Review of All Star Superman (2011) by Darik H — 18 Apr 2011

I have my problems with the work of comic book writer Grant Morrison, but one thing I think you can't argue is that the man understands Superman. In fact, I would even go so far as to say that no one has ever understood the character more than Grant Morrison... the only problem is, sometimes it's a little tough to understand Morrison himself. See, Grant Morrison is either insane, a dedicated hallucinogenic drug user, or a creature from a distant galaxy; his stories are colored in shades of the absurd and the hopelessly goofy, yet he also likes to layer oodles of subtext and symbolism into them, from subjects as widely varied as ancient mythology, Freudian psychology, mysticism, and so on. Sometimes there are so many wacky ideas crammed into his stories that he barely has time for the characters themselves, and it can be a pain in the ass to wade through pages of bizarre pseudo-science to get to the dramatic meat of his work. But while Grant's style doesn't always click with every character he's done (his take on Batman is particularly infuriating), he just seemed tailor made for the Man of Steel, who, in Grant's hands, becomes a fantastical demigod of seemingly limitless capability, yet at the same time remains unmistakably human- if an idealized depiction of one. Thankfully, much of what worked in Morrison's amazing All-Star Superman miniseries is present in its animated counterpart, the latest in Warner Animation's direct-to-DVD line-up of DC Universe animated movies; in fact, writer Dwayne McDuffie and director Sam Liu prove to be a little too faithful to the source material, transplanting from the books entire subplots and characters that worked fine in the expanded serial format of comics, yet only serve to clutter and confuse the plot of a feature-length narrative. Regardless, All-Star Superman shines as a brilliant exploration and revitalization of the character and his world, presenting to us a Man of Steel both classic and contemporary; I hate to say it, but it may just be one of the best Superman movies ever made. Not the best, maybe, but certainly in the top three.

In standard Morrison fashion, the story seeks to knock you off balance from the very beginning: after rescuing a scientific expedition to the sun from being sabotaged by Lex Luthor, Superman discovers that his cells have become overloaded with solar energy and are beginning to break down- in other words, he's dying (leave it to Grant Morrison to kick off a Superman story with a cancer metaphor). Knowing that his time on Earth is limited, Superman seeks to make the most out of his remaining days, first and foremost by finally revealing his secret identity to his true love, Lois Lane; bringing her to his Fortress of Solitude, Superman gives her a special gift for her birthday: a serum that duplicates his superpowers for 24 hours. Together, they encounter Samson and Atlas, two time-travelling chauvinist super-beings with the hots for Lois, and battle lizard people from the Earth's core and the Ultra-Sphinx before dining in Atlantis and making out on the moon. After the day's adventure wears down, Superman (as Clark Kent) pays a visit to Lex Luthor, who's been sentenced to death for crimes against humanity. After a brush with an escaping Parasite, Clark learns that Lex planned Superman's solar overexposure all along, and that he seems eerily unruffled by his impended execution. Saddened that he couldn't get through to Lex, Superman checks another item off his bucket list by dropping off the bottled city of Kandor on a distant planet where the miniature inhabitants can start civilization anew; when he returns, however, he discovers that two long-missing Kryptonian astronauts, Bar-El and Lilo, have arrived on Earth to shape it into a new Krypton. After giving Supes a sound thrashing, the two end up succumbing to kryptonite poisoning ('cause the minerals in their bodies are turning to kryptonite for some reason) and Supes sends them to the Phantom Zone (thus making them completely irrelevant to the plot). After visiting his dad's grave and trying one more time to redeem Lex, Supes is just about ready to go to that big Fortress of Solitude up in the sky when- surprise, surprise- Lex breaks out of prison using Superman's 24-hour super serum, and, with the help of the tyrant solar computer Solaris (just go with it), makes his final bid to take control of the planet.

