Tuesday 14 August 2012

Superman Vs The Elite- Review

Should you watch this movie? Yes.
Is it the best animated movie DC has ever done? No.
Can the story be picked apart in the first ten minutes and the ending obvious? Not really.

Jumping right in, the animated movie starts with what I can only say is a throw back to psychadelic 70's feeling with art from the 40's era of the comics. Loud and explosive mono coloured I was at first wondering if the company DC used to package this movie up accidentally put the wrong Bluray in the case. We are so used to a modern credit roll of scenes from other animated series and movies, that this was a real shock to the system.

from here, the movie launches into a "pre-film" cartoon that was drawn like the old Roger Ramjet cartoons, that silly skinny legged big body style, making me think this was going to be a crap-tastic throw back movie where they try and do something they had not done before. Lucky they didn't, or this movie would have sucked worse than trying to hear Bane in TDKR.

The movie itself focuses on a group of super-powered humans from around the world, who have gotten together to "rights wrongs" and in the process, kill super bad guys outright. A no holds barred, screw anyone who gets in the way, collateral damage is acceptable type of story.

And really, it is amazing that DC pulled this off as a PG13 considering the side bad guy, Atomic Skull, starts the movie off by killing a whole heap of people.

The main "good guy" is a Brittish "super hero" named Manchester Black, a psychopathic killer who really from the get go has you thinking "something with this guy just isn't right", even though the writer had tried to mask it as best he could. Eventually when you find out what The Elite is up to, you already know.
Hearing him say "wanker" so many times and also Superman saying it once was also a bit of a shock, a word that used to be considered a swear word, being used as though it was some kind of comical catch phrase.

Louis is featured more heavily in this story, this time around, and she is not the Louis we all know, she is actually on The Elite's side and tells Superman that he is basically outdated for modern times, that he SHOULD take that one step over the line and kill bad guys so they can't escape over and over. Clark seems like he is losing hope with Earth as everyone starts to turn on him and call for him to take life, something he would NEVER do.

I won't spoil the ending, but I will say it is the one thing about this movie that will shock you, the way that the ending is done provides for a huge twitst. DC seemed to be trying to say something about how the world is at the moment, but the message is lost in translation.

All in all, the movie is entertaining, but not anywhere near as great as other animated movies featuring a full cast of the Justice League.

6/10 Red Capes

Also, thank you to Kings Comics in Sydney (AUST) http://www.kingscomics.com/ for the Bluray thanks to a competition they had run. They are an awesome store (and I'm saying this because they actually are) and they have a huge selection of comics and geek related items you should probably check out.

1 comment:

  1. I rather liked the ending, it put a nice twist on things...can't really say more as i wouldn't want to give the ending away :)

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