All-Star Superman (2011)

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  November 14, 2011

  deano

  Media seems obsessed with the death of Superman. He had a death in live-action film, Superman Returns, a death in Superman Doomsday and now another death in the animated adaptation of Grant Morrison's All-Star Superman comic book.
  The animated movie is a diff... read moreerent version of the Superman character, much like the comics. The movie starts off with him realizing that he's dying and that Lex Luthor killed him.
  James Denton's Superman/Clark Kent is possibly the most lovable incarnation second only to Christopher Reeves's live-action portrayal. The loyal script and top notch acting imbues Superman with just the right level of noble superhuman grandeur mixed with a down to earth homely touch. He is the hero, and the farm boy at the same time. Similarly, Clark Kent's oafish demeanor is comedic yet sincere; his interview with Lex Luthor and subsequent escape from the prison riot caused by a supervillian's escape is possibly the most fun part of the entire movie.

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  March 14, 2011

  LorenzoVonMatterhorn

  "Doomed planet. Desperate scientists. Last hope. Kindly couple. Superman."
  
  Lex Luthor enacts his plan to rid the world of Superman, once and for all. Succeeding with solar radiation poisoning, the Man of Steel is slowly dying. With what little times remains, the Last Son ... read moreof Krypton must confront the revealing of his secret identity to Lois Lane and face Luthor in a final battle.
  
  REVIEW
  I'm torn on All-Star Superman. There's too much going on, there are characters and plot elements which seem to serve no purpose, and despite the epic romanticism of the movie's ultimate destination - which does work on some levels - I did not come away entirely satisfied. And yet, I can't deny that I mostly enjoyed watching it, and that some moments were quite poignant. I'm not knowledgeable enough to judge the art and animation on an objective level, but I quite liked the look of the movie, and I found the voice acting unnoticeable in the best sense, which is to say it was perfectly convincing. The music, too, was good. It's just the plot, really, where All-Star Superman loses points. But then, what's more important to a story than plot? Basically, I'd recommend this for fans, but probably not for the casual viewer. And I have a strong feeling that I would have been better off reading the comics version of this story.

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  March 10, 2011

  xXGiNoBiLiPRXx

  I think this movie was good but better stories have been made and better animation, I enjoyed it nevertheless. Great imagination the creators have.
  
  All-Star Superman begins with a frantic rescue mission near the surface of the sun. You think Superman saved the day, and I suppose... read more he did, but it ends up it was part of an elaborate scheme by Lex Luthor to finally kill Superman. It worked. Superman quickly learns that exposure to solar radiation has increased his powers, but will soon lead to his death. The movie then takes an odd turn into Superman's "bucket list," more or less, as he checks off a bunch of things he always wanted to do, some of which involve giving Lois Lane super powers for a day.
  
  This part of the movie is disjointed, seeming to hop from scene to scene with no real connection to anything else. The entire second act could've been shuffled into a different order and would've made the same amount of sense. There was also this weird segment with Atlas and Samson that seemed to be in the movie specifically to make Lois Lane look like the worst girlfriend in the world. It's certainly possible I'm missing a story arc with Atlas and Samson that wasn't explained in the movie, but it did add to the pointlessness of what was going on.
  
  Thankfully, once the focus shifts to the confrontation between the dying Superman and his killer, Lex Luthor, All-Star Superman makes a confident shift into poignant story telling. These two know each other so well that it's hard to discern throughout who's really outplaying the other. And when the battle resolves, it does so in a way that perfectly embodies who Superman is and how we view him.
  
  At the end, then, I felt satisfied with All-Star Superman despite the meandering middle and some of the cheesiest dialogue imaginable outside the pages of a comic book.
  
  For a guy with only a passing interest in Superman and super heroes, All-Star Superman was an okay way to kill an evening. Some tighter writing and better plot decisions would've saved the entire second act from becoming a pointless trip into Superman's bucket list, but it still kind of works if you approach it with a sense of humor. (My wife and I didn't have good answers for when our daughter kept asking us, "Why are you laughing?") But the build-up to the confrontation with Lex Luthor is very well-executed, and the resolution is ultimately satisfying.

