Superman: Brainiac Attacks
Superman: Brainiac Attacks
Original Release Date - June 20th, 2006 (DVD)
Note: This film is *not* in continuity with Superman: The Animated Series, as confirmed by the film's creators.
Embittered by Superman's heroic successes and soaring popularity, Lex Luthor forms a dangerous alliance with the
powerful computer/villain Brainiac. Using advanced weaponry and a
special strain of Kryptonite harvested from the far reaches of outer
space, Luthor specifically redesigns Brainiac to defeat the Man of
Steel. But when Brainiac betrays Luthor and reveals its sinister plans
for world domination, Superman must brave the mysterious Phantom Zone to
find the strength to survive this deadly showdown.
Media by Bird Boy
Reviews by Bird Boy, Jim Harvey
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Credits:
Executive Producer Sander Schwartz
Supervising Producer Curt Geda
Producer Margaret M. Dean
Associate Producer Kyle Jolly
Consulting Producer Duane Capizzi
Story by Christopher Simmons and Duane Capizzi
Screenplay by Duane Capizzi
Directed by Curt Geda
Editor Margaret Hou
Casting and Voice Direction Susan Blu
Music by Thomas Chase Jones
Animation by Lotto Animation
Voices:
Tim Daly as Superman and Clark Kent
Powers Boothe as Lex Luthor
Dana Delany as Lois Lane
Lance Henriksen as Brainiac
George Dzundza as Perry White
David Kaufman as Jimmy Olsen
Mike Carrell as Jonathan Kent
Shelley Fabares as Martha Kent
Tara Strong as Mercy Graves
Roger Rose, Cynthia Songe and Fredy Tatasciore as Additional
Voices
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Review (Jim Harvey): I was hoping to view Superman: Brainiac
Attacks and be able to counter Bird Boy's review (below); to say that
the movie isn't bad with the uneven voice acting and lame script. That
great animation, for the most part, and some great sequence directing is
all it has going for it. Well, I didn't find it as repulsive as Bird
Boy, but it's still a stain on Superman's shorts as far as I'm
concerned. It's still better than “Superman's Pal” and “Unity,” but that
isn't really a compliment, is it?
Before I address the movie itself, I want to quickly touch upon “wacky
Lex.” He's modeled after the Richard Donner version of Lex Luthor, from
the Superman live-action features. Writer Duane Capizzi even says so. He
says that while the movie has the look of the Bruce Timm animated
series, it's a stand alone movie that can be considered out of
continuity, and draws influences from many different aspects of the
Superman lore. Does that excuse the final product? No. But for those
hardcore Timm-fans looking for an excuse to ignore this movie, there it
is.
The plot for the direct to video feature is common knowledge. According
to the back of the DVD box, Embittered by Superman's heroic successes
and soaring popularity, Lex Luthor forms a dangerous alliance with the
powerful computer/villain Brainiac. Using advanced weaponry and a
special strain of Kryptonite harvested from the far reaches of outer
space, Luthor specifically redesigns Brainiac to defeat the Man of
Steel. But when Brainiac betrays Luthor and reveals its sinister plans
for world domination, Superman must brave the mysterious Phantom Zone to
find the strength to survive this deadly showdown.
Sounds good, right? Well, it would have been for a twenty minute, maybe
two-part episode. But that plot above is stretched out to 73 minutes
(without end credits), so how do they make it last? Lots and lots of
fighting. Now, I love the action from the DC Cartoons. Even though they
can be excessive at times in Justice League, it goes way over the top in
this film. Fights go nowhere, with both opponents pummeling each other
until Superman uses his “Super-Arctic Breath” (What?) or manages to some
how throw a punch magically more powerful than any that came before. It
seems like they had a certain amount of time to fill, so they just let
the opponents duke it out until they needed to advance the plot.
As for the plot, don't bother trying to fit it into Superman: The
Animated Series. It won't work. I know fans have bent over backwards to
make everything fit in the DCAU continuity, but I wouldn't bother with
this one. Just don't.
It's a very simple story that gets from point “A” to point “B” with no
real detours. We know exactly how it'll end, so I know I'm not spoiling
the movie when I say that Superman saves the day. It's just that how
long it takes to get there, and Brainiac's unexplained arrival in the
movie, is monotonous. While many consider the 73 minutes a short running
time, you feel every single minute here. All of it. And the simple
dialogue and tedious action just slows the movie down. I actually caught
myself watching the timer on the DVD player to see how much time I had
to endure of this. It's a simple story stretched a good 50 minutes too
long.
