All Star Superman

  This is my first review here on comic vine. All Star Superman is one of my favourite stories of all time. Its up there with Kingdom Come and Akira, well its below Akira but at the top for everything else. If you haven't read the Eisner award winning comic, and you like DC's animated original movies.. then you will probably find this very entertaining… saying that.. If you haven't read all star superman, i don't know what you're waiting for.. Go read it. 

WHERE ITS GOOD...

As a stand alone project this is a fairly good animated original movie of Superman. The story puts Superman up against other Kryptonians (which was very cool to see, i love the characters and their costumes) a super powered Parasite as well as giving him other situations where he can use the abilities that make him super.  Lois and the rest of the Daily Planet staff are all voiced well. The animation is strong and at times even looks like Frank Quitely’s work.  A lot of the scenes look almost panel for panel with how they did in the comics. You get to see superman do  some very cool stuff.  And since its based on parts of the story from the comic, there is a  lot happening.

WHERE ITS BAD...

All over.. As the title tells us this cartoon was based off Grant Morrison and Frank Quitely’s phenominal twelve issue multi award winning comic. The story is taken from issues one, two and three they cut out four (which is a great issue, they all are) loosely used five (making changes that weren't necessary) then used issue nine, five pages from issue ten, then issues eleven and twelve.  They made changes throughout and removed almost all elements of humour that were in the comics. One of the things that bothered me the most while watching it was the voice acting of Superman/Clark Kent by James Denton. His awkward enunciation annoyed me continuously, it sounded like he had a cheek full of hard candy.   Also Lex Luthor who is fairly young in the comics is voiced by Anthony LaPaglia (from the tv show Without a Trace) a gruff sounding man in his fifties..   he sounds like hes the same age as Perry. Whose voice fits his character. They changed the Twelve Challenges of Superman which was the story from the comics into The greatest feats of his career in an excuse to loosely use four. They all but cut out Dr. Leo Quintum, and the entire middle of the story.

   

 WHEN ITS ALL SAID AND DONE...

 I like the comic too much and was expecting them to follow it more closely.  This had the potential to be absolutely amazing.. it was all there in front of them, all they had to do was follow the comic exactly.  If you haven't read the book, and you have enjoyed past DC animated films like Superman/Batman: Apocalypse then by all means enjoy this one.  If Warner Bros had gone with a better writer, director, voice actor for superman/Clark Kent, and a more appropriate voice actor for Lex Luthor they could have made the film longer and i think kept everyones interest.  Instead they had it at 75 minutes, and cut out a third of the story.  The biggest thing that kept me watching, was the anticipation that I would get to see my favorite scenes from the book . i gave it three stars because i think had the comic never existed, this movie would have worked for me.  
 
Read the comic..