IMDB Rating:

Country: USA

Spoken Languages: English

Genre(s): Action, Animation

Director: Sam Liu

Cast: Christina Hendricks (voice), Matthew Gray Gubler (voice), Linda Cardellini (voice), Anthony LaPaglia (voice), Alexis Denisof (voice)

Medium: Unknown

Plot Outline: Fair warning: while I'm a Superman fan and have watched pretty muchevery live-action movie, TV-show and animated feature on the subject, Ihaven't actually read any comics since I was a kid, so I'm not familiarwith the source material. With that disclaimer out of the way, on tothe review:I give All-Star Superman a 7 for entertainment, but I must admit somebias due to my sheer love for the character. A more objective ratingshould probably be lower. This movie is appealing in many respects, butit's also flawed.My main complaint is that the plot is all over the place. It'sscattered and confused and for the longest time I couldn't get a handleon which direction the main plot would be taking. Most of the variousplot elements do come together towards the end, but some still seementirely unnecessary. There's something episodic about the structure ofthis movie which I'm guessing is coming from the source material, andwhich doesn't translate well to the movie format. I love Superman andwould happily watch him do laundry, but the lack of focus isdistracting.Another complaint is the offensive characterisation of Lois, who seemsat one point to have been body-snatched by a flaky high-schooler. EvenSuperman's characterisation suffers a bit in that particular scene. Therest of the time, however, Superman is his noble, lovable self, andLois is at least recognisable, but where the characterisation reallyshines, is with Lex, who is magnificent and fascinating, and prettymuch steals the movie.I'm torn on All-Star Superman. There's too much going on, there arecharacters and plot elements which seem to serve no purpose, anddespite the epic romanticism of the movie's ultimate destination -which does work on some levels - I did not come away entirelysatisfied. And yet, I can't deny that I mostly enjoyed watching it, andthat some moments were quite poignant.I'm not knowledgeable enough to judge the art and animation on anobjective level, but I quite liked the look of the movie, and I foundthe voice acting unnoticeable in the best sense, which is to say it wasperfectly convincing. The music, too, was good.It's just the plot, really, where All-Star Superman loses points. Butthen, what's more important to a story than plot?Basically, I'd recommend this for fans, but probably not for the casualviewer. And I have a strong feeling that I would have been better offreading the comics version of this story.

Location: VD9/Kids-Family

Loaned: No