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  February 24, 2011

  Screeny

  Simply beautiful. DC Animated films always seize to amaze me when it comes down to staying loyal to the comics and "All-Star Superman" keeps itself that way for the most part. What I loved most about this film was how it's story wasn't about Superman saving the world, its about h... read moreim saving himself and breathing his last breathes before his fall of death. While the animated-feature doesn't beat out "Batman: Under the Red Hood", (the last best DC animated-feature), it does top "Superman/Batman Apocalypse" with its sincerely deep plot that make us love Superman more than we already do.
  
  Here is a great quality the film grasps however. It is not a brainless hero brawl like "Superman/Batman Apocalypse" or as dark and edgy as "Batman: Under the Red Hood". Its more of a character-centered drama that works with the story perfectly. That's really what makes "All-Star Superman" so good. Even though I'd still go with "Under the Red Hood" as being a better movie and adaptation, "All-Star Superman" works better with tickling the audience with more than a few light-hearted moments.
  
  This Paragraph is for the fans of the comic: (Contains Spoilers)
  
  The movie does a good job adapting the comic, but, some of the 12-issue series is left out. The first 4 issues of the comic are as if ripped right from the pages and shown word by word. You get to see Samson, Atlas, and of course, Lois with powers. You see Clark reveal his secret and give a fantastic tour of the fortress. Even Clark's interview with Lex in prison isn't left out. But, then we get to issue five. The Jimmy Olsen/Superman wars are sort of left out of the comic so issue five and six are roughly left out of the movie. Except for the end of issue six where Clark visits Jonathon Kent's grave. The whole thing involved with Bizarro is cut out, as well. So issue seven and eight are also left out of the movie. A bit of change there occurs, which may or may not bother the fans. I was fine with the change. Issue 9, where Bar-El and Lilo appear is adapted from the pages perfectly as well. Superman still sends the two to the Phantom Zone. The tenth issue is adapted mostly to the brick except for Superman saving the suicidal girl, but, the movie does show Superman waiting for the end to come, which is done beautifully. The final two issues, eleven and twelve, are adapted perfectly. Lex Luthor still gets powers for twenty-four hours and battles out a weakened Superman. The ending stays loyal, as well, which is good because the ending of "All-Star Superman" is simply amazing. While the movie only adapts eight of the twelve issues in the comic, it still manages to be a great adaptation in my eyes.
  
  (No More Spoilers At This Point)
  
  While most DC Animated Films gain PG-13 ratings, this one gets itself the easy PG. Probably because it isn't as gritty or violent as past comic adaptations from DC and it more of a dramatic take on the universe of Superman. But, don't worry folks, the feature still has enough action to catch your eye and keep you entertained, but, that isn't the film's focus.
  
  The voice acting manages to stay on-top and the color scheme of Metropolis and Superman's look stay true. The White Superman Costume is drawn out perfectly. But, one thing seemed to bother me and that was Superman's cape. It was looped over his shoulders a tad too far and it was oddly too short. It isn't too big a deal but it caught my attention more than once in the movie.
  
  Overall, "All-Star Superman" follows the 12-issue series for the most and manages to keep you entertained in its short seventy-five minute run-time. The dialog between Lois and Clark is amazing as always and by the end you'll be happy with this Superman story. The ending is beautiful and leaves you thinking that even the strongest sometime struggle. The movie hits the shelves on February 22, and I say give it a buy.

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  February 23, 2011

  mjgildea

  I was surprised to see DC give the All-Star Superman story the feature-length treatment. It's got a lot of the qualities that qualified Superman Returns as a failure. It's a story outside of the DC Universe canon where Superman faces terminal cell degeneration after massive expos... read moreure to solar radiation. (All at the hands of Lex Luthor, of course.) Despite leaving Superman's case inoperable, things aren't all bad, his powers have increased triplefold and the story has plenty of segments that distract the viewer from the obvious. The story plays out more like The Bucket List covering the last year of Superman's life than an action movie but the animation and the plot are great. Some of the voice casting leaves a little to be desired but overall its pretty well done. I got more misty at the end of the cartoon than the comic if that says anything...

