Okay, back on track (finally you must be thinking!) the direct sequel to Public Enemies, enjoy!
Summer Glau does a great job as Supergirl and Daly and Conroy are back as the true animated Supes and Bats and even Wonder Woman gets her true voice actor back for this movie! Overall most of the voice acting is great, everyone except Darkseid who just sounds really cheesy and awkward in his role.
It feels like it has a much more anime like style this time around although it still feels a lot more western than The Sorcerer Supreme did, rather than the Rescue Heroes look of the last movie. Everyone is still ridiculously muscular, even for a comic adaptation, though. Or ridiculously curvy and busty, in the women's cases, although I ain't complaining about that. It doesn't feel nearly as cheap as the others and has much less QUALITY.All in all I really rather enjoyed both the visual style and animation this time, I really just have only praise this time around - which is refreshing. The fast, fluid and importantly consistent animation made the fight sequences even greater and they were already backed by some great direction. Even if Superman looks very, very gay in this and I mean that genuinely, rather than the slang use as an insult which I personally find disgusting.
Despite the fact that Apocalypse is a 'Superman/Batman' movie and a direct sequel of the last one, this is really a film all about a hot chick named Supergirl, blonde hair, blue eyes, incredible curves, dat ass, massive bre-... right, plot summary, yeah, wait where were we again? Was anyone else slightly off putted knowing she is voiced by Summer Glau? Okay, okay fine back on topic!I mean sure Batman is there, being all cynical and Superman is there, being all naive but this is mainly dropped to the background to foreground Supergirl's identity crisis and angst. Oh, and her shopping trips..? Although some of the outfits sure were sex-... okay, okay I'll stop! And hell, this may as well be called a Justice League movie since Wonder Woman accompanies Bats and Supes for most of the movie anyway.
Even Supergirl eventually gets backdropped to make room for a pointless and over long sequence of Berda and Wonder Woman fighting the Furies, I mean sure, sexy babes, catfight etc etc But this entire sequence - the entire subplot of the rescue mission to Apokolips was basically pointless - although it is an excuse for Supergirl to wear another sex-... okay okay, please don't hit me! Hell this entire movie is basically plotless, stumbling from one scene to the next seemingly never looking where the hell it is going. I mean obviously it was all leading to the kick ass twist fight scene at the end, but they didn't need to do it with so much padding. For once a DC feature is full length and for once it doesn't actually need to be, fucks sake.I'm confused though, wasn't one Doomsday enough to kill Superman? I didn't actually read the comics, so I don't know... but shouldn't an army of Doomsdays mean literally that, the end of everything or am I missing something? I mean even Batman takes some down, I'd say 'what the fuck?', but it is Batman, the king of contrivances, of course he wins despite defying all logic.
The twist (well of sorts, anyway) ending definitely deserves a mention. I really don't know why they decided to do this, but it certainly makes the film stand out above the pack, even if the film was ultimately a failure (in terms of sales, I mean).Basically, Wonder Woman, Big Barda, Batman and Superman head over to Apokolips to rescue Supergirl and succeed, with little to no conflict from Darkseid himself, who seems to be set up as the main villain. They arrive home and the film begins tidying itself up and you can't help but feel a little defeated, you just sat through an hour of the movie and you don't even get an epic battle with Darkseid? Why even bother to have him in the film at all then? He barely says or does anything... patience young one, keep watching, keep watching...
The fight itself is basically everything you could have asked for, too. Huge displays of power, Darkseid whipping his Omega Beams everywhere while Superman teamed with Supergirl absolutely pummel him and he absolutely pummels them back. They make craters in the ground, get hurled through the air, destroy builds etc etc it just has a real epic scale to the battle. Also Supergirl's clothes slowly get blown off... Okay I'll stop! Poor Kent's house! This fight is just brilliant, best closing ten minutes of a movie - ever. Okay, I may be exaggerating a little...Jokes about Supergirl's hotness aside, even for a comicbook adaptation, this movie is fucking rammed with hot chicks, although there have been better visual depictions of her, even the absolute babe that is Wonder Woman makes an appearance and takes Supergirl to Themyscira - island of Women, holy hell, throw in some Black Canary and this movie should come with a heart attack warning - for that alone I could recommend this to every straight male and gay female, haha.
Although the narrative is a mess, as a character piece this film is just so well written. I really don't like Batman and he is hardly in this film, but most of his scenes manage to be highlights, whether it be his wry one liners or cynical attitude, he is just awesome. Superman too, although through most of the movie he comes across a little pathetic with all his naivety, it's just done so well to create a real balance between Superman and Batman and why they work together so well. And of course they redeem Superman at the end... It's just a shame that Darkseid is so dull, I mean he fights like a fucking beast at the end, but aside from that he could have been anyone.This film is beautifully directed and sets up an incredible atmosphere, with paranoia seemingly at the forefront for the piece but it is as much a film about paranoia as a film about the search for ones identity and teenage angst. Despite this fact, a lot that makes this almost an artistic mood piece gets dropped very quickly and only remnants hang around throughout. I do like how Supergirl became a bit of a goth chick when Darkseid took over her mind though, trying to say something about rock music there, movie?
They obviously had a very teenage audience in mind, that'd explain all the crappy filler for shopping trips and other such bullshit, the personality they gave Supergirl but also all the babes wandering around...This film is quite gory in places - in other it's like a typical superhero show you'd find on Cartoon Network or wherever and because of that it never quite quite feels as self indulgent as a lot of these DC animated movies have a tendency to do.
So do I recommend this? Despite being probably the sexiest comic adaptation ever I find myself much in the same position I was in when I finished watching Ultimate Avengers. There are moments of brilliance to be found, particularly in the way both Batman and Superman are written and so ultimately Apocalypse is far from a bad movie but thanks to such terrible plotting it just really becomes an okay one. The movie itself seemed to be having as much of an identity crisis as Supergirl was having. And despite the twist Darkseid fight at the end and all the epicness that came with it, I just don't think I can recommend a movie that for the rest of it is simply okay just for a sweet fight at the end. And I can't really recommend it for the balance of Batman and Superman either because that is pushed to the background for most of the movie. So I guess if you really have nothing else to watch, you could sit through mediocrity and then enjoy that sweet fight sequence but if you do have other things to watch, watch those first.
Think About It!
-Locke
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