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 Im sure Man of Steel will be an excellent film, Superman: Unbound certainly isnt. Based upon Geoff Johns and Gary Franks 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 Supermans 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 anyones 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. Its dull at best, especially when youve 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, were treated to the same sequence where Brainiacs robot drones appear, that worlds 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. Its 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 doesnt make the film any more interesting - you see them fight one group of drones once, youve seen them all. But were forced to sit through this same sequence again and again. Then Supermans weakness to the robots fluctuates too much - one minute hes vulnerable to them, the next he isnt. All it seems to take is for him to get beaten down then remember Lois or Earth or something and then he finds the will to fight back and defeat them. The drones too are inconsistent - one minute theyre able to suppress Superman, the next Lombard and Olsen can defeat a trio with a desk? The script doesnt help either. Brainiac drones on in the same way weve seen villains talk numerous times before about domination and power - for a hyper-intelligent alien, he doesnt seem to have anything remotely interesting or original to say beyond the cliches every movie bad guy spouts. And this films version of Lois is maybe the most annoying version of the character Ive 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 doesnt want people to know about them. This upsets Lois because she wants to tell people theyre a couple and wants to have couple friends, etc. etc. The scene after Supermans saved her after she deliberately put herself in harms way, shes 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/Franks book. Simply put, Brainiacs defeat didnt make sense in the book and it doesnt make sense here either. Also, if you have read the book and are expecting the emotional story after Brainiacs defeat, then youll be disappointed. That sequence was replaced with an arbitrarily happy ending instead thats corny as hell. This is probably the mildest 15 rating (PG-13 in the States) film Ive ever sat through. Besides one scene between Lois and Brainiac, I couldnt see how this earned that rating. Its so safe throughout - yes, theres some blood in the fight scenes, but only very briefly, and the drones absorbing information from various lifeforms wasnt at all graphic with the camera cutting away from the gruesome plugging in shots. It feels like a 12 rating at best - a 15 is just overkill and misleading as you might expect something edgier than whats actually presented. The animation is very basic and doesnt 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 Brainiacs 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 hes 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 hes the baddie. Stana Katic didnt have much to work with for her Lois Lane but she does a fine job with what little shes 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 - whos also played Batman - that he was bound to be the standout in the cast. Its a shame hes 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 doesnt 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 youre a big Superman fan like me, youre going to be very bored with Unbound - Id skip it entirely and wait for Man of Steel instead.
Superman: Unbound is out now on DVD and blu-ray