Superman: Red Son

Why oh why did the writers think it was a good idea to gut the great source material in order to make the story 'relevant' to today. A complete waste of an opportunity.

Superman: Red Son had a few exciting passages, but they were few and far between. And despite some solid voice acting and a nice production design reminiscent of the Justice League/Unlimited TV-show the writers didn't do the story much justice.

Aside from capturing the conflict of Superman himself both in the performance by Jason Isaacs and the character's facial expressions when he encounters various upsetting moments, the writers managed to degenerate this version of Lex Luthor into the most generic bad guy.

To the newcomers, read the source material, it's a better story and better told. The delivery in this adaptation is clumsy and stripped down to barely make any sense in the most important aspects of the USA vs USSR setting.

Okay, silly headline out of the way, this could have been great, but instead, it turned into the usual America-good-Russia-bad oversimplification that's been going on and off for the last few decades. Promising start, but it was quickly undermined by poor dialogue, so-so animation--and it felt and looked rushed, cramming the source material into 84 minutes or so--and characters you couldn't really care about.

I get the twist on the usual DC characters--Batman, Green Lantern, and Wonder Woman--in this universe, but they weren't the least bit likeable. The voice acting was good, but if they'd had lines that mattered, it would have been more enjoyable.

Bottom line: read the graphic novel, or see the motion comic on other social sites. That's infinitely better than this version. DC usually puts out tremendous animated movies. Justice League: Dark, Gods and Monsters, Wonder Woman, and others are far superior examples of animation. This one isn't. It isn't a total disaster, but it could have been something great.

Superman Red Son Animated movie is entertaining and enjoyable; but the jaw dropping twist ending in the comic version is what made it so good.

I'm not a DC fan, but I really enjoyed the whole premise of this story, much like Batman: Gotham by Gaslight. I've never read the elseworlds comics before, so I'm reviewing as a normal person watching a movie.

The story is simple yet powerful, examining the lives of many DC heroes when something changed, that is, Superman grew up in the Soviet Union and under Stalin's tutelage. The action scenes are somewhat mediocre. The dialogue and interaction between characters are interesting not too monotonic. There's not a lot of romance here, and it keeps the plot focused.

This may not be a DCAMU movie, but it still is a must-watch if you've enjoyed Batman:Gotham by Gaslight because the animation is similar. Overall, I enjoyed it.