Tim Daly returns as Superman and phones it in, neglecting to provide any
of the depth he provided during his tenure as the Man of Steel during
the animated series. Except for the actors playing Lex Luthor, Mercy
Graves, and Brainiac, the regular voice actors return and do the best
they can with the dialogue. Nothing spectacular and only a few real
groaners. With Susan Blu curiously stepping in as Voice Director, and
the absence of Andrea Romano is painful. Romano's touch, seen on the
majority of DCAU's touch, is sorely missed as it would've undoubtedly
added some much needed touches to make the dialogue work even a shade
better.
The animation, for the most part, is well done. There are some scenes
that get the short end of the stick, but the majority of the battle
sequences are well done. The special effects and clean look of the
digital animation give this movie an added boost. It looks great most of
the time, with the script causing it to sadly drag.
This is a movie fit for the younger audience, obviously the target with
this feature. It acts as a safe introduction to the more mature and
dramatic DCAU. While I can't recommend it to fans of the animated
Superman series or the DCAU, I know nothing I say here will deter
anyone. Check it out, as I know most will, and make up your own mind.
Personally, I found it to be underwhelming and simple, dragging to the
bitter final seconds of the screen time. I'd recommending picking up one
of the other animated Superman releases on June 20th and checking this
out for free on Cartoon Network. As a big fan of Capizzi and Geda's
work, it's disappointing to see them miss this one, but everyone has an
off script (yes, even Bruce Timm and Paul Dini wrote some stinkers).
Review (Bird Boy): The announcement of Superman: Brainiac Attacks was somewhat
out of left field. We knew a new feature film was hitting theaters in
2006, but instead of animating a new show (like WB did with Batman
Begins and The Batman), they greenlit a feature-length
animated film in the style of Superman: The Animated Series. Let
me tell you right now—the style is the only thing this film shares with
its predecessor.
Fans on the message boards around the internet couldn't be more happy. A
new Superman DTV? It was a dream come true; STAS was always
suffering from “middle child” syndrome and was never given as much
attention as its other DCAU siblings. With a DTV finally under his belt,
he would be able to stand tall in the line up. At least that's what I,
and many others, thought.
Word of the voice recasting came down. Powers Boothe as Lex Luthor,
Lance Henrikson as Brainiac and the return of Tim Daly as Superman. As
disappointed as we were about Lex and Brainiac being recast, Daly's
returned was hailed by many. Many hadn't heard Daly voicing the Man of
Steel since the STAS days (unless they picked up the video game
for Playstation 2 and GameCube), so this would be a welcome return. I'm
not going to deny Daly wasn't great to hear again, but the characters of
Luthor, Brainiac and Mercy (now voiced by…wait for it…Tara Strong!) were
completely and utterly ruined by these voice actors. That is not an
exaggeration of any kind; anyone who finds a positive thing about any one
of these performances in terms of what the characters once
were...well, you're simply trying too hard to like the movie.
The plot of the film is simple. Luthor creates an orbiting satellite
(the Lex 9000) to protect Earth from alien invaders, but when Brainiac
comes by, the satellite fails to blast Brainiac down. A few minutes
later, Brainiac, laughing and smiling, begins destroying the control
station for the Lex 9000 and takes control of the satellite right as
Superman shows up. This is also the point in time when we first hear Tim
Daly's voice as Superman once again in animation and what is it we hear?
“Time to log off!”
Brainiac continues to emote quite well for a heartless killing machine
and begins to give Superman the beating of his life with the Lex 9000
laser beam (think Return of the Joker in terms of what this orbiting
beam is doing). Lex and Mercy drive up and Luthor is grinning from ear
to ear and sports some very rubbery, Looney Tunes animation. Enjoying
seeing Superman getting beaten up so much, Luthor tells Mercy to make
some popcorn; at this point in the film, I honestly expected the popcorn
to show up, but it never does.
Superman eventually destroys Brainiac by using his ice breath (“Oooooo…Brain
Freeze!” quips Luthor) and then rushes off to save a distressed Lois who
is falling off of a radio tower she climbed to get a better look at
Superman in action. More bad dialogue pops up (“You always catch me when
I fall, Superman.”) and we cut over to Luthor taking a remaining piece
of Brainiac that will become a major part of the story later on.
