The latest in DC’s animated films isSuperman/Batman: Public Enemies which comes out on nationwide September 29. (You can preorder it on Amazon).

The film is loosely based on the Jeph Loeb and Ed McGuinness story arc that took place in proper DCU continuity. ( You can pick up it up here) Both it and the film sees President Lex Luthor using the pretense of a giant Kryptonite asteroid hurtling toward Earth to place a $1,000,000,000 bounty on the heads of Batman and Superman, bringing every villain in the DCU as well as the JSA and other heroes after them.

All the while the asteroid is still on a collision course with the planet and billions of lives are at stake. Will Batman and Superman thwart Lex Luthor and save the world? Of course, but will it be rad on the way? Generally.

The film version of this story was very fun to watch and looked crystal clear in the Blu-ray format in a way that I’m happy about. In fact, the animation and picture quality looked pretty close to flawless. It packed quite a bit of fun and adventure into its paltry 67 minute running time, but had moments that made my spine tingle in all the right ways.

Let’s get this straight: I very much enjoyed this movie, but I don’t think it was the best DCU movie that’s been made. Pretty far from it. I think New Frontier, Batman Beyond: Return of the Joker, Mask of the Phantasm and maybe a few others belong on a list far above this entry into the mythos, but that doesn’t mean it’s without merit.

The things it did right, the action, adventure, and animation, were all turned up to 11. The problem was with the screenplay. They excised too much story for brevity and the film didn’t have as much of an emotional impact as it should have. I don’t know if this happened in post, or before the film started, but it just didn’t have an emotional climax as good as any of the DCU films I mentioned above. There were a few standout moments, but you were just rushed from one encounter to another to serve the plot without much time to breathe in between. Perhaps this comes from comparing books to movies in adaptations a little too much, but there were moments in the book that were tailor made for film adaptation that were left out for no apparent reason. (Like all of the suspense during and after Batman and Superman’s fight with Hawkman and Captain Marvel, for example.)

There were more examples of that. And it seems like a few things were done for express purpose of getting a PG-13 rating, even though I wouldn’t hesitate to show this to a 7 year old. At one point, Lex Luthor shouts “Bitch!” even though he could have easily said a thousand things that would have made more sense to the story.

At the end of the day, though, the movie had a lot of great fighting. Bats and Supes against Metallo was great, them fighting with what felt like every B list villain in the DCU was fantastic, and the fight with Captain Marvel and Hawkman was amazing. But in the suspense department, the movie didn’t hold me.

My only other real problem with the movie was all of the over-hyping involvement of people. We ran an interview with LeVar Burton about his role as Black Lightning in the film and he literally has one line. And the line (“I think I could create a force field”) probably could have been chopped out of an episode of The Next Generation. Did they need him out promoting the movie? I simply don’t know. I suppose if it gets more people to watch it, then the answer is yes.

Aside from that, the Blu-ray also has 6 episodes of Justice League Unlimited that make the disc a must buy.

Like I said, to get it on Amazon click here. You probably won’t regret it.