Review Detail

Highly enjoyable short edit that has all the flavor of a classic Superman story. In fact, with its action-packed, no-nonsense approach it reminded me a lot of the Max Fleischer Superman shorts from the 1940s. I confess having a soft spot for the admittedly flawed and not really very good Superman: Brainiac Attacks movie, mostly because of the visuals and the animation (many of the best moments remain here) and this is a very good distillation. My number one problem in this movie was the bumbling portrayal of Lex (I'm used to Gene Hackman so this might not bother me so much if it didn't have the TAS design - Lex would never be this goofy in TAS), and that's thankfully mostly gone (the "Lexopolis" slip remains, but that's no big deal). I thought turning Brainiac into the all-machine version instead of the green humanoid alien one (by removing the latter - who has a cameo in the end credits) was very creative. I also love the new TAS-style intro made from footage of the film.

The only issue that I had with it editing-wise is that some of the transitions/dissolves are way too fast and would have needed a bit more space to breath. Namely: Clark throwing his glasses in the trash bin to Supes arriving in the Arctic, Super-Computer scene to Supes first entering the Phantom Zone, and first Lex Scene to back in the Phantom Zone. With more room to breath at those spots I'd call this edit perfect.

Technically, it has the issue of the audio being too low for some reason. I had to raise the volume way up to watch it. Video looks fine, no artifact whatsoever, but it appears to be an 8bit export and not a 32bit one, so image is overall darkened and the darkest spots are flattened. I know this error well, I've been guilty of it in the past. But it still looks very good.

This was short and sweet and had me smiling all along. Superman fans overall, and particularly fans of either TAS or the classic era, will really enjoy it.