. Do not do a Mr. Haney episode if nobody is voicing him. Again him building a school really seems out of character. He was not a good principal. Why is Mr. Morris there? He moved to New Mexico. This episode badly needed to show that video call, not just tell us generic details.
“Ladonna’s Like List” where Ladonna sucks. I clearly do not like Jessica Carleton’s work. This episode was putting me to sleep. This final full episode was awful.
Overall a very disappointing season in spite of 4 notably good episodes. Partly as it had 6 notably bad episodes.
The hour long special D.W. and the Beastly Birthday aired during this time, and I enjoyed it. Sure I did not like the Where the Wild Things are plot, but the time travel parts with Arthur, older D.W., and Kate were very good and confirmed the longtime fan theory that D.W. is a genius.
I always heard this movie was terrible so to cash in on a certain mostly photorealistic animated remake I would watch it and review it. It really stank. It is just so padded and slow.
It has several writers and little focus. The director also was the head of story of The Peanuts Movie so good. Of course that was 15 years later. He also directed 101 Dalmatians 2 (fine) and The Fox and the Hound 2. Well that is not good, at all. Most of the cast is back, and they are giving really phoned rehashes of their past performances. I think Pat Carroll is the one exception, and she has the worst script to work with.
This opening song about Melody’s birth (there is no way that is a newborn baby) is just boring. Triton gives her a locket that has an image of Atlantica (I have heard that not the name in the first film, but it is the name here). Morgana captures Melody (what are those guards doing). Again Disney sequels spend the opening portraying the villains as inept and easy to beat. Later we are supposed to view them as threatening. Here she at least upgrades herself.
They save her from her shark voiced by something I thought I would never hear, Clancy Brown doing a bad performance. They decide to divide the human city from Atlantica, and Triton drops locket in sea.
That seawall has to have been insanely expensive. What type of tyrants are Ariel and Erik.
For Melody she is her mother in human form (how does she talk to sealife then). It is just she wishes of the sea instead of the land, and her swimming around looking for shells is boring. It does not help her facial design was made for smiling and struggles with any other emotion (in addition the smiling animation this movie is just bad).
Morgana and Undertow are hiding with no power until they see with their magic shell that Melody found the locket and then get ready to make a move after a scene showing they are not threats. Morgana is jealous of losing a sibling rivalry, and all this shows is the new villain is way weaker than the new one. The only part I like so far is miniaturized Undertow still has a normal shark fin. I wish they went with a kraken or something as the villain, something completely different from Ursula.
Melody is a social outcast because she does things like go around barefoot. Clearly the writers have no idea how people react to princesses. At least it is different from the first film. Rob Paulsen is the new voice of Prince Erik. I have seen Paulsen be very good at impressions. This is not one of those times.
After this is a wacky hijinks scene with funny music. Except it is not funny and just makes everyone look dumb. According to Morgana Melody is 12 (I think that is what she looks and acts like) but Ariel calls her a teenager. I guess Ariel does not know her daughter’s age. Ariel sees the locket and Melody then notices her name is on it. Ariel bans her from going over the wall. This results in Melody running away while Erik just stands there. I am going to presume last movie hurt his eyesight (it all makes sense now).
If there is a wall how did she row around it? I probably should have issues with her trusting the red eyed sting rays and shark, but I guess that is in character. Morgana uses magic from Ursula (of course; cannot imply the villain has actual power) to turn her into a mermaid (why is her tail red instead of blue?), and then she says she is only capable of making it permanent with the trident she says Triton stole from her. Honestly I like her basic plan. Still probably easier to use magic to just use magic to let somebody actually on her side steal the trident Sure there is an enchantment how only somebody from the royal family can remove the trident, but I would think that magic has a way around it.
Wait then how did Ursula use it last movie? Also the film waits over 20 minutes to explain that rule. For that long I was just wondering why Morgana needed Melody at all.
Ariel gets turned back into a mermaid by her father to help the search. She and Melody sing a distant duet. It is badly animated reshots of the first film (I am not interested in taking many pictures of this animation, but there are lots and lots of those). Melody’s lines are boring but show some potential with a rewrite. Ariel meanwhile is just swimming around her childhood favorites making it look like she is looking back nostalgically instead of helping. You know what Morgana deserves to win, or at least deserve to lose less.
After this at nearly the halfway mark is when Morgana makes the deal with Melody to get her the trident to make it permanent. In the first film Ariel was not turned into a human until a few minutes after the halfway mark to show why she wants out of that world. Here Melody is throwing her old life away due to one bad day. It really is weak motivation.
Why would Melody think she can get the trident for Morgana, a being with magic powers who knows the water?
It’s as good as any other answer
She meets two wannabe heroes. They are not good characters, but at least they are original characters, well they are not retreads from last film. They are generic loser sidekicks who want to be more. They help Melody so she can spread positive word of mouth about them. Also they are good singers.
Best shot in the film.
At Atlantica she nearly forgets about the trident and tries just playing around until the Penguin makes her continue. She sees Triton and thinks Morgana must be wrong about him until he gets sadder looking at a picture of his granddaughter and yells at his mermen for not looking hard enough. That convinces her he is evil. This just comes off as forced. I would think he would have a picture of her on the walls or something. I also think he would use her name like he normally does. Then he sees them but decides not to investigate. When grabbing the trident Melody’s locket somehow comes off so Ariel and Triton know it is her. This whole scene is so forced to make everything come into place.
They keep playing upbeat music that really does not match the mood here. The score is regularly like that. This movie is overall very dramatic with an occasional wacky scene, but they only use the wacky music. It just does not fit at all.
I think Melody is about to figure it out but then her mom shows up. Seeing her mom is a mermaid she loses all faith in her and gives the trident to Morgana. This scene should feel important, but at this point it just feels so slow.
Morgana leaves… No reason to not just kill them now. Then Melody gets saved by the wannabe heroes who trick the shark into breaking her out as Morgana and the others basically reenact the first film’s ending. This summarizes what is wrong with this movie. It is more of group of random events happening to make something that resembles the first film. The main difference is Morgana just lets Ariel go for no reason.
Morgana lets Melody sneak behind her and grab the trident and throw it to Triton who easily wins. To show the general incompetence at one point Melody accidently gives her the trident, and Morgana just pushes it away.
Who is the worst villain I have ever reviewed again? I have reviewed worse villains, but she might be the worst that the audience is supposed to take seriously.
Kenneth Mars then literally switches to his voice for Littlefoot’s grandpa to try to make the emotional moment stick. Melody gets him to destroy the wall to reunite both worlds and it ends with a song, because the movie just does not want to end already.
The credits play “Part of your World” despite it never being in this movie, as they know nothing from here is worth the spot.
To put it in perspective how much padding was in this the movie the only needed characters were Ariel, Triton, Morgana, Melody, Undertow, and the 2 wannabe heroes. Flounder, Sebastian, Scuttle, and Erik all got plenty of screen time but nothing to do. In fact Ariel becoming a mermaid again was really pointless too except for Melody seeing that. In fact a picture of her as one at the palace or something could have replaced all that. This is not a 75 minute movie but a 40ish minute special padded into a movie.
Some ratings are hard. This is not, One Tree Star.
The Animation Historian 