All-Star Superman [2011]

We do not know if All-Star Superman is based on a comic series, miniseries, graphic novel or none of the above. And quite frankly, we do not care. We are judging this strange direct release solely on its own merits (or lack thereof).

What? Even Lex Luthor gets heat vision? It’s enough to make Batman jealous.

If we were to rename this feature, we might call it “A Series of Unconnected Events”. It felt like one of those disjointed amalgamated movies made from a number of unrelated 30 minute episodes glued together. Additionally some of those unrelated episodes featured weird and unfamiliar characters that had no time to be adequately fleshed out.

Who are these goofballs and why should we care?

“Oh, you two are those famous missing Kryptonian astronauts with the super elitist attitude…” Who? There goes one unrelated half-hour.

Nice hats Kryptonian super-jerks. Picking up TV signals?

“Oh no, it’s that sun- corrupting …computer thingee…” We had no idea what the heck that thing was even all about. Another wasted half-hour.

What the heck? Dropped out of nowhere… WHAT IS IT?

“Oh look Lois, here is a special formula I have been secretly developing that will give you my superpowers for 24 hours.” Huh? Really?

“Look, up in the sky. It’s a bird; it’s a plane; it’s…”

In this segment we also get to meet some fourth string characters that were hardly interesting and made little sense as presented. Samson and some other goofball who made even less sense and whose name we do not even care to look up. Dufus.

Do you really want our patented one sentence synopsis for this gem? Superman helps some weird scientist we do not even know but in the process gets fatally dosed with radiation and is dying so he decides to share his secret with Lois, turn her into a super being for 24 hours, battle some strange sun computer thing, sort of fight a couple D-listers, have a completely unrelated series of interactions with elitist Kryptonian jerks and all the while battles wits with Lex Luthor who seems to have gotten the upper hand in this battle as apparently he successfully murders Superman.

No. Lex Luthor has narcissistic personality disorder?

If you still want to watch this feature after reading that, you deserve everything coming your way. It was not an awful feature, but it was an awful waste. The art direction, music and animation quality were average. The discombobulated story was the part that was sub-par. Overall it was morose and depressing. Superman is indirectly murdered by Lex Luthor? Yeah, Superman apparently dies. We are so glad we watched… *ugh*

So what color IS Lois Lane’s hair?

One of the things we did like was the depiction of Clark Kent. It was good to see his clumsy bumbling, especially when it was used to secretly save people. Nice touch. Some recent Superman features have almost completely glossed over the secret identity portion of Superman.

Although Superman did wrestle with a bout of Kryptonian Rosacea.

Which of the following were not in All-Star Superman?

• Dr. Leo Quintum (Who?)
• Perry White uttering “Great Caesar’s ghost”
• Parasite
• Jimmy Olsen inexplicably dressed as a woman
• Some goofball named Atlas
• Krytonian superpowered Lex Luthor
• Mysterio

It is a trick question. They were all in it. …Okay, not Mysterio, but his appearance might have helped. “I’ll use my tricks to defeat you Spider-man!”

You know, there is nothing wrong with writing an interesting, dedicated hour and a half feature script. One that is specifically designed to make for an entertaining movie experience. We do not know what this one was based on but apparently making a cohesive cinematic feature was not one of the script’s goals.

“Ultra-Sphinx”? Really? You know DC, this is where some people start to have a problem with your brand…

We surmise All-Star Superman will be interesting to a niche audience, but the strange and dare we say -weird? -self-important?  -sullen? -melancholy script will not appeal to the masses who would otherwise enjoy a solid Superman movie.

Check Out Our Takes on Other

DC Comics Superhero Related Media

Batman: The Brave and the Bold Season 1 part 1

Batman: The Brave and the Bold Season 1 part 2

Batman: The Brave and the Bold  Season 2

Batman: The Brave and the Bold Season 3

Batman: Under the Red Hood [2010]

Batman: Mystery of the Batwoman [2003]

Superman/Batman: Apocalypse [2010]

Superman/Batman: Public Enemies [2009]

Green Lantern: Emerald Knights [2011]

Green Lantern: First Flight [2009]

All-Star Superman [2011]

Justice League: Crisis on Two Earths [2010]

Justice League: The New Frontier [2008]

Young Justice [2010] Season 1

Wonder Woman [2009]

 

Superman/Batman: Apocalypse [2010]

Not sure what to think about Superman/Batman: Apocalypse?  Enjoy the characters but getting confused by all the varied releases, alternate timelines and ever changing voices?  Well you are not alone!  Let the Fortress help you out.