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  February 23, 2011

  ythelastman89

  Quite honestly, this is the greatest Superman movie ever made. It manages to just "get" the character in a way that no other cinematic medium has. This has everything that a Superman story should have, without any of the faults. It's extremely emotional, nostalgic, action-packed ... read moreand just flat out cool. The voice talents are incredible, for some reason they all captured the characters perfectly. This takes Grant Morrison's epic compendium of Superman and takes it to the next level. The plot is episodic, which is in many ways how Superman needs to be experienced, but also ties together into a grand story that captures what it means to give the ultimate sacrifice for the people you love. When you usually pop in a straight-to-video movie, you don't expect a masterpiece. I guess there are always exceptions.

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  February 23, 2011

  fb653545547

  What should be a hurrah for Superman after he realizes he is dying turns out to be a comic fan boy mishmash of C-level characters and half-baked story concepts. Yes, I will make allowances that the original comic series is twelve issues and this movie runs under 80 minutes with ... read morecredits. However, that doesn't excuse All-Star Superman from being a sub par movie in what it tries to do. In one massive gulp, it asks Superman to out himself to Lois, for Superman to create a super-power elixir, Superman helping the bottle city of Kandor colonize another planet, a final duel with Lex Luthor, a super powered Luthor, a sun-eating creature, two Kryptonians who take over in two months time... There's simply too much story for this short a run time, a common complaint I've had with the entire DC animated films. This version of Superman is entirely content at times only to turn vengeful at the drop of a hat. Whiplash is the best term for it, I think. A total missed opportunity to show what Superman would do if he really only had a certain amount of time left to live.

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  April 19, 2011

  itbegins2005

  I have my problems with the work of comic book writer Grant Morrison, but one thing I think you can't argue is that the man understands Superman. In fact, I would even go so far as to say that no one has ever understood the character more than Grant Morrison... the only pr... read moreoblem is, sometimes it's a little tough to understand Morrison himself. See, Grant Morrison is either insane, a dedicated hallucinogenic drug user, or a creature from a distant galaxy; his stories are colored in shades of the absurd and the hopelessly goofy, yet he also likes to layer oodles of subtext and symbolism into them, from subjects as widely varied as ancient mythology, Freudian psychology, mysticism, and so on. Sometimes there are so many wacky ideas crammed into his stories that he barely has time for the characters themselves, and it can be a pain in the ass to wade through pages of bizarre pseudo-science to get to the dramatic meat of his work. But while Grant's style doesn't always click with every character he's done (his take on Batman is particularly infuriating), he just seemed tailor made for the Man of Steel, who, in Grant's hands, becomes a fantastical demigod of seemingly limitless capability, yet at the same time remains unmistakably human- if an idealized depiction of one. Thankfully, much of what worked in Morrison's amazing All-Star Superman miniseries is present in its animated counterpart, the latest in Warner Animation's direct-to-DVD line-up of DC Universe animated movies; in fact, writer Dwayne McDuffie and director Sam Liu prove to be a little too faithful to the source material, transplanting from the books entire subplots and characters that worked fine in the expanded serial format of comics, yet only serve to clutter and confuse the plot of a feature-length narrative. Regardless, All-Star Superman shines as a brilliant exploration and revitalization of the character and his world, presenting to us a Man of Steel both classic and contemporary; I hate to say it, but it may just be one of the best Superman movies ever made. Not the best, maybe, but certainly in the top three.
  
