All Star Superman (2011)

Thanks for the memories!

Pretty Good

A Disappointing Continuation

what a terribly boring film. I'm sorry but this is absolutely not deserving of best picture and will be forgotten quickly. Entertaining and engaging cinema? No. Nothing performances with flat faces and mistaking silence for subtlety.

All-Star Superman is a real standout movie within the animated DC films, with an outstanding voice cast this one really surprised me but not entirely in a good way.It tells the story of our hero becoming poisoned with excessive quantities of radiation from the sun and slowly dying. He sets about getting his affairs in order before he breathes his last breath.With a host of other DC villians including Lex Luthor (Duh!) we see several mini-stories to keep Kal busy until his final moments.The story is well done, heartfelt and enjoyable but at the same time badly flawed in places and left me scratching my head.It just felt like the creators went into business for themselves, throwing much of the lore out and just writing whatever they wanted like a bad piece of fan fiction.Make no mistake I found the oddly titled All-Star Superman to be watchable but I think it spread itself too thin considering how much it tackles and the magnitude of the story they are trying to tell.The cast do however do a fantastic job including the criminally underrated Anthony LaPaglia as Luthor.The Good:Hell of a voice castNice storyThe Bad:Too big a story for its run timePretencious finaleThings I Learnt From This Movie:Storing things that can kill you makes perfect sense, destroying them would be sillyKryptonian formalwear is the same as casual just with a hoodI want super powers for my birthday as well!

This is probably the best adaptation of a comic book to date. Director Sam Liu and writer Dwayne McDuffie take the best elements of Grant Morrison and Frank Quietly's graphic novel from the story, feel, and pace and bring them to the screen expertly with the help of the animators and the vocal talents of the actors.The animation is up to the high standard of the Warner Bros. Animation but I cannot help but wish that the studio would catch up to the way that the comics are now being rendered in high intensive colours and shading. This would just add that extra oomph to the movie. They've done a good job of bringing Quietly's artwork to life. Their Superman is of the same mountainous physique as Quietly's but it's the subtleties of his artwork that add a depth of warm feeling adding to the reader's enjoyment.That's about all I could find wrong with it. James Denton does a wonderful job of adding warmth and feeling to the man of steel in his final days. While Anthony LaPaglia adds a cool and calculating air to Lex Luthor. Edward Asner is perfect as Perry White.The only reason this didn't make a full 10/10 is because it isn't the best Superman story, it's good, though I did have issues with it, such as the Sampson character and his sidekick which turns up. I found this to be an annoying and pretty irrelevant section and I still feel the same way after seeing it in the movie. I've never been able to understand why Morrison chose this character when there were so many others to choose from.If you've read the graphic novel you don't need to see the movie, though you should enjoy it. If you haven't read the novel then check out the film if you like superheroes or animations, then read the novel, it's better.

I love animation and superhero movies, and thought that All-Star Superman would be a good combination. Sadly for me All-Star was a real disappointment. It is not completely irredeemable, the animation is great, full of detail and atmosphere and the music is a contender for being the best asset of the film being powerfully orchestrated and emotionally resonant. There are two good voice actors, Anthony LaPaglia who does a superb job as Luthor giving the character a certain menace and intelligence and Ed Asner whose Perry is every bit as effective. But the story is a huge let down. The telling of the story feels rushed and disjointed in trying to cram in lots of situations and characters and sadly not giving any depth to them. The Kryptonians just pop out of nowhere and their story is far too brief. Lois is also written in a very stereotypical high-school-girl sort of manner. The pacing on top of that feels lethargic due to lack of any real excitement, the action sequences just don't have any sort of momentum. The script completely lacks the sharp and incisive quality that make the best DC movies, instead coming across as bland. Likewise with the characters. Of the voice work only LaPaglia and Asner stand out, James Denton is too monotone and also too sly and stern for Superman, and Christina Hendricks can't or doesn't do anything with Lois. Overall, a huge disappointment, could and should have been much more. 4/10 Bethany Cox

Superman finds out that the thing that gives him all his amazing powers, the sun...is also the very thing that will kill him, after being exposed to too much solar energy and now he is slowly dieing. So, the Man of Steel decides to spend his last days on Earth helping the innocent and spending some time with his beloved Lois Lane.As a life long comic book fan, I am disappointed in myself for not reading the comic material that this animation movie is based on, if any..So I answer this as an audience member. In essence everything you could possibly want is there...the voice actors are very good in their chosen roles, the dialogue is satisfactory...However, even I a comic book fan found the erratic sequence of heroic deeds quite confusing...when he goes to find a suitable planet for the last Kryptonian survivors and then immediately he returns home to find that another set of Kryptonians have arrived and then he immediately dispatches them.I felt that more time could have been given in telling a story about who Clark Kent really is...rather than focusing on Superman's amazing feats..I understand its called Superman for a reason, but a little bit more intimacy would have been nice.