Batman outfit number 3000: The bat wetsuit.

Superman/Batman: Apocalypse is what most casual fans would call “normal”.  It is not set in 1957 -or 1987 for that matter.  There are no strange costume variants; Superman is not a whiny kid in a hoodie.  In addition, the classic voices are back.  Kevin Conroy as Batman, Tim Daly as Superman, and Susan Eisenberg as Wonder Woman.  Just listening to them is like sipping hot chocolate next to a fireplace on a cold winter day.  (Never mind that it is always winter at the Fortress.)

We liked the art direction on Wonder Woman, but what is she doing there on the left? Starting a 1950's drag race?

New voice additions fit well including Summer Glau as Supergirl  and …Ed Asner as Granny Goodness?  Uhh, you just have to know the franchise for that one.  Andre Braugher weighs in as the deep gravelly voiced Darkseid.  It is pretty good, although we think it could have used a little audio manipulation to make it extra deep.  More like Dr. Claw from Inspector Gadget.

Granny Goodness and her mysterious friend. She even looks a little like Ed Asner

The depiction of Darkseid was one of the better we have seen since the 1985 Saturday morning series “The Super Powers Team: Galactic Guardians”.  Darkseid has these awesome eyebeams, okay “Omega Beams”.  They do not travel in a straight line.  That old series handled them well and S/B:A followed suit there and with his voice.  Check out the original at 3:35 in this clip!

The plot in a sentence:  Superman’s cousin Kara Zor El crashes to Earth as a well constructed 19 year old with lots of super powers, little clothing and teen-aged attitude which gets beat out of her by concerned Amazons and caring (sort of) Darkseid culminating in an exploding, thunderous super-slugfest at the Kent farm …while along the way Batman does his usual cunning thing somehow hanging with the big boys.

Two questions: Are there any unfit Kryptonians? Why does this animator avoid drawing feet?

The animation quality is good and the battles are choreographed well.  It takes a lot to challenge Superman, Supergirl and Wonder Woman in hand to hand combat.  So some of the battles are a little contrived to do just that.  So what if Darkseid sends a couple hundred “Doomsdays” to keep Supes and company busy.  Its all in a days work.

He's a real "bad-axe".

Someone with an "S" on their costume should have thought of this earlier.

Perhaps that is the problem with the “super-heavyweight” class in which characters like Superman and Darkseid reside.  After you pass a certain invulnerability level, getting punched so hard that you actually achieve orbit is still not enough.  There is a massive slugfest at the end between Supes, Supergirl and Darkseid that pretty much tears up Smallville and creates ginormous craters.

However it loses satisfaction when you realize that these incredible hits and resulting explosive landings are really not accomplishing anything.  These combatants just seem to shake off the most impressive impacts in a few seconds and come back for more.

Blue eyes for everyone!

The one most satisfying part of this fight occurs when Supes goes a little buckwheat.  He creates this awesome tornado-like whirlwind around Darkseid pummeling him with blows faster than the eye can see.  Then he adds in heat vision!  Darkseid looks to be finally receiving real damage.  Then he shakes it off and grabs Supes face.  Huh?  The fact Bats was able to hang with these guys at all is a tribute to his brains.

This feature was good looking and fun.  It’s worth watching despite the occasional drawbacks, some stock plot elements and an ending that was a little saccharin. If you like these classic heroes check out this direct-release feature which treats them all with respect.

"And if you order today we'll also include eye-beams! Don't be the only person in this feature without them!"

Our Take on Superman/Batman: Public Enemies  [2009]

Check Out Our Takes on Other

DC Comics Superhero Related Media

Batman: Mystery of the Batwoman [2003]

Justice League: Crisis on Two Earths [2010]

Justice League: The New Frontier [2008]

Batman: Under the Red Hood [2010]

Batman: The Brave and the Bold

Batman: Under the Red Hood [2010]

Batman: Under the Red Hood (BRH) is not for kids.  And depending on how much brutality, immolation and murder one is willing to endure for a narrative, it may not be for some non-kids either.  Our one sentence synopsis will be less of a downer than this direct-release feature.

Long lived Ra's al Ghul makes an appearance. Pictured here with "The Immortal Vandal Savage". What is with these phoenix-like bad guys and their preference for the classic half-goatee?