  In standard Morrison fashion, the story seeks to knock you off balance from the very beginning: after rescuing a scientific expedition to the sun from being sabotaged by Lex Luthor, Superman discovers that his cells have become overloaded with solar energy and are beginning to break down- in other words, he's dying (leave it to Grant Morrison to kick off a Superman story with a cancer metaphor). Knowing that his time on Earth is limited, Superman seeks to make the most out of his remaining days, first and foremost by finally revealing his secret identity to his true love, Lois Lane; bringing her to his Fortress of Solitude, Superman gives her a special gift for her birthday: a serum that duplicates his superpowers for 24 hours. Together, they encounter Samson and Atlas, two time-travelling chauvinist super-beings with the hots for Lois, and battle lizard people from the Earth's core and the Ultra-Sphinx before dining in Atlantis and making out on the moon. After the day's adventure wears down, Superman (as Clark Kent) pays a visit to Lex Luthor, who's been sentenced to death for crimes against humanity. After a brush with an escaping Parasite, Clark learns that Lex planned Superman's solar overexposure all along, and that he seems eerily unruffled by his impended execution. Saddened that he couldn't get through to Lex, Superman checks another item off his bucket list by dropping off the bottled city of Kandor on a distant planet where the miniature inhabitants can start civilization anew; when he returns, however, he discovers that two long-missing Kryptonian astronauts, Bar-El and Lilo, have arrived on Earth to shape it into a new Krypton. After giving Supes a sound thrashing, the two end up succumbing to kryptonite poisoning ('cause the minerals in their bodies are turning to kryptonite for some reason) and Supes sends them to the Phantom Zone (thus making them completely irrelevant to the plot). After visiting his dad's grave and trying one more time to redeem Lex, Supes is just about ready to go to that big Fortress of Solitude up in the sky when- surprise, surprise- Lex breaks out of prison using Superman's 24-hour super serum, and, with the help of the tyrant solar computer Solaris (just go with it), makes his final bid to take control of the planet.
  
  The voice cast for this film is pretty sweet, for the most part. James Denton takes the lead as the titular hero, and while he really doesn't bring an abundance of personality to the role (especially during the Clark scenes), there's an earnestness and sense of fortitude and integrity to his voice that makes him a serviceable Man of Steel. Bottom line, he's way better than that Baldwin brother from Superman: Doomsday, at least. Playing opposite him is the lovely Christina Hendricks as fearless reporter Lois Lane, who, aside from going on a paranoia trip and gaining superpowers that she never uses, does little more than stand around looking concerned in this film (that is, when she's not being held hostage or jockeyed for by horny demigods); still, Hendricks has the voice for it, even if it's a little hard to sound genuinely sad when you're saying things like "our children will go flying in Metropolis Park!" Then you have Anthony LaPaglia as the diabolical Lex Luthor, who actually gets one of the most brilliant arcs he's ever had in this movie. LaPaglia has a voice filled with anger and insolence, which is perfect for the self-absorbed megalomaniac- you can tell just by the way that he talks that he has a chip on his shoulder, a desperate need to prove that he's better than everyone else around him (which is why he's so comfortable around Clark Kent, because he obviously is). But at the end of the film, Lex goes through a change, and... well, I'll get to that later. The rest of the cast is largely incidental: Matthew Gray Gubler does okay as Jimmy Olsen, I guess, but Jimmy is such an unnecessarily bizarre character in this story that you'll have no idea what's going on with the guy unless you've read the books. Ed Asner plays a perfect Perry White (with a voice like his, how could he not have?), and Linda Cardellini (Velma from the Scooby Doo movies!) plays Lex's goth, wannabe-supervillain niece, Nasthalthia, a mildly amusing character who contributes very little to the actual plot. Arnold Vosloo plays the Kryptonian Bar-El, and Finola Hughes plays his wife Lilo- both sufficiently haughty and self-righteous, neither even slightly important to the overall story; finally, Alexis Denisof (of Angel fame) plays Dr. Leo Quintum, the wacky super-scientist whose expedition to the sun (?) is what gets Superman all cancer-y in the first place.
  