Back at the Daily Planet, Lois is daydreaming about Superman and Jimmy
Olson (sporting a hot, new haircut) is oogling the hundreds of images he
took of Mercy Graves. Yes…in this film, Jimmy is infatuated with Mercy.
At this point in the film I actually got up and shut it off. I was so
utterly disgusted with it at this point I didn't want to watch anymore,
but I knew I had to. I also knew I had to take images from the episode
for the media page, so I decided to venture into the film once again in
an attempt to get everything done at once so I didn't have to watch this
ever again.
Lex reconstitutes Brainiac and allows him to take over the Lex 9000 in
exchange for a deal. Brainiac destroys Superman and then leaves Earth;
knowing that Brainiac is a tricky one, Luthor implants a self-destruct
device in Brainiac (like that will work anyway) in case he goes back on
the plan. Lex gives Brainiac some of Superman's DNA (which apparently
came from Superman punching Brainiac so hard [Superman doesn't bleed, so
where the hell it came from, I don't know]) and a piece of kryptonite to
use when his new body is finished building itself. With these two items,
Brainiac is able to track and hurt Superman like never before.
Back at the Kent farm in Smallville, Clark is moaning to his parents
like a teenager about how much he loves Lois. Nearly quoting Peter
Parker's entire pay phone conversation in Spider-Man 2, Clark
talks about how he can't let Lois know his secret because his enemies
might hurt her. For Spider-Man this made sense, but for Superman and
Lois, it is quite possibly the stupidest reason. Lois has been getting
herself nearly killed since before Superman showed up anyway.
Deciding to tell her at the urging of his parents (“We know your secret
and we're all right!” Great reasoning, Ma), Clark sets out in a
dialogue-less montage of clips of trying to tell Lois his secret and
being interrupted by something (cell phone, Perry, explosion in the
background). Eventually Lois and Clark are sent to dinner by Perry to
critique a new restaurant and this is where Clark nearly tells her. We
get a typical “Oh I think I know!” moment from Lois as Clark is
silhouetted so his glasses are covered and only his jaw and frame remain
lit. Clark attempts to tell her, but wusses out and then Brainiac, now
in a new robo-body, comes in begins ripping the restaurant apart looking
for Superman. Superman shows up and the fight begins; Lois runs to find
Jimmy, but then realizes her cell phone can take images, so screw Jimmy,
she'll just take the photos herself.
After being blasted by the Kryptonite-ray, Superman's eyes get all dark
circled, so that means he's not feeling well now. Punching and fighting
and…punching and fighting, the two battle through Metropolis until Lois
gets hit by a stray Kryptonite ray, giving her dark circles under her
eyes. Superman sees this, and admittedly in the only cool moment in the
entire film, his eyes glow red and he gets the superpissed look about
him. He tears Brainiac apart and then goes back to take Lois to the
hospital, where it's revealed she's dying from the kryptonite poisoning.
Brainiac goes to repair himself and Superman runs to the Fortress of
Solitude. This fortress is completely different looking from the one in
the animated series and is more akin to the one seen in the Reeves films
and Smallville. Superman sits in his high chair and consults his
Kryptonian database for knowledge on how to cure Lois. The Kryptonian
computer then reveals to Superman that the only cure is in the center of
the Phantom Zone (what the---?!) and that it is full of danger that
Clark can and can't see.
Cut out to the exterior of the Fortress and we see Brainiac is back and
ready to kill Superman again. After a scuffle that destroys the
Fortress, Superman jumps into the Phantom Zone which tricks Brainiac
into thinking that he killed the Man of Steel.
Superman travels through what can only be described as some kind of acid
trip. There is nothing in this Phantom Zone that looks a thing like
other Phantom Zones (either animated or in film), although we do see a
familiar
Zone creature from “Blasts
from the Past, Part 1.” This creature is slightly remodeled and a
different color, but shares most of the same characteristics as the red
one we see in “Blasts.”
Defeating this creature, Superman travels to the center of the Phantom
Zone to a magical, golden fountain of this weird ass cure that's going
to heal him and Lois. Immediately, Superman looks better and he gets a
vial of this stuff for Lois to take back.
Back in the real world, Lex is celebrating the death of Superman with a
Tiki Torch Luau. Brainiac comes to terrorize Metropolis once again and
Lex takes this opportunity to become the new Man of Steel with a new Lex-o-suit
he has created. While Lex thinks this is still part of their plan,
Brainiac soon gives Lex the beating of his life and here we find out
that the self-destruct button no longer works, as Brainiac found it and
deactivated it.