After watching the second Robin Jason Todd being mercilessly beaten to near death with a crowbar and then blown up we years later follow Batman’s efforts in Gotham City to hunt down a mysterious brutal crime figure called the Red Hood who is as fast and nimble as himself and his old pal Dick Grayson (the first Robin) who decided to drop into town and help out his old mentor in the guise of Nightwing so that all involved in this sad saga can get bludgeoned, blown up or shot as the Red Hood and Joker vie for the title of “most psycho”.

Is that fair? Come on, does the Joker really look "psycho" to- ...ahh, never mind.

If you are a hardcore comic fan who wants to see a video retelling of Jason Todd returning as the Red Hood, this release may be for you.  If you are looking for a fun Batman adventure, this is not it.  Nor was it a bold look into the tragic soul of the Batman that was Mask of the Phantasm.  At least it was good to see Batman, always darkened of late, fighting for his vow of not killing criminal scum.

"Criminals are a superstitious cowardly lot." True Bats. (May we recommend Hydroxitone for those laugh lines?)

Jason Todd's Red Hood does not exactly retain the mindset towards guns taught to him in the Batcave.

The action scenes are well done.  The fights feature interesting characters, moves and a new portable rocket thruster bat-gadget.  The vehicular action scenes are equally well done including one featuring a computer generated Batwing.  The pace of the whole one hour and fifteen minute feature never really lags.

The (not so) Fearsome Hand of Four. For all their armor, electro-gizmos and bullet blocking swords, they could not take down an outnumbered Batman and his psycho ex-Robin.

The voice work was very good.  This was not one of those experimental new-voice experiments DC and Andrea Romano have been putting out lately as exemplified in in Justice League New Frontier.  Greenwood is apparently the future of the Batman voice, and he does a good job along with the supporting cast.

Beauty and the Beast. Black Mask and his aide were entertaining in a dry sort of way.

Artistically the feature was also commendable.  It had a lot of style starting from the credits onward.  Now style is not in short supply of late when it comes to these direct-release features -and it is not always pleasing.  However in this case it was not overplayed and welcome.  Although you will notice the only bright spots in this feature’s perpetual night were explosions.

"Did I leave the stove on?"

Did BRH take misguided liberties with the characters?  No.  The depictions of everyone from Alfred to the Joker were accurate and fair.  They were just, for the most part not fun.  It is not a fun story.  There is a lot of bad guy brutality, and little comeuppance.

Dr. Watson investigates the local cemetery with Shelock Holmes. What? Oh that's Alfred. Where exactly in Victorian London -er, Gotham City is this?

First Robin, Dick Grayson, has finally been allowed to mature emotionally. Seen here in his Nightwing garb, what Joker called "his big boy pants".

A heartening spot was the inclusion of Nightwing.  This more mature portrayal of Dick Grayson is something we greatly appreciated.  We were tired of the perpetually angry, “I left Gotham to be my own man” attitude.  Here Nightwing shows his deep respect for the father figure in his life and even Bats offers a “Thank you”.

They make an awesome team, though Bats is still a little stubborn about admitting it. After all these years, Dick Grayson still gets to fire the batzooka.

Dick Grayson's Robin fires the batzooka in the 1966 Batman movie.

Additionally the banter between Nightwing and Batman while they fight villains is the most entertaining of the entire movie.  It is delivered snappily, in character, and is the only spark of wry humor.  The Nightwing/Batman relationship has been so often depicted as strained.  Appreciatively here it was perhaps the only significant, active source of warmth.

Jason Todd's Robin was not exactly the warm type.

There are a lot of seminal comic book stories we would like to see worked up into a feature.  This was not the list topper.  BRH appeals to a more narrow fanbase than most animated outings.  Enjoy it… if that is you.

Between Black Mask, Red Hood and an extra psycho Joker, this feature really racks up the body count. This cap would scare even Count Chocula.

Check Out Takes on Other Batman Related Media

Batman: Mystery of the Batwoman [2003]

Justice League: Crisis on Two Earths [2010]

Justice League: The New Frontier [2008]

Superman/Batman: Public Enemies [2009]

Batman: The Brave and the Bold

The Twilight Saga: Eclipse [2010]

Twilight was surprisingly entertaining.  New Moon was surprisingly awful.  Eclipse is not really surprising in any way.  It just is. Twilight was good enough to sucker us in to doing a take.  Now we are stuck riding out this roller coaster of a series and bestowing it with our witticisms.  To start, if we were to rename Eclipse we might call it, “A Series of Uncomfortable Events”.

“Okay, push in with the dramatic zoom!”

Ashley Greene returns as Alice, the perkiest undead blood drinker… EVAR.

