Superman: Unbound Review

By Noel Thorne /

With interest in Superman at an all time high thanks to Man of Steel coming out in less than a week, DC Animation have released Superman: Unbound to capitalise on the attention. And while I€™m sure Man of Steel will be an excellent film, Superman: Unbound certainly isn€™t. Based upon Geoff Johns and Gary Frank€™s 2008 story arc, Superman: Brainiac, Unbound features Brainiac, a super-powerful, hyper intelligent green alien with tubes sticking out of his head who collects cities from around the universe and stores them in jars, who turns his attention to Earth with the intention of miniaturising Metropolis to join his collection of bottled cities and blow up Earth. Superman to the rescue! This is Superman€™s first encounter with Brainiac though his cousin, Kara/Supergirl, has faced him before. Decades earlier Brainiac stole the Kryptonian city Kandor, shrinking it into one of his jars, with her parents inside (all of the inhabitants of the city are kept alive in the jars). Now Kara, who has only been on Earth for a short while, must face her fears by helping Superman go up against his biggest threat yet - only this time she has powers to help her. The Johns/Frank book is great and this film is somewhat faithful to it, but especially with Johns€™ flawed depiction of Brainiac. Just the name of the villain alone should tell you where his powers lie - Brainiac is a 12th level intellect, meaning his intelligence is beyond the scope of anyone€™s imagining. But because writing a character that intelligent is too difficult, Johns also made Brainiac the physical match of Superman, literally becoming super-powerful himself, so instead of having to write a plot where Superman has to out-think Brainiac and vice versa, the story just boils down to a slug-fest with the two characters constantly battering each other whenever they meet. It€™s dull at best, especially when you€™ve seen the two go at each other two or three times before. The action in general becomes repetitive. When we see the montages of the worlds Brainiac has defeated, we€™re treated to the same sequence where Brainiac€™s robot drones appear, that world€™s army shows up, and we see soldiers firing guns, tanks blasting their cannons, and the drones defeating them all. We see this sequence on three different worlds and yet despite the different alien races involved in each, they all seem to have similar setups - armies, guns, tanks. It€™s all very unimaginative and, seeing it done three times in the same way, very tedious. Also seeing Superman and Supergirl fight legions of drones numerous times doesn€™t make the film any more interesting - you see them fight one group of drones once, you€™ve seen them all. But we€™re forced to sit through this same sequence again and again. Then Superman€™s weakness to the robots fluctuates too much - one minute he€™s vulnerable to them, the next he isn€™t. All it seems to take is for him to get beaten down then €œremember€ Lois or Earth or something and then he finds the will to fight back and defeat them. The drones too are inconsistent - one minute they€™re able to suppress Superman, the next Lombard and Olsen can defeat a trio with a desk? The script doesn€™t help either. Brainiac drones on in the same way we€™ve seen villains talk numerous times before about domination and power - for a hyper-intelligent alien, he doesn€™t seem to have anything remotely interesting or original to say beyond the cliches every movie bad guy spouts. And this film€™s version of Lois is maybe the most annoying version of the character I€™ve ever seen. Here, she and Clark are dating but because he wants to protect her from his enemies who might know his secret identity and target Lois if they found out she was close to him, he doesn€™t want people to know about them. This upsets Lois because she wants to tell people they€™re a couple and wants to have couple friends, etc. etc. The scene after Superman€™s saved her after she deliberately put herself in harm€™s way, she€™s reprimanding him for making her keep their relationship secret, wittering on like a jealous and irritating teen girl. She comes across as wholly unsympathetic and petty - not at all the Lois Lane we know from the comics. If most of the film is drearily predictable and unengaging, the finale is utterly confounding. Of course Superman defeats Brainiac, but the reason why is going to confuse viewers, even those who have read Johns/Frank€™s book. Simply put, Brainiac€™s defeat didn€™t make sense in the book and it doesn€™t make sense here either. Also, if you have read the book and are expecting the emotional story after Brainiac€™s defeat, then you€™ll be disappointed. That sequence was replaced with an arbitrarily €œhappy€ ending instead that€™s corny as hell. This is probably the mildest 15 rating (PG-13 in the States) film I€™ve ever sat through. Besides one scene between Lois and Brainiac, I couldn€™t see how this earned that rating. It€™s so safe throughout - yes, there€™s some blood in the fight scenes, but only very briefly, and the drones €œabsorbing€ information from various lifeforms wasn€™t at all graphic with the camera cutting away from the gruesome €œplugging in€ shots. It feels like a 12 rating at best - a 15 is just overkill and misleading as you might expect something edgier than what€™s actually presented. The animation is very basic and doesn€™t look like feature-film quality animation. Rather it looks like the Cartoon Network standard style animation you see for shows like Spider-man or Justice League - not bad but kind of bland and uninteresting. The CGI here though is very poor with the shots involving Brainiac€™s ship in particular looking shabby and unworthy of a 21st century Superman film. The voice acting is just ok. Matt Bomer does a decent job as Superman, sounding as young as he looks, but he€™s no Tim Daly. John Noble on the other hand sounds like your generic bad guy with his deep, English-sounding voice delivered with the right amount of anger and arrogance for the audience to know instinctively he€™s the baddie. Stana Katic didn€™t have much to work with for her Lois Lane but she does a fine job with what little she€™s got, script-wise. Molly Quinn as Supergirl was just average though, giving a very plain and forgettable performance. The only one who stood out was Diedrich Bader as Steve Lombard but then Bader is such an accomplished voice actor - who€™s also played Batman - that he was bound to be the standout in the cast. It€™s a shame he€™s hardly in the movie. The only extra included is an extended look at the next DC Animated feature - Justice League: The Flashpoint Paradox - which looks terrible and doesn€™t even have the saving grace of being based upon a good comic book. DC have had a good run with their animation films recently - Superman/Batman: Apocalypse was excellent as were the Batman features Year One and The Dark Knight Returns, Parts 1 & 2 - but that run ends with the disappointing Superman: Unbound. This feels like it was rushed out as a cash grab to exploit the Man of Steel hype and as such the script, animation, and overall execution of the film was completely lacking. Even if you€™re a big Superman fan like me, you€™re going to be very bored with Unbound - I€™d skip it entirely and wait for Man of Steel instead. Superman: Unbound is out now on DVD and blu-ray