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Batman: The Animated Series (1992)
This is not the greatest cartoon series of all time
In a historical context, yes, this is arguably the greatest cartoon of all time. It established a standard for being an animated series that had a mature tone and mature subject matter as well as being the definitive on-screen version of Batman. It introduced fan-beloved Harley Quinn and canonized several of the iconic tragic backstories of Batman's rogues gallery. And perhaps most remarkably, it laid the groundwork for the DCAU.
But watching it as an episodic action adventure, I found it boring and toothless (until it got to The New Batman Adventures). Concerning its most lauded aspect, its humane, psychological look at its characters, I simply don't care. There's a cap on plot complexity, emotional investment, and thematic exploration in 20 minutes of runtime. I should know--- I watched Mushishi. Furthermore, the impact of those 20 minutes is diluted when the character being focused on is introduced in that episode and only appears once more 20 episodes later. It does explore the character of Batman, but less than a dozen episodes out of 85 do that. The episodes centering around his relationship with Catwoman and Talia are great, but they don't go anywhere with it. The lauded depth of the series would work much better if the show actually attempted longer story arcs, and something like Mask of the Phantasm is an example of that. Furthermore, people act like every episode was some deep psychological character study. The truth is that out of 85 episodes, only about 20 or so have some depth and the others are just your run-of-the-mill crime procedural and/or superhero adventures.
And if I'm not particularly impacted by its characterization, then there isn't much else in the series that entertains me. Its genre is action-adventure, but both of these elements are weak due to
1)Batman is fighting faceless goons and/or villains that pose little physical threat to him most of the time.
2) The animation is weak and literally lacks punch, which leaves me unsatisfied at the end of every episode. Also, the visual design is simplistic.
3)Batman doesn't have many people to bounce off of.
4)Besides the Joker and Harley, villains lack the exaggerated flair of most fun action adventures and their motivations are almost always revenge against someone that wronged them.
A lot of these problems were fixed in TNBA, so much so that I view that as a separate show.
Kubo and the Two Strings (2016)
Insipid
I've been catching up on Western animated movies recently and while they're all formulaic, I can accept that and salvage a few good moments. Maybe it's because I've finally had enough of them, but this time I am not overlooking the quality of the writing. Uninspired is one thing, but this is more than that. It follows the hero's journey without knowing how the hero's journey actually works.
First, the uninspired part, which applies to the surface level creativeness. As other reviews have noted, the setting is Japanese but the tone and music are American. The music uses some eastern string instruments but the style is still generically western. Even beyond the lack of Japanese flavor, the jokes and interactions during the hero's journey part don't land.
Apart from style the movie isn't creative with respect to substance, either, but that's fine. The hero's journey works because it is centered around the completion of the hero's arc. In order to have an arc in the first place, the hero must have a weakness that needs to be solved. This internal conflict is frequently used to parallel the overall theme. Kubo has no strongly established internal weakness, so there's no arc for him, which means there's no real hero's journey. Sure, the fight scenes and obstacles are there, but without the hero's growth it's all just there to fill screentime. Towards the end they propagate the theme of choosing an earthly existence filled with emotion and dealing with death by remembering the dead, as opposed to a cold celestial one. Except that Kubo never has much trouble dealing with death in the first place. His other facets of growth, like becoming more powerful and learning new skills, feel slapped on so they can check it off on the hero's journey list.
Snowpiercer (2013)
Poorly thought out story, even worse social commentary
The entire premise of this movie is stupid and everyone knows that. However, some people think that its social commentary excuses its numerous plot holes because the premise was used as a metaphor. The circling train is a metaphor for the cycle of revolution that never actually changes the status quo of a stratified society and those who make it to positions of power inevitably end up helming the system rather than overturning it. As if that wasn't on the nose enough, you get your standard scenes of the rich indulging in extravagance, the poor suffering in extreme misery, and children being indoctrinated. Taken as an allegory, this is as derivative and trashy as any random action blockbuster, only when you watch those you can at least have some fun with it whereas this just leaves a bad taste in your mouth.
Just because a movie has social commentary and allegory does not automatically elevate it above one that doesn't. What is the social commentary actually saying? Nothing new that I could personally find. It says that we need to break the cycle, but how? It implies that revolutions don't actually work, which might be true in some cases but clearly revolutions in history, even the failed ones, have massive revocations for a country's direction.
The best part has to be when Evans' character gives an angsty monologue about how he almost cannibalized an infant but this monologue doesn't actually have a point to make. Especially since the guy the infant grew up to be got killed just to give him more angst. Unless it's making the point that for all you sacrifice in the revolution, you end up becoming that which you hate and yada yada. Again, to no one's surprise, it's hard to change the status quo.
Even with the cliche message, it could have been executed well if it went into realistic detail about power structures, prison-industrial complexes. and the socioeconomic reasons for perpetual poverty, but since its in-world model for society makes no sense whatsoever, any such nuance is absent.
Ok, so maybe you can enjoy this movie as an action thriller, ignoring all the plot holes? Partially. It's got some very stylized violence that makes for some good moments here and there, but it also has weightless deaths and the violence crosses the line from fun to disgusting. At one point this one overweight middle aged dude kills off 3 of the main cast that we've been following up to that point in rapid succession, which is both jarring and pointless because those characters were so one note to begin with.