Animated Crime on the Rise

 

One of the crime movies I most anticipated this summer starred Christopher Meloni ( Law & Order: SVU ), Victor Garber ( Alias ), Michael Madsen ( Reservoir Dogs ), and Tricia Helfer ( Battlestar Galactica , Burn Notice ), but it wasn't in theaters. It wasn't even live-action. It was Green Lantern: First Flight , the fifth direct-to-DVD feature from Warner Bros. Animation based on the DC Comics universe. Described as " Training Day in space," the movie follows Hal Jordan's (Meloni) first adventures as member of an intergalactic police force, partnered with respected veteran Sinestro (Garber).

How have animated projects have come to attract some of today's most-sought-after actors? I suspect answers can be traced back to Warner Bros. Animation's Emmy-winning 1992 Batman: The Animated Series , which drew its inspiration from Tim Burton's 1989 Batman movie, Frank Miller's hard-boiled 1986 comic Batman: The Dark Knight Returns . I questioned the casting of Michael Keaton as Bruce Wayne/Batman in Burton's movie. Before I saw the movie, I wondered if Keaton--known for comedic roles--could be as imposing and threatening as Batman was supposed to be. Some viewers will question the casting in any live-action movie. Why her? Why not her ? In animation, actors' appearance and mannerisms don't matter; only their voices do. Many actors enjoy the freedom of coming to work dressed however they want and the creative challenge of conveying a full performance with just their voices.

As daunting as that task may seem, vocal performances can stay with audiences much longer than live-action roles. While the movies have featured Keaton, Val Kilmer, George Clooney, and Christian Bale as Batman, veering toward camp and then back toward grit, Juliard-trained Kevin Conroy has voiced Bruce Wayne from young adulthood to senior citizenship, in several cartoons and video games over the past seventeen years. Mark Hamill has given an equally iconic performance as Joker to Conroy's Batman, using a menacing, unhinged voice far, far away from Luke Skywalker.

Voice actors sometimes record together in a sound booth, much like a radio play. They are asked to read each line, make fight sounds, and so on, with various inflections. The director chooses each actor's best reading and puts them together later in the process. Actors can also record their lines by phone with the voice director standing in for various co-stars, so scheduling is easier. Actors who've never met can have conversations onscreen.

Contrasting the cartoons of my childhood, where all pilots parachuted safely from crashing planes, and disfigurements and mutations were cured within thirty minutes, Batman: The Animated Series showed characters firing guns (not lasers) and being wounded by gunfire. Intended not as a children's show but a show with children in its audience, the series' unqualified success led to a theatrical movie, Batman: Mask of the Phantasm (1993), depicting a college-age Bruce Wayne wrestling with his promise to fight crime and his love for a woman. Joining Conroy and Hamill in the movie were Dana Delany (China Beach) and Stacy Keach (Mike Hammer).

The quality of Warner Bros. Animation to me has surpassed Disney's recent two-dimensional efforts. Couple that quality with distinctive voice acting and I can almost forget I'm watching cartoons. At the same time, animation allows for larger-scale action and broader performances than live-action will ever permit.

Warner's PG-13 rated line of original DVD features launched with Superman Doomsday , based on the popular comic book arc covering the death and return of Superman. Adam Baldwin ( Firefly , Chuck ) played Clark Kent/Superman and a darker Superman who dealt out more totalitarian justice.

Second was Justice League: New Frontier , based on Darwyn Cooke's comics run depicting Hal Jordan (David Boreanaz), Superman (Kyle McLachlan), Batman (Jeremy Sisto), Wonder Woman (Lucy Lawless), and the Flash (Neil Patrick Harris) against a historically accurate backdrop of 1950s-60s America.

Third was Batman: Gotham Knight , a collection of six episodes inspired by Japanese anime and meant to bridge the gap between Christopher Nolan's Batman Begins and The Dark Knight . Kevin Conroy reprised the role of Batman/Bruce Wayne.

Fourth was Wonder Woman , a retelling of the hero's origin featuring epic battles between the forces of Amazon queen Hippolyta (Virginia Madsen) and Greek god of war Ares (Alfred Molina) as well as a boy-meets-superhero romance between Steve Trevor (Nathan Fillion) and Wonder Woman (Keri Russell).

Warner's animators consciously try to avoid repeating themselves, so each new movie looks different from the last while none of them feels like a weekly cartoon. The only limit is running time. The movies are all about seventy-five minutes long. This doesn't seem like much time when compared to live-action blockbusters, but then it forces the filmmakers to make every scene matter.

Warner isn't alone making cartoons with a more adult edge. Also available on DVD is MTV's Spider-Man (2003) released in conjunction with Tobey Maguire's first Spider-Man movie. The cartoon was computer-animated, giving Spidey's movements more flow and dimension. It starred the voices of Neil Patrick Harris, Ian Ziering, and Lisa Loeb as college students Peter Parker, Mary Jane Watson, and Harry Osborne, and guest-starred Michael Clarke Duncan as the Kingpin (a role he first played in 2003's live-action Daredevil movie) and Gina Gershon.

Hellboy stars Ron Perlman, Selma Blair, and Doug Jones have lent their voices to a DVD series of Hellboy animated movies.

Granted I've discussed superhero fare this column, but I hope the serious tone of these movies and the acclaim they've received inspire more animated crime adaptations. I'd love to see one of Darwyn Cooke's graphic novel based on Richard Stark's master-thief Parker, for instance.