Here is our doosey one sentence synopsis:

Hotheaded and over-abbed werewolf Jacob and ceaselessly pained and increasingly co-dependent vampire Edward are both for unfathomable reasons in love with the most dull and uninteresting girl in the world, Bella who ticked off the wrong vampire and is endlessly targeted by her ineffective “run-bys” before an army of newly sired but equally ineffective nOOb vamps descend on Bella’s boring home town bringing forth a clash of a dozen shape-shifting indians, one emotionally confused girl, three factions of vampires, and a large assortment of hoodies.

Don’t bother trying to count the abs. We lose track after eight. Taylor Lautner may one day need “ab reduction surgery”.

Dialogue.  Sure, every movie needs it, right?  However Eclipse takes dialogue to the next level.  All dialogue all the time.  Each scene seemed like an excuse to set up more dialogue.  It was not a movie whose plot and action are set up by dialogue, it is a movie whose sole purpose seems to be these various dialogues – with a touch of action thrown in to break them up.

“My character Charlie is back? That’s great. What? I have like two ackward scenes with Bella? That’s less than last movie.  Oh, this time I get to make sandwiches. Great…”

“This is another long dialogue scene.” “Yeah.” “We talk a lot in this movie.” “Yeah.” “I think your eyes are dreamy…” “Yeah.”

Bella, why are you so ungrateful and self centered?  Why the bad attitude?  Why does everybody cater to your ever-present malaise?    There seems no plot development that pleases her.  The only place where she feels compelled to put her foot down is insisting to old school Edward that she wants a hyphenated name after marriage.  Ugh.  Please.  Now she is a feminist?  Was there ever a girl whose happiness we wished for less?

Fear not, Kristen Stewart still positively infuses Bella with the huge, gigantic, wide range of expressions we have come to expect. Just look at the incredible difference in these two expressions.

What is love?  We suggest you do not find out from a Harlequin Romance novel, nor the Twilight series.  They show love to be a tremendous omnipresent yearning, total loss of one’s identity and a tendency to say things like, “The whole world revolves around you.”  *Gag.*  This may lead an entire generation of females into wrong thinking about what love really is and a lifetime of disappointing relationships when no-one they meet is like Edward.

We are sorry ladies. Love is not all flowery fields and soft focus in Harlequin land.

Okay Victoria is back. The big baddie with the bad attitude and even worse tactics. Hey, your looking rather benign here. Get with the program.

That’s more like it!

The Eclipse Formula:

• 3 parts disjointed buildup
• 1 part disjointed flashback
• Add multiple dashes of, “Hey you two, don’t fight.”
• Mix thoroughly for 2 hours in thick, gloppy, half-cooked dialogue.
• Serve with red food coloring – and only at night!

Huh? Jasper was a civil war Confederate Colonel? Wans’t it just last movie that we were given the impression that he was a newbie vampire still learning to control his bloodlust?

Number of cool action shots: 17. Number of lines: er, 0.

On the bright side, a couple of the elements we liked about Twilight are back.  Eclipse also had a lot of blue filter action going on, and that worked to set the cool vampire tone.

We liked the Edward versus Felix battle in New Moon, but it was nice to see a group battle in Eclipse.  Although honestly, the choreography was little more than punch someone in the face and play the sound of a statue breaking.  The wolves were very animalistic and pretty much what you would expect from plain old wild wolves.  It still would be nice to see more there for them,  especially considering all the X-Men like powers the vamps are developing.

Dakota Fanning returns as Psylocke – er Jane, the annoying junior high brat with the psychic abilities. If only she knew the secret to Bella’s immunity to her pain-inducing powers was …an empty head.

Another alternate title that was rejected: Clash of the Hoodies!

Eclipse is not for you if:

• You do not care for melodrama.
• You are bothered by contrived situations that cause the lead girl to yell, “Kiss me Jacob!”
• You are uncomfortable with PDA’s.
• You want Bella’s father to have a part.

“Oh, one is hunky and the other deep. I’m so confused!”

Ackward PDA number 22.

Is Eclipse better than Twilight?  No.  Is Eclipse better than New Moon?  Most certainly.  Is that saying much?  Er, no.

We start and end with Peter Facinelli’s Carlisle who was voted “Best Undead Hair” for 12 decades running.  Sadly for those of us who like this character, after three movies we still know little about him.

