DC fans the company has a history of turning out solid direct to DVD movies and well a new one has been released. So since we have a tradition going on here that means I have to take a look at it and I have to say that this is a film that i've honestly been looking forward just due to the idea of Superman being raised by the Russians and so then DC Comics fans here is my spoiler filled review of the companies latest direct to DVD film "Superman: Red Son" enjoy.
The plot of this movie is instead of being born in America and having the ideals of fighting for what is what is right Superman is born in Russia and fights for the ideals of Communist Party meanwhile Lex will do anything to destroy Russia's greatest protector no matter what the cost may be. Yeah what I just described is more of a premise then anything else but it's as close to an actual story that your going to get with this film since there really isn't a story to speak of.
Starring in this film are Lucius Malfoy himself Jason Isaacs as Kal-El/Clark Kent / Superman , Roger Craig Smith as Bruce Wayne / Batman , Travis Willingham as Superior Man , Diedrich Bader as Lex Luthor , Amy Acker as Lois Lane , Vanessa Marshall as Diana Prince / Wonder Woman , Phil Morris as James Olsen , Paul Williams as Brainiac , Sasha Roiz as Hal Jordan , Phil LaMarr as John Stewart , Jim Meskimen as John F. Kennedy , William Salyers as Joseph Stalin , Winter Ave Zoli as Svetlana and Tara Strong as Young Superman.
The casting for these films is usually really strong and the same thing is true for this film since alot of the actors do give a really solid performance. However I got the feeling that alot of the actors in this film just weren't giving it there best shot since alot of the line deliveries just sounded rather odd to me and i'm honestly not sure why that is since all of these actors have proven that they can do good voice acting and so it really was weird for me to hear these weird line deliveries from these really talented actors and actresses.
The animation for the film was handled by Digital eMation and if you've seen any of their work then you know what they can do. That being said the animation for this film might be the best thing about it which really shouldn't surprise anyone since the animation in direct to DVD DC animated movies is always really good even in their bad movies the animation looks good and so to see some really stunning animation as well as stunning backgrounds shouldn't come as a surprise to anyone whatsoever.
SPOILERS START!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Now I want it known that I had every intention of making this review as spoiler free as possible however I quickly released that since I was going to start talking about the comic that it would be impossible not to spoil things that happen in the film. So if your expecting this to be a straight forward adaptation of the book which I haven't seen by the way then get ready to be let down alot since from what I can gather just from reading the synopsis of the book of Wikipedia alot of changes were made in this film.
For starters there's no weird as hell time travel story the film ends with Lois seeing Clark / Superman in the crown in Washington D.C and that's it. To be honest there's alot of changes that they make for the film and also there's no Superman Robots in this film , to put it bluntly this is Red Son in name only however they do keep the core concept and Lex and Lois being a couple as well as few other things.
Another of the changes that they made is that they robbed Lex of his motivation for hating Superman which in the comic book was because Superman beat Bizarro. Here tho even tho Bizarro does die it's not at Superman's hands it due to how badly he was created and Lex just shrugs it of and yet he somehow still hates Superman which doesn't really make any kind of sense because he has no reason to hate him what so ever and thus the key conflict of the story is now gone , I honestly feel that they should have kept that part of the story the same since it's there conflict that drives the movies forward and so robbing them of that conflict changes the whole film.
SPOILERS END HERE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Now then since this is an action film that does mean that we have to talk about the action within the film. Yeah for me the action just wasn't as interesting as it perhaps could have been and that's a shame because they do some interesting things with the heroes and what they do with them lends themselves to some good action but what they do with the action is just the type of thing that they would do if the heroes were who we knew them to be while it's not bad action it's not as good as it perhaps could have been in my opinion.
Overall to me this felt like such a wasted opportunity since they could have used this film to really delve deep into what makes Superman tick and what separates this Russian Superman from the regular Superman. I can't say that it's the worst direct to DVD DC animated movie but it's clearly not the best which is a shame because I was looking forward to this film and so it gets a 5 out of 10 from me and that's really the highest score I can give it it's not the best but also not the worst and I feel that alot of people who've read the comic are going to be comparing the two and you can't really do that they have to be treated separately which you really can't do but either way this film doesn't come of that good and this film is out now on Digital release and is due for DVD /Blu-ray release on March 17th 2020.