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Superman/Batman: Apocalypse Advance Review
By Colin Andersen
September 27, 2010 - 12:32
This past Thursday, I was given a chance to go to the New York City
premiere of DC Comics and Warner Bros. newest animated movie
Superman/Batman: Apocalypse. Before the showing of the movie itself, I
even got a chance to talk to Kevin Conroy, better known as the voice of
Batman, and Andrea Romano, the movie’s casting director. Expect to see
another article by me on this in the next few days. For now, I’ll just
be giving you my thoughts on the movie. In short, is this movie perfect?
No, not at all. Is it fun? Absolutely.
I should probably start by saying, for those that don’t know, that
this movie is based off of a story arc that ran in the
Superman/Batman
comic, written by Jeph Loeb and illustrated by the late Michael Turner,
that reintroduced a new version of the character of Supergirl. This
Supergirl was named Kara Zor-El and was actually Superman’s cousin and
was also launched from their home planet of Krypton. Originally, she was
older than Superman and was supposed to watch over him when they
arrived on Earth, but a malfunction caused her to arrive much later than
him without her aging in the meantime. The original comic certainly was
not the deepest comic book story ever written, but I found it to be a
lot of fun and a strong introduction of the new Supergirl. It also
served to effectively illustrate not only the relationship
between Batman and Superman, but also the way the they thought about any
given situation. The color-coded captions that contained each of their
thoughts were very engaging and actually seemed to explore the
characters. They were easily my favorite part of the arc.
Michael Turner turned in what may have been his strongest interior
artwork for this story as well. To be completely honest, I had little
interest in this series when this story debuted, but Turner’s art was so
strong that it compelled me to buy the entirety of the “Supergirl” arc.
Luckily for me, his art was pretty stellar throughout all six issues.
If you weren’t a Turner fan before, then this wouldn’t win you over, but
it did look pretty amazing if you did like his pencils. He drew some really
dynamic and powerful fights and actually drew Supergirl like a
relatively normally proportioned teenage girl. Anyway, onto the movie.
Superman/Batman: Apocalypse starts in nearly the exact same way as the
original story only with some added dialogue that adds a kind of
continuity between this movie and
Superman/Batman: Public Enemies, the pair's last animated film. I
thought this was a nice little bit of continuity to join the two movies
together and make them a little more cohesive. From here, the movie
largely follows the plot of movie, though it does change some scenes a bit. There is definitely more of focus on Kara in the movie than the
comic gave her, which makes sense to me. In my opinion, these changes to
the story are justified as the original story in the comic book seemed
less about introducing the Supergirl character and more as using her as a
plot point to see how Superman and Batman would go about a particular
situation. Because of that, I enjoyed her increased role, especially
near the end of the movie when she gets a major chance to shine (let’s
just say that her training with Wonder Woman and the Amazons is used to
much greater effect in the movie). Overall, the plot is serviceable, but
nothing special. It was never boring and kept me constantly entertained
and actually gave some very nice character moments. What bothered
me most about the movie’s story was actually the lack of the
aforementioned captions. They were what added most of the character to
the story in the first place so the movie suffers for not having them.
It makes both Superman and Batman seem significantly less deep as
characters, though the captions (likely as narration had they been included) might not have
worked as well in a movie, so I can understand their omission.
There are some areas where
Apocalypse definitely excels. As in the
other recent animated DC Universe movies, the fight choreography is
absolutely phenomenal. It’s quite obvious that a great deal of time and
thought were put into making these fights look visceral and powerful and
yet also smooth and natural. There is a fight between Wonder Woman and
Big Barda against four of the Female Furies that perfectly showcases
this; each punch feels like a it could break a planet yet each person
actually looks as though they have been trained in combat. It makes the
fights easily the most enjoyable parts of the movie. Sadly, Batman isn’t
given much chance to show off his fighting skills, but both Superman
and Supergirl get their turns later in the movie and it is excellent.
Superman/Batman: Apocalypse is also a surprisingly brutal movie. Instead
of editing the original material, it actually makes it more violent and
adds a death that wasn’t originally there. I think this works for the
movie’s better, though sensibilities could vary on that.
How good the animation looks to an individual will likely be heavily
subjective. I have always been more partial to the “classic” style of
animation for DC properties (i.e. the style used in Batman: The Animated
Series and Justice League that was pioneered by Paul Dini and Bruce Timm), so I didn’t think the film looked as good
as it could. Superman and Batman suffered the most and often had extra
lines on their faces that made them look rather odd. The women of the
movie fared much better with Wonder Woman benefiting from being taller
and Supergirl looking remarkably like an animated version of Michael
Turner’s rendition of her. I understand the change in style for this
movie and, honestly, the “classic” style probably would have made the
whole movie feel less serious, but it is just my personal preference.
Regardless of that, the animation was very fluid and helped lend much of
the power to the battles, so I’m quite impressed overall.
Likely the most divisive area of the movie will be the choice of voice
actors for
Apocalypse. Casting ranges everywhere from excellent to,
unfortunately, pretty bad. As one would expect, Kevin Conroy and Tim
Daly, as Batman and Superman respectively, are as good as ever and it is
really obvious that they are comfortable with these characters and
really get them. Some of Daly’s line fall a little flat, but overall he
is quite good. Also of note is Ed Asner’s performance as Granny
Goodness, a role he previously occupied in
Superman: The Animated Series
and
Justice League. He plays a wonderfully evil sounding woman and I
actually have trouble picturing anyone else in the role so I was glad he
returned.
Unfortunately, the new members of the cast don’t fare nearly as well.
The one you’ll hear the most is Summer Glau’s(
Firefly) Supergirl. Despite the
fact that I’ve never had any problem with her live-action acting, her
voiceover is often quite poor. Her lines are frequently devoid of any
emotion and she sounds like they picked a random teenager off the street
to provide Kara’s voice. This isn’t true all of the time and sometimes
she manages to put some genuine emotion into her lines. However, when
she’s bad, she is
very bad. If she were a minor character, this wouldn’t be
as much of a problem, but as such an integral part of the plot, and one
that has even more involvement than she did in the original story, it
can really hurt some of the more emotional scenes. Unfortunately, Andre
Braugher (
Men of a Certain Age) as Darkseid also doesn’t work very well. Darkseid should
deliver his lines with purpose and power and every word should feel
deliberate and commanding. Maybe I’ve been spoiled by Michael Ironside’s
portrayal of Darkseid in
Justice League, but Braugher just did not
bring the same regal power. He certainly had the intelligent feel that
Darkseid should have, but his lines were often delivered far too fast
with little pause between sentences. This resulted in a Darkseid that
felt more desperate or less in control when he should be one of the most
commanding forces in the universe. That being said, Warner Bros. could
have certainly done much worse than Braugher for the role, but it did
bother me.
This is absolutely not a perfect movie. In fact, it isn’t even the
best of the DC animated movies (as far as I’m concerned, that honor
still goes to
The New Frontier). It is, however, a fun and extremely
entertaining adaptation that works even if you’re unfamiliar with the
original comics or previous movies. Honestly,
Superman/Batman:
Apocalypse is worth watching for some of the amazing fights alone. There
are no hidden complexities to this movie, but that was neither expected
nor does it affect how much most people will enjoy the movie. It’s
brutal and fun and simple and a great way to pass some time. If you don’t
feel like paying for this movie, I’d at the very least suggest a
rental, though you would probably get your money out of the movie if you
did buy it. If you enjoy action at all, then definitely give it a chance.
Rating: 8 /10
Last Updated: August 31, 2023 - 08:12