————————————————————————————-

For a little humor, check out this funny parody:

Eclipse in a Minute

________________________________

The Twilight Saga:

Twilight 2008

New Moon 2009

Eclipse 2010

Breaking Dawn – part 1 – 2011

Breaking Dawn – part 2 – 2012

Justice League: Crisis on Two Earths [2010]

~Psychos on Infinite Earths~

Both the Marvel and DC universes have their eccentricities. The Marvel camp likes to make alternate timelines, and they are especially fond of alternate futures. (97% of these alternate futures involve the X-Men getting hosed in some way.)

Superman on the other hand seems to survive all kinds of alternate scenarios, and even death. BTW, do not make Supes angry…

The DC camp prefers the more complicated “alternate Earth” method. This involves the creation of a new alternate Earth with every decision made (or when a comic team wants to bring in an edgy “evil” variant of a popular hero) .

Just thinking that through, you see how fast it gets kooky and soon meaningless. A zillion Earths and a zillion variants of every character. Feel special yet?

Nice face.   But -ahh, who are you supposed to be?

DC tried to trim back their out-of-control multi-verse back in the 80’s with the famous comic series, “Crisis on Infinite Earths”.  Well, do not let the title of this recent direct to video release fool you. It quickly moves past two earths to that mind-numbing infinite number again.

Okay, now its just getting ridiculous…

Many fans occasionally enjoy seeing alternate versions of their favorite heroes or villains, and we here in the Fortress are no different. We enjoyed seeing Owlman, a popular evil Batman variant, in the first season of Batman and the Brave and the Bold.

Crisis on Two Earths gives you evil versions of the usual Justice League suspects with an interesting art direction spin.

Eeevil Hawkgirl had little remorse, – and even less of a part in this feature.

We did not care for either version of Martian Manhunter. One was really ugly. The other was ..ah, strange?

How about our one sentence synopsis? A good Lex Luther from an alternate Earth travels to our Earth to enlist the Justice League to help him rid his alternate Earth of their bad versions of which Batman’s doppelgänger Owlman is a member and a little psychotic to the point where he develops a plan to destroy not only his Earth but every Earth and must be stopped by our heroes who along the way learn important lessons about heroic nobility, fabulous costume alternatives and trans-species love.

There is love between psychopath Supergirl and sociopath Owlman. Charming.

…and there is cross-species romance between a human and a martian…

It is hard to believe that the alternate Earth has lasted as long as it has with that bunch of psychotic loons running loose. Each one is more selfish, psychopathic or even sociopathic than the other. Superman’s alternate version kills anyone who gets in his way. Wonder Woman’s kills anyone she feels like for kicks.  Batman’s alternate wants to kill everything that ever lived.

So, on the alternate universe Krypton, Ultraman’s family crest happened to look like the human letter “U”?

Ultraman also used eye liner. Evil.

This is our Earth’s Ultraman.

The animation and fight choreography were above average. There was certainly no shortage of the latter, and the hour and 13 minutes goes by at a decent pace with little lag.

Hmm, which of these two Green Lanterns is eeeevile. (If you guess Mr. Funny Zipper with the pork chop sideburns, you are correct.)

What you find appealing says a lot about you. Do you prefer the pale goth crazy look or the angry buff spray tanned look?

Usually when mirrored supergroups face-off they start out fighting their respective doppelgängers. When that yields unsatisfactory results some wise guy usually suggests to switch it up, which saves the day.  Well…, they didn’t do that here, which is okay.  You will see power ring versus power ring, heavy hitters exchange heavy hits, and batarangs versus – er, owl-rangs.

Lex Luthor, good guy? We missed Clancy Brown’s voice work. Maybe it would not have worked with him on the side of the heroes.  (Against all odds, Lex has no hair in any universe.)

Lately, DC has made the decision to be inconsistent with their character’s voice actors. We do not care for that, and find that it causes an additional hurdle to be overcome in order to acclimate to each release.  And we’re not talking about the evil doppelgängers, were talking about the heroes.

Are you serious? It is like something out of the 1970’s Superfriends! Bell bottoms and collar included. They had to have designed this costume for fun.  (Oh, and nice belt buckle dude. Original.)

The black eyeliner and Brooklyn accent on Superman’s doppelgänger, Ultraman took some adjustment, but was fun.  The nihilism of Owlman was just hard to justify. Destroying this universe is something that’s hard enough to swallow coming from Darkseid. I mean come on, what is the upside to that? Owlman taking it a step farther to destroy every Earth ever was a little much.

“Go ahead punk, make- … hmm, actually that is something I would say in both universes.”

But none of that takes too much away from this fun romp. While we would not recommend it for younger children, its complexities are more than interesting enough for teenagers and adults.

Ultraman had his own unique way of lobbying the president.  Who says politics is boring?