  The direction, like in most animated movies, bothers the CRAP out of me, because animated films can't feature as many angles as live-action films can (let alone comic books), so many of the compositions are static and uninteresting by necessity. Still, Sam Liu's work as director is pretty decent; he's not my favorite DC animated director (Lauren Montgomery, come on down!), but at least his work here isn't as wooden and flat as it was in Justice League: Crisis on Two Earths. The script by the late Dwayne McDuffie is, in my opinion, one of his strongest works... but it's not without fault. For one thing, its slavish devotion to Grant Morrison's original work not only results in a fractured, episodic storyline, but the recreation of Morrison's dialogue becomes grating to the nerves as characters spout out contrived, pretentious dialogue that no living human being would ever, under any circumstances, have reason to say aloud. Thunderously clunky exposition is EVERYWHERE as characters literally have to explain what they're doing and what's going on every few minutes- a device that works fine in the expositional medium of comics, yet fails spectacularly when applied to feature-length storytelling. This excessive fidelity extends to the visuals, too, as the opening and closing of the film are structured around still reproductions of Frank Quietly's panels from the comic book... panels that DON'T HAVE TO BE THERE, or at the very least would benefit from some cursory animation to make them fit in with the rest of the movie. They're important visual moments in the comic books, but the script doesn't find a way to organically integrate them into the movie- a medium in which stylized still paintings should not be used as a storytelling device, like, ever. But really, this is all just nitpicking, because the heart of Morrison's story- the fantastical odyssey of Superman's last days- is still there, in all its bizarrely epic glory. The animation style is nice, evoking Quietly's artwork without all the detail (or his tendency towards lumpiness), and the score by Wonder Woman composer Christopher Drake is grand and sweeping, just as a score for a Superman movie should be.
  
  Of all the Grant Morrison stories I've ever read, All-Star Superman has to be my favorite, and that largely has to do with the ending. Thankfully, the film manages to capture everything that worked about this finale perfectly, and even added a touch that I feel immensely improves upon it: Lex, floating before the gathered citizens of Metropolis with a pummeled Superman at his feet, is just about to declare his rule over all of Earth when he suddenly has an epiphany. Seeing the world through the heightened senses of his enemy, he begins to understand how everything in the universe is connected, from planets to human beings, and it devastates him. Suddenly his powers disappear (from some super-science machinations on Superman's part), and, realizing that he's wasted his genius on hatred, he simply gives up (unlike in the comic, when Superman cold-cocks the guy and practically rips off his jaw). Then Superman, transforming into pure energy, says his goodbyes to Lois and flies up into the sun (which had been poisoned by Solaris), turning it back from blue to yellow and saving the planet one last time. But Superman isn't gone, hints the story- he's still up there, now as a full-fledged mythological being repairing the gears and inner workings of our sun. It's a brilliant ending, in which Luthor is finally shown the error of his ways and Superman goes from superhero to transcendent being- one a paradigm of human weakness, the worst in all of us, redeemed by the other, a metaphorical representation of human potential and the ability to better yourself. It's a morality play taken to an insane extreme, and the closest to true mythology a comic book character has ever become. It may be pretentious and it may be weird, but it's also one of the greatest Superman stories ever told, because its author understood what Superman really is at his core: the absolute best in all of us.

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  March 16, 2011

  stormcrowdark

  The weakest of the DC cartoons I've seen except for Superman Doomsday. However it's still pretty good. The problem comes from the fact that there is way too much story and the writers just shoe horn characters and plot in and it just doesn't flow.

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  March 8, 2011

  TecmoSmokaBowl

  DC Animation Studios strikes gold again with their adaptation of the award winning comic series! In 75 minutes, they manage to make the plot cohesive and enjoyable! I'm not the biggest Superman fan, but this made me want to check out the collected graphic novel! I love these stor... read moreies that take place out of canon; the writers can do just about anything they'd like with the characters! The craziness of this story is pretty epic!

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• James Denton as Superman
• Anthony LaPaglia as Lex Luthor
• Christina Hendricks as Lois Lane
• Matthew Gray Gubler as Jimmy Olsen
• Linda Cardellini as Nasthalthia Luthor
• Frances Conroy as Martha Kent
• Arnold Vosloo
• Edward Asner as Perry White

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