A few months ago, somewhere in the middle of the umpteenth round of the ongoing debate over “Superhero Movies vs Art Movies” online, a superhero-enthusiast proposed an idea to bridge the gap. If independent, non-superhero films, are floundering commercially and if superhero-films aren’t getting the critical respect they deserve why not merge the two? What if a regular “serious” film was completed, but in a superhero universe. No major appearances from superhero, but a casual mention. That way fans of superhero films would flock to theatres to be in the know, and the “serious” films would get the ticket-sales needed to keep serious cinema alive. I kept thinking about this after seeing “DC League of Super-Pets”.
The film does not explicitly fulfil that proposal. In fact, the newly released animated film is based on characters who first appeared in print 60 years ago as ‘The Legion of Super-Pets” in “Adventure Comics”. Director Jared Stern (writer turned director who coauthors the script with John Whittington) has worked previously on subversive animation, most notably in “The Lego Batman.” But the heavy branding of the title (DC precedes anything) and the shape of this film is one that feels contextually tied to the idea of using the current obsession with superhero cinema as a gateway to getting audiences. Rather than a question of whether the proposal to use superhero films to gain audiences for “regular” movies is a good or bad, it’s clear from the first sequence in “Super-Pets” that this movie – adaptation notwithstanding – is a flagrant cash-grab to get audiences in the seats by way of its relationship to the current steady stream of successful superhero media despite what really should be saturation by this point.
To be fair, the film is not really about superheroes. Pixar recently released the very dismal “Lightyear,” which was similarly gutsy about bending over backwards to tie its new film to a pre-existing concept. Rather than meticulous world-building and innovation, it was an attempt to capitalise on an existing property for empty commercial gain. I won’t pretend film is a sacrosanct medium. Film is a business; the relationship between film as art and film as commerce is as old as the form but it’s striking how the one-two punch of “Lightyear” (admittedly somewhat better as a film) and “DC League of Super-Pets” is using films geared towards children in craven attempts to make money off the backs of children’s own disposition for being less critical about media. It’s artistic laziness, and even if I can’t presume the internal production of “DC League of Super-Pets” – as a film the energy wafting off it is aggressive laziness.
You would not be in the wrong to mistakenly assume that this new property is somehow connected to “The Secret Life of Pets” and its sequel, a similarly empty animated film, starring Kevin Hart as an anthropomorphised animal that plays around with ideas of masculinity and being a “good pet”. In this film Hart is not a rabbit but a dog. His Ace is a dog in an animal shelter who has lost faith in humans. Our entry-point to the story, though, is Dwayne Johnson’s Krypto the Superdog. The film’s opening sequence introduces a young Krypto, and his owner Kal-El, as their planet Krypton is being destroyed. As Kal-El’s parents send their son on an escape pod to earth, Krypto vows to look after him for life. Years later, Krypto and his owner (now Superman) are a crime-fighting duo, but Krypto begins to feel resentment when Superman’s imminent engagement to Louis Lane threatens to upend their best-friend bond. Meanwhile, during an attempt to foil a world-domination plan by Lex Luther, Superman and the members of the Justice League are inadvertently overpowered by an evil hairless-guinea pig (a Luther protégée) and it is left to Krypto, previously bad at making friends with animals, to reach out to Ace and a ragtag group of newly powered super-pets to save the day. What follows is a nauseatingly rote attempt at humour using tired pop-culture references and random jokes that feel unrelated to any real sense of craft but sound-bite after sound-bite to elicit temporary amusement: look, watch Krypto listen to Taylor Swift’s “Bad Blood” as if he’s spurned lover; look, watch Natasha Lyonne’s foul-mouthed turtle say an expletive that’s bleeped out; there, watch Kate McKinnon’s evil Lulu perform a perverse love-ode to Lex Luther. This is uninspired stuff.
But then, why wouldn’t it be? This is all about capitalising on the power of the superhero name with the big DC as the first part of the film’s title. It’s both the cravenness and the lack of skill that make it feel so onerous. The blame game is pointless, but it’s important to pause and recognise how beat after beat of this depends on taking gravitas and value and punchline from external media that has no inherent role in what’s at stake here. It’s a glorified memefication of film. I saw this with my niece, who was thrilled by the anthropomorphic animals, story issues be damned. But you could recognise how the aggressive onslaught of jokes made little sense to the children around. They don’t have the context. But “Super-pets” wants it both ways, going for the lowest hanging pratfall for empty calories of delight for children but with no clear idea how to write its characters or present a story that makes sense of its own internal logic. Still, a badly written film is one thing, but it’s hard to find much merit even when you look beyond the tired story-beats.
Inasmuch as there’s bound to be some subjectivity on what counts as “good” animation, I am really thrown by how much of “Super-pets” looks genuinely unpleasant at best – but mostly just ugly. Animators spent two years working on the film, and an additional four months after the film was pushed back. There’s no argument, that there’s clear effort put into this, but beyond the truly godawful approach to storytelling here the approach to animation and dynamism in character design, texture of locale and expressiveness of characters is just unpleasant. “Bad” is too inexact a description, but it is consistently off-putting to observe – sometimes even privileging jarring animation as a punchline in a film that’s already incredibly lazy about approaches to humour. The visual language is so indistinct and hazy, it’s not even as if the unappealing look feels distinctive enough to mean anything. If characters are the centre of a story, then why do I find myself wanting to look away from every character interaction because of the unnatural way their bodies move onscreen?
The performers are similarly a mixed bag. I’ll admit slight amusement at Natasha Lyonne’s boozy turtle but that’s more because of a general affection for Lyonne’s smoke-tinged timbre. If you’re a fan of Kevin Hart and Dwayne Johnson generally, then they’re colourless and phoned in voicework here may tide you by. Kate McKinnon is eating up her chance to play evil, but even if her Lulu is distinguishable, it’s not particularly engaging or pleasant. And it’s that consistent quality that is most unbearable here. Everything here is in cruise-control – approaches to story, to acting and even aesthetic. It’s more of the same, but only worse.
Even within the framework of knowing that films like this, typically, will end on a certain upbeat note, there’s not a single element of genuine tension in wondering what comes next. Child audiences deserve better. For many, their first interaction with cinema will be similarly soulless soul-deadening, half-hearted approaches to filmmaking and animation that inspire no confidence and instead only wallow in the worst of the medium. In an animated world of characters that can do things beyond our belief, “DC League of Super-Pets” fails to inspire.