Cut to the hospital where Superman is giving Lois her treatment, Lois
wakes up and feels great. Opening her groggy eyes, she sees Superman
weakly moans “…Clark?” to which Superman replies “Yes. Yes, Lois.” We
get more ushy-gushy crap from the two and then they move outside of the
hospital to take Lois home so that she and Clark can start their new
life together. Clark sees that Brainiac is attacking Metropolis again
and knows he must go stop him, but Lois balks and says that if Brainiac
doesn't know that he is still alive, he can't hurt them. After
recommending letting the “Green Lantern guy” to handle the situation,
Clark smells something fishy about this scenario. Oh wait, we're not out
of the Phantom Zone yet! Clark's been tricked by the phantoms in the
Phantom Zone (…seriously?) and after a Constantine rip-off of the
phantoms climbing up his body, Superman returns to earth with the real
antidote.
As soon as he arrives back, he sees Brainiac attacking and decides to go
stop him before giving Lois the cure (despite being right next to the
damn hospital, it would have taken him about five seconds). This is
where we enter the incredibly annoying and long final fight, which
seemed to go on forever. If you thought the previous fight between the
two was long, this one was about eight times the length. After Lex in
his Lex-o-suit has been stopped from exploding by Superman, Lex and
Superman are on top of each other (how and why are they on top of each
other?). At this moment, Lex says the stupidest damn thing I've heard
out of this entire film: "Rootin' for ya, my maaan!"
At this point I nearly started crying, but the fight continued on so I
had to keep watching. I started to get glossy eyed towards the end, but
a giant, resonating boom snapped me out of it. Brainiac was finally
dead!
Superman runs back to the hospital to cure Lois and right as he's about
to give her the antidote, Brainiac comes back and crushes the anti-dote,
spilling it all over the floor. Superman gets angry again and beats
Braianiac to death with a car. Running back to the hospital room, the
doctor declares that Lois is dying (though technically dead, they
couldn't say she was dead I don't think). Superman begins to cry and
then kisses Lois on the lips. While this is going on, Superman starts
glowing orange (the color of that antidote) and Lois gets all better. At
this point in time, I was laughing hysterically. Soon, this film would
be over.
Deciding to quit the Daily Planet so he wouldn't put Lois in harms way
anymore, Clark is about to tell Perry of his resignation right as Perry
gets a phone cal. Mr. Mxyzptlk is causing chaos at the docks. Lois jumps
out of her wheel chair, throws off her hospital gown (underneath she's
wearing her blue jacket, skirt and high heels already, which really
didn't bother me, since at this point I long since stopped caring about
this stupid movie) and gets in a taxi to go cover it. Clark has an
epiphany that as long as Lois lives, she'll be in danger anyway, so it's
A-OK for him to stick around! He runs off to the docks to stop Mxy and
the film fades out.
What a pile of horse crap that was.
I wish I could say all of what you just read was fiction. It honest to
God wasn't. It really is as bad as I make it out to be…hell probably
worse. At this point I just want to stop thinking about it. The once
cold Brainiac is now expressing his emotions like Data in Star Trek,
Lex is flailing his arms around like a six year old and Mercy is now a
blonde who giggles like Marilyn Monroe.
The only positive was the sometimes enjoyable animation. The first
fight between Superman and Brainiac was actually pretty enjoyable to
watch with the excessive explosions and Superman getting thrown all
around the place. The Looney Tunes expressions on the characters
faces really killed a lot of the film though. That and Mercy's blonde
hair would randomly become brown in scenes; at first I thought it was
the lighting, but there were times it clearly was brown.
For anyone reading this and thinking I was too hard on the film, keep in
mind I have nothing but respect for the team who worked on this. Curt
Geda is an excellent director and Duane Capizzi is a great writer; this
film was just an unfortunate incident that had to happen due to the
Superman maelstrom that we're going to experience this summer. It is
completely clear this film wasn't made for anyone but children and for a
quick buck to hype Superman Returns.
Between the rubbery animation, shoddy voice recasting and horrible,
horrible, horrible story, I am warning all fans of Superman: The
Animated Series to stay far away from this film. I realize I say the
same about Mystery of the Batwoman, but in retrospect…Batwoman
was about nine thousand times better than Brainiac Attacks.
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