BEFORE: Well, this was supposed to be a slot for "Suicide Squad: Hell to Pay", another DC comics-based animated film, only it WAS on Hulu when I programmed it, and last night I found out it's no longer available there. So I could still watch it, but now it's on iTunes and Amazon for $3.99, and I don't think I want to pay that much, not without knowing if it's worth it. What I don't get is WHY it came down from Hulu, I mean I guess everything expires from every service eventually, but it seems like most films start out as PPV or renting at a premium price, and then when that's over, a film might go to Hulu or Tubi or even screen for free at IMDB.com - how did this film go in what seems to be the other direction?
Does it have anything to do with the fact that the first "Suicide Squad" live-action film wasn't that well received, but the sequel (called "THE Suicide Squad) scheduled for next year seems like it might be better? Does that news make the animated knock-off suddenly more valuable? I'm not sure.
Anyway, the good news is that I can drop a film and just move on to the next one, and the chain is still good, because the same voice actress was scheduled for 4 or 5 films in a row, so dropping one in the middle won't make much of a difference, except that now I can stop watching two films per day, because dropping "Suicide Squad: Hell to Pay" puts me back on schedule to start romance films on Feb. 1.
But this whole experience, of learning that I'm sort of counting on films to stay on Hulu or Netflix or whatever until I can get around to linking to them, has me very concerned. I had to stop today and review my whole romance chain for February and part of March to make sure that all the Hulu films I programmed are still THERE, and for the ones that scrolled off of Netflix, I had to make sure I can get those films somewhere else, even if that's iTunes or IMDB or Tubi. I was putting off choosing between the 46-film romance chain and the 43-film romance chain, but as luck would have it, two of the three films missing from the shorter chain are now not available unless I pay top dollar for them, so that kind of makes my decision for me - I'm going with the shorter chain. I also can't view the last film in the chain any more, but that won't affect the linking, I'll just end the chain one day earlier than planned, and link to another topic. So now it's down to 42 romance movies.
Tara Strong carries over from "Batman: The Killing Joke", where she voiced Batgirl.
THE PLOT: Lex Luthor forms a dangerous alliance with the powerful computer/villain Brainiac. Using advanced weaponry and a special strain of Kryptonite harvested from outer space, Luthor specifically redesigns Brainiac to defeat the Man of Steel.
AFTER: Brainiac is back, though this is NOT a sequel to the other Superman vs. Brainiac film I watched earlier this week. This film was made 7 years earlier, and is more of a sequel to events seen in "Superman: The Animated Series", with most of the regular cast from that show also providing voices here - once you lock down an actor as the voice of Superman or Batman, that's some good steady work for a few years' time. And you know actors love doing voice-work for animated films, they don't have to dress up or put on make-up, just show up at the sound studio and be ready to speak into a microphone - they don't even have to memorize lines, because it's the one time they can be holding a script to read from, nobody's going to see them.
Once again, we're back to Lois Lane not knowing that Superman is also Clark Kent, but at least here Clark gives her credit, by pointing out that she probably WILL figure it out one of these days, so he's sort of preparing himself to tell her if he can find the right words. It's funny, they just did a story last month in the Superman comics where Superman reveals his identity to the world - Lois already knew, of course, because since before even the Rebirth reboot, they're married and have a teenage son. (He was a young son, then sort of rapidly aged while time-traveling with his grandfather, long story...)
But the recent choice to reveal his dual identity to the world came from noting the discrepancy between Superman standing for "TRUTH, justice and the American way" and yet essentially lying to everyone at the same time by pretending to be two different people. Some of the other heroes, like Batman and Wonder Woman, knew his secret, but not all of them - so I suspect the writers just got tired of keeping track of which heroes knew and which ones didn't, because anytime Batman called him "Clark" they had to check to make sure all the other heroes in the room were also on that list. I hope this isn't a fake-out, because it's an interesting new idea, for Superman to reveal himself and just get that out of the way - or perhaps it will only last until the writer runs out of ideas or another writer takes over and gives the world amnesia, or they re-boot things again.
Speaking of fake-outs, this movie ALMOST has Lois put two and two together, but just as Superman is enjoying the new level of honesty with Lois and thinking of getting serious, he realizes that it's all an illusion, and he's still in the Phantom Zone. He went there to get an antidote for Lois's Kryptonite radiation poisoning, and the Zone phantoms decided to trick him into thinking he left and returned to Earth, only he didn't. So then we're back to square one on the Lois & Clark front yet again - and here I thought we were making progress.
This is all a bit too cartoony for my tastes, like the animation in "Superman: Unbound" was a bit more detailed and refined, this looks like caricature by comparison - like Superman's jaw is so chiseled it looks like you could cut glass with it. And Lois is always in a blazer, skirt and high heels - the only character that didn't seem on model was Lex Luthor, who talked very "street" here, I thought. I think of him as a refined, cultured businessman despite being an evil genius - did some writer think that those two things couldn't exist in the same character?
I also found it very hard to determine Brainiac's motives - OK, so he's attacking the earth, but WHY? He's still looking for knowledge? What kind, and how is he planning to get it? At least he's not still bottling up cities in this movie, he's moved on, but it's a bit hard to say what method he's moved on TO. Lex rebuilds him and lets him transform a satellite into a new body, but even then it's still hard to say what he's after, exactly. Anyway it's an uneasy alliance between businessman and killer robot, and so there are fail-safes and disabling devices built in, only Brainiac knows how to disable the disabling devices, so really, it's a wash.
Brainiac can also track Superman down by his DNA now, which is a little weird when done from a distance. Usually you need a spit sample or something to test DNA, right? But this is apparently how Brainiac tracks Superman down in his Fortress of Solitude, and when the Fortress is destroyed, Brainiac thinks Supes is dead, only he's gone into the Phantom Zone to find that cure. Eventually he gets back, but I'm not sure how he does that, since the portal got destroyed on the Earth side. But Superman saves Lois in a method that evokes Prince Charming waking up Snow White, and then later as she races to cover a story, Clark Kent says, "Lois will be just fine, as long as Superman and Clark Kent are there to look out for her!" Wow, that seems like a very outdated macho attitude. And this was made in 2006?
Also starring the voices of Tim Daly (last heard in "Superman/Batman: Apocalypse"), Powers Boothe (last seen in "Sin City: A Dame to Kill For"), Dana Delany (last seen in "Tombstone"), Lance Henriksen (last seen in "Appaloosa"), George Dzundza (last seen in "Dangerous Minds"), David Kaufman, Mike Farrell, Shelley Fabares.
RATING: 4 out of 10 Daily Planet restaurant reviews
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