The voice cast for this film is pretty sweet, for the most part. James Denton takes the lead as the titular hero, and while he really doesn't bring an abundance of personality to the role (especially during the Clark scenes), there's an earnestness and sense of fortitude and integrity to his voice that makes him a serviceable Man of Steel. Bottom line, he's way better than that Baldwin brother from Superman: Doomsday, at least. Playing opposite him is the lovely Christina Hendricks as fearless reporter Lois Lane, who, aside from going on a paranoia trip and gaining superpowers that she never uses, does little more than stand around looking concerned in this film (that is, when she's not being held hostage or jockeyed for by horny demigods); still, Hendricks has the voice for it, even if it's a little hard to sound genuinely sad when you're saying things like "our children will go flying in Metropolis Park!" Then you have Anthony LaPaglia as the diabolical Lex Luthor, who actually gets one of the most brilliant arcs he's ever had in this movie. LaPaglia has a voice filled with anger and insolence, which is perfect for the self-absorbed megalomaniac- you can tell just by the way that he talks that he has a chip on his shoulder, a desperate need to prove that he's better than everyone else around him (which is why he's so comfortable around Clark Kent, because he obviously is). But at the end of the film, Lex goes through a change, and... well, I'll get to that later. The rest of the cast is largely incidental: Matthew Gray Gubler does okay as Jimmy Olsen, I guess, but Jimmy is such an unnecessarily bizarre character in this story that you'll have no idea what's going on with the guy unless you've read the books. Ed Asner plays a perfect Perry White (with a voice like his, how could he not have?), and Linda Cardellini (Velma from the Scooby Doo movies!) plays Lex's goth, wannabe-supervillain niece, Nasthalthia, a mildly amusing character who contributes very little to the actual plot. Arnold Vosloo plays the Kryptonian Bar-El, and Finola Hughes plays his wife Lilo- both sufficiently haughty and self-righteous, neither even slightly important to the overall story; finally, Alexis Denisof (of Angel fame) plays Dr. Leo Quintum, the wacky super-scientist whose expedition to the sun (?) is what gets Superman all cancer-y in the first place.

The direction, like in most animated movies, bothers the CRAP out of me, because animated films can't feature as many angles as live-action films can (let alone comic books), so many of the compositions are static and uninteresting by necessity. Still, Sam Liu's work as director is pretty decent; he's not my favorite DC animated director (Lauren Montgomery, come on down!), but at least his work here isn't as wooden and flat as it was in Justice League: Crisis on Two Earths. The script by the late Dwayne McDuffie is, in my opinion, one of his strongest works... but it's not without fault. For one thing, its slavish devotion to Grant Morrison's original work not only results in a fractured, episodic storyline, but the recreation of Morrison's dialogue becomes grating to the nerves as characters spout out contrived, pretentious dialogue that no living human being would ever, under any circumstances, have reason to say aloud. Thunderously clunky exposition is EVERYWHERE as characters literally have to explain what they're doing and what's going on every few minutes- a device that works fine in the expositional medium of comics, yet fails spectacularly when applied to feature-length storytelling. This excessive fidelity extends to the visuals, too, as the opening and closing of the film are structured around still reproductions of Frank Quietly's panels from the comic book... panels that DON'T HAVE TO BE THERE, or at the very least would benefit from some cursory animation to make them fit in with the rest of the movie. They're important visual moments in the comic books, but the script doesn't find a way to organically integrate them into the movie- a medium in which stylized still paintings should not be used as a storytelling device, like, ever. But really, this is all just nitpicking, because the heart of Morrison's story- the fantastical odyssey of Superman's last days- is still there, in all its bizarrely epic glory. The animation style is nice, evoking Quietly's artwork without all the detail (or his tendency towards lumpiness), and the score by Wonder Woman composer Christopher Drake is grand and sweeping, just as a score for a Superman movie should be.

Of all the Grant Morrison stories I've ever read, All-Star Superman has to be my favorite, and that largely has to do with the ending. Thankfully, the film manages to capture everything that worked about this finale perfectly, and even added a touch that I feel immensely improves upon it: Lex, floating before the gathered citizens of Metropolis with a pummeled Superman at his feet, is just about to declare his rule over all of Earth when he suddenly has an epiphany. Seeing the world through the heightened senses of his enemy, he begins to understand how everything in the universe is connected, from planets to human beings, and it devastates him. Suddenly his powers disappear (from some super-science machinations on Superman's part), and, realizing that he's wasted his genius on hatred, he simply gives up (unlike in the comic, when Superman cold-cocks the guy and practically rips off his jaw). Then Superman, transforming into pure energy, says his goodbyes to Lois and flies up into the sun (which had been poisoned by Solaris), turning it back from blue to yellow and saving the planet one last time. But Superman isn't gone, hints the story- he's still up there, now as a full-fledged mythological being repairing the gears and inner workings of our sun. It's a brilliant ending, in which Luthor is finally shown the error of his ways and Superman goes from superhero to transcendent being- one a paradigm of human weakness, the worst in all of us, redeemed by the other, a metaphorical representation of human potential and the ability to better yourself. It's a morality play taken to an insane extreme, and the closest to true mythology a comic book character has ever become. It may be pretentious and it may be weird, but it's also one of the greatest Superman stories ever told, because its author understood what Superman really is at his core: the absolute best in all of us.