Far From All Star
It was an attempt to adapt Grant Morrison's "All Star Superman" comic book series and it sorta worked. The movie is extremely faithful to the original source material but I think the main reason why I didn't like it was because it tried too hard. It compacted as much of the storyline into a little over an hour movie and as a result, it’s a mishmash of the best parts of Morrison’s vision. Basically, it was simply glossed over too much and the movie was over too quickly.
The strength of Grant Morrison's comic was that it was longer and it allowed Superman to ponder his approaching mortality. Here, he doesn't really have much time to do so; he's frentically busy fighting various villains and threats while trying to make peace with Lex and confess his love to Lois Lane for the final time. There is simply too much going on and it makes the whole concept of Superman’s impending death that much weaker. He doesn’t seem to be worrying all that much about his doom so it’s hard for the audience to be holding their breath too.
The storyline is the biggest flaw of the entire movie; they needed to cut out some of the opponents that Superman had to face and have a little more dramatic time here and there with him confronting his impending death.
I also disliked about the sudden big reveal of Solaris the Tyrant Sun as one of the big villains of the movie. If he was so darn important and a key piece of the plot, why is it that he wasn’t even seen before? Not even a brief foreshadowing. It’s like they forgot about Solaris entirely and then they had to hastily add him at the end in order to give Supes a credible threat to face.
Other than the short storyline, the animation was brilliant. I question some of the character designs such as the Parasite who looked weirder and grosser than I expected, but for the most part I found that they did a fine job and the special effects of the animation is a treat for the eyes to watch.
I found James Denton to be a lackluster Superman, he just lacked the charisma and emotion to project in his performance. And while I missed Clancy Brown voice acting for Lex Luthor, I have to admit that Anthony LaPaglia was a more than adequate replacement; I found myself enjoying his scenes with his rampant megalomania.
It was a bit sad because I quite enjoyed the comic version and was looking forward to this adaption and was left rather disappointed. It was good, but it could have been a lot better and it’s far from ALL STAR. I suggest reading the original comic series collection to get a grasp on what you’re missing because I think most people will prefer the comic book version over this.
RATING: 2 STARS.
