Marval Movie

When I first learned about All-Star Superman it was on Atop The Fourth Wall where the host Linkara  said that it was "freaking brilliant!" and he highly recommended it, then I learned that DC animated movies were adapting it for their tenth movie. Weirdly enough they hadn't made a solo Superman movie since their first movie Superman Doomsday. Now I've said it before and I'll probably say it again but All-Star Superman is my favorite comic of all time so I had high expectations for the movie. In an interview Bruce Timm himself said that this movie was the movie that he was most proud of, he thought it was the best movie they made and he even said that he thought that it was the best Superman movie ever made.

When I heard him say this I thought "really?". I am a huge fan of superhero movies done in animation, in fact I believe that animation is the best way to do superheroes, but somehow I couldn't buy that this movie would be able to outdo the classic movie from the seventies. Well after having watched the movie again and again over the years I can say yes, All-Star Superman is the best Superman movie ever.

Now the tricky thing about having your source material be a comic and trying to adapt it into a movie is that they are two completely different things, a comic book doesn't have actors or delivery or motion to it. Now don't mistake me for this meaning that movies are superior or inferior, it means that one goes about telling their story in one way and the other has different way of telling theirs. In fact I'd say I care more about the comics when it comes to superheroes than the movies. The trick is getting the translation right so that the feeling and emotion in the story is still there but is being a movie and not a movie trying to be a comic book (or viceversa).

The story is that while saving the first manned mission to the sun Superman gets over exposed to solar radiation, the source of his powers, so much so that his cells are overexposed and they are bursting from within, Superman is dying. Superman? how can this be? how can Superman die? Having Superman die is like having your big brother of your dad die, you just cant accept it or at least it never crossed your mind.

Now Superman knows that his time is coming to a close and so he has to make the most of the time he has left and so he wastes none of it in accomplishing his greatest feat's of his whole career.

Andreas Romano has done the voice casting and voice directing on all the DC animated movies and most of the shows and here again she demonstrates her great ability to not only cast great actors for the parts but also give them direction to pull off their lines and situations. 

This Superman is played by James Denton (of Desperate Housewives fame) and he is a great choice for the role of Superman, especially this characterization of him. There is not an ounce of marchioness to him, there is never a time when the delivery was being deliberately masculine or trying to sound tough, why would he need to, he's Superman.

Anthony LaPaglia plays Lex Luthor. Whenever I would hear Lex Luthor in animation I would always just think "Ow that's someone else and not Clancy Brown" because to me Clancy Brown was the perfect Lex Luthor. But here he nails it, I heard Lex Luthor, with all the ego and mad scientist that you'd expect.

This Lois is played by Christina Hendricks a more youthful sounding Lois than I think we've previously been introduced to. But that character design is relevant to that with Lois looking quite young. She is still the smart reporter that can challenge Superman both in wit and her high demands.

The characterization of these characters is one of the best in all of history and the actors that they cast are the perfect people to portray them. The thing about the obrolan is that its not real life based, it is emotionally based. The characters say what the feel rather than what they would really say in real life, so there has to be a certain conviction that comes with the reading of their lines. There needs to be conviction when you read out "our children will go flying in Metropolis park" or "fear the tyrant sun". Andrea Romano's voice direction never fails.

The movie has the not very easy task of adapting Frank Quitely's art style into animation. This is so hard, one because Quitely has a really unique style that's not like American comic book style, two he draws Superman differently in almost every panel so they have trouble getting it consistent for animation. Ultimately they pull it off well enough. What they really get right is the framing of the scenes, ultimately though it doesn't really look like a Quitely's drawings but they get as close as I think they could in animation, some are not as close as I would have liked and others are pretty damn close.

What sets this movie apart from other DC animated movies is the coloring. All-Star Superman is the most colorful of all the movies. This movie is so much more colorful and vibrant than the other DC animated movies with wild colors and inserting shadowing that makes it stand out from the other animated movies. I'm sure if you flicked through the DC movies All-Star Superman would stand out with its lush colors that just make the picture pop out of the screen.

Being that this movie is seventy seven minutes long and its being adapted from a twelve issue comic book there have to be cuts made, that's not good. Every bit of the comic is gold and I would have loved to seen some of the sections translated into animation but there just isn't enough room for them so they had to make cuts, but in fairness what they do include is great and a perfect translation from the comic to film.

This movie carries a bizarre irony with it because the screenplay was written by the late Dwayne McDuffie. Dwayne McDuffie was one of the best writers working in DC animation, if you look back on some of the best Justice League episodes you'll find that his name is on them, and now it is so ironic that the last movie to be made while he was still alive was about the passing of a great man. There is a scene in the movie which was not in the comic but serves everything so well, it is a scene where Superman is standing over the grave of his Earth father Jonathan Kent and he hopes that the people will do well without him and his mother comes to say  hello as well. She says that he looks thin, to which he reply's "Mom, I'm Superman" and then she reply's "and I'm your mother". This scene never fails to move me and always gets me teary eyed, if not make me fully cry.

The music by Christopher Drake is the best Superman music ever, I mean it. Yes it tops the John Williams music, it is so gentle and triumphant and captures the mood of the scene and the essence of Superman. Christopher Drake has composed many of the DC animated movies, the two other best scores would be Wonder Woman and The Dark Knight Returns. But this score never fails to move me and make me so enthusiastic about Superman as well as engage me in the story.

Are there any flaws in this movie? Well of course there are, no movie is without its flaws. But with this movie I had to really think and look hard. There's one scene where one of the characters neck is incorrectly colored, another scene where one character does something where in the comic book its meant to be another character, so if I had to look that close to see any flaws at all, this must be one great movie.

The commentary track is the best commentary track that I have ever listened to. It has both Bruce Timm and Grant Morrison talking, right there are already two of my favorite people speaking to each-other so I was happy with just the idea but they have great things to say and add to the film and the source material. Bruce Timm talks about what he loved about the comic and the difficulties they had in adapting it for the movie. Grant Morrison talks about the writing process of the comic and what he loves about the movie. In fact he even says that he loves the movie so much that it is in his top three superhero movies, the other two being Unbreakable and Disney's Hercules. Good commentary's tell you something about the making of the movie and keep you interested in what the people are saying, I guess that makes this the best commentary that I've ever listened to.

This movie isn't like the other movies from this team where they really push the envelope on what you can show with a PG13 rating. This is a movie for just about everyone, I can watch this with my best friend, with my grandmother and I would recommend it to kids (and I do). Its just good superhero fun with an incredibly strong emotional core to it. I've had a theory that when your a teenager your actually at your most immature, because then you instantly rebel against anything that's slightly kiddy, or immature. I have no idea what kind of people will like this movie, hopefully people that just have a good sense of entertainment.

The movies ending works differently than in the comic and it may be the better of the two. Luthor give a confession to Dr. Quintum and sees the error of his ways and leaves with one gift to him. He cracked the genetic code of Superman's biological makeup, as well as how to replicate it with a healthy woman womb. Quentin then takes the books and while driving off says "they always wanted children". This scene may be better than the scene in the comic, or its just as good.

All-Star Superman is the best Superman movie because it has the best source material, the best writer, the best team to bring that comic to motion and give the frames life and the lines delivery. I've seen it at least ten times and I'll probably see it more than that. It is fun, bold, creative and shows that there is always light that will go on, until the end of time aka its a superhero movie.