The Age of Commercialism

Good story, Not enough for a whole film

Don't listen to the negative reviews

It’s an especially fun movie from a director and cast who are clearly having a good time allowing themselves to let loose.

I really wanted to like Superman: Braniac Attacks. I love Superman and a vast majority of the DC animated movies, and the voice cast looked good on paper. The film really failed to deliver though. I will admit that the animation is nice and fluid with lots of colour and some atmosphere. Dana Delaney is the best of the voice cast, her Lois is spot on. I like Tim Daly, but he lacked charisma for me here, almost as if he was yet to find his feet. Lance Henrikssen completely lacks menace and demeanour, that is very uncharacteristic of Henrikssen so I'll blame the writing on this one. The worst case though was the Lex Luthor of Powers Boothe, who is nowhere near calculating enough, and it does not help that Luthor is too much watered down Joker and not enough of the cold and calculating Luthor we are used to. The writing is terrible, disjointed and full of unfunny wisecracks from Luthor. The story never gets going, it is very thin, has no sense of mystery or excitement and even the action sequences are dull. There is even a major inconsistency with Braniac and the Krypton. The characters are way off too often, Luthor fares the worst, but Mercy is also annoying and robotic, Lois is too stereotypical and in an attempt to bring a potentially good idea of Clark telling Lois about him being Superman they make Superman as dull as dishwater. The music is pretty poor as well, it is often overbearing and just doesn't fit with the style of the film. All in all, a real disgrace despite its potential. 2/10 Bethany Cox

Plot in a nutshell - set in what is not apparently in sync with the rest of the DCAU continuity established by Bruce Timm, we find that Superman (voiced again by Tim Daly, who was missing in action for Justice League, where Superman was voiced by George Newbern) has decided he should tell Lois Lane (Dana Delany) his secret, but Brainiac (exit Corey Burton, enter Lance Henriksen) is back and has allied himself with Lex Luthor (exit Clancy Brown, enter Powers Boothe who did the voice of Gorilla Grodd on Justice League) to destroy Superman and take over the world. Lois is infected by a strange virus, and Superman must venture into the Phantom Zone to find the cure. Will he make it back in time to thwart Brainiac? Not as horrible as everyone says, but this direct to DVD feature, undeniably a marketing tool to help promote "Superman Returns", did make some serious mistakes. The most noticeable mistake was the decision to replace Clancy Brown with Powers Boothe as the voice of Lex Luthor and, even worse, the decision to play Luthor as an over the top ham like Gene Hackman instead of playing him as a real villain. Boothe was a good Grodd on "Justice League", but he's a poor substitute for Brown when it comes to Lex Luthor. Lance Henriksen's not as bad as Brainiac, but his performance is harmed by making wisecracks that Brainiac had not made when he was voiced by Corey Burton and by the usual suspects of Bruce Timm and his cronies. That leads to the other mistake - not using Bruce Timm, who all these long, undoubtedly lonely years has devoted himself to carving out the DCAU. While this feature isn't full blown terrible, it's weak in certain places that it probably would not have been if Bruce and his henchmen had been in the driver's seat, such as Superman's analysis at the end of why it's okay for him to be around Lois no matter what kind of insanity surrounds them (reportedly the feature was written by one of the writers for "The Batman").Still, it was good to hear Tim Daly doing Superman's voice again, even if he did get saddled with unflattering dialogue. Nothing against George Newbern, as George got a lot better as "League" went along, but like I said, it's always good to hear Daly's Superman. It's also always good to hear Dana Delany as the voice of Lois Lane, and she probably got some far worse lines than Daly did here. Animation was well done for the most part with the Phantom Zone, and the Superman VS. Brainiac fights, especially half-way through and at the end when Superman is fighting the giant mecha-Brainiac, were well staged.Probably will appeal more to little kids than the older fans who grew up with Bruce Timm's stuff.

Superman: The Animated Series had wonderful animation and was careful with the unique and interesting continuity that it had set up,this has all gone the way of the dodo in this cartoon movie that although has characters in the same model as the animated series it had nothing at all to do with that great show Paul Dini and Bruce Timm produced A goofy Lex Luthor with dumb one liners, A Brainiac without his cold calculating logic and a focus on Clark upset that Lois like Superman but not him are what you can find in this movie. Plot holes that make no sense and a Kryptonite nannite ray that makes people look like they haven't slept in days are also found. If you want to see how a bad Superman Animated Series would have looked then this movie is for you, otherwise avoid it like the plague.

Although I'm a college educated adult, I actually like the Superman, Batman and Justice League cartoon series (I'm sure I'm far from alone on this one). The plots have been excellent examples of sci-fi writing and can be quite clever,complex and entertaining. Not so this one. The vast majority of this movie consisted of Superman and Braniac pounding each other into the ground, throwing each other through buildings, etc. The encounters went on for so long I got bored and fastforwarded through the monotony. There is a weak plot that holds this together, but it's not strong enough to redeem it. The phrase "phoning it in" leaps to mind. If you're a Superman fan, you're going to be disappointed in this.