DC Animated Superhero Retrospective Series - Superman: Unbound (2013)

Written In February 2014

One Word:

And I mean it, this movie is perfect. It is not flawless, but it is PERFECT!

DC, you know that Jay Olivia guy you just had me review? And who I’m gonna review two more times?

Yeah him. Delete his number, block it from your phones, take him off your email contacts, and block him there, unfriend and block him on Facebook, and unfollow and block him on Tumblr and Twitter. Now James Tucker, the man I’m reviewing right now?

Yes him. Give him another job! He’s not only directed the best animated superman you’ve made so far- Wait what?

Smart thinking DC! Smart thinking!

Plot Summary Taken From Wikipedia:

Offering herself as a hostage, Lois Lane is caught in an aerial confrontation between her terrorist captors and the unpredictable Supergirl before Superman arrives to save the day. Soon after, knowing Superman’s civilian identity, Lois attempts to get Clark Kent to make their relationship public despite his fear of the consequences, but their argument is halted by a Daily Planet staff meeting before Kent leaves when they are being alerted to a meteor. Intercepting it, Superman learns the meteor to be a robot and that he promptly defeats before activating its beacon and taking it to the Fortress of Solitude. With help from a fear-filled Supergirl, Superman learns the robot is actually a drone controlled by a being named Brainiac, a cyborg who was originally a Coluan scientist who subjected himself to extensive cybernetic and genetic enhancements. As Supergirl reveals from her experience with the monster, Brainiac seized and miniaturized Krypton’s capital city of Kandor prior to the planet’s destruction with her father and mother attempting to track him down before they mysteriously lost contact with Krypton.

Fearing more drones would come, Superman goes flying all through the galaxy in an attempt to track down Brainiac before finding his drones attacking a planet. Though he attempted to stop them, Superman witnesses Brainiac capture the planet’s capital like he did with Kandor before firing a Solar Aggressor missile to have the planet be consumed by the exploding sun. The explosion knocks Superman unconscious and he is brought upon Brainiac’s ship, coming to in the examination room and fighting his way through the vessel before he discovers a room full of bottled cities prior to being attacked by Brainiac. At this point, confirming that he spared Krypton because of its eventual destruction, Brainiac reveals that he has been collecting information of all the planets he visited before destroying them. Using Superman’s spacecraft, Brainiac decides to chart a course to Earth while sending Superman into Kandor. Inside Kandor, his strength waning due to the artificial red sun, Superman meets his uncle Zor-El and aunt Alura. After spending time with them, Superman formulates a plan and escapes Kandor using the subjugator robots. From there, Superman disables Brainiac’s ship and spirits Kandor to Earth. At that time, Lois learns from Supergirl of why Superman left and alerts the Pentagon for a possible invasion by Brainiac as he eventually repaired his ship and arrives to Metropolis.

Despite everyone, including Supergirl, doing their best to fend his drones off, Metropolis is encased in a bottle and both Superman and Supergirl are captured. Having hooked Superman up to his ship, revealing that Earth offers nothing to him, Brainiac tortures Superman to obtain Kandor before destroying the planet. However, telling his captor what Earth means to him, Superman breaks free and then frees Supergirl and convinces her to stop the Solar-Aggressor from hitting the sun. Remembering Zor-El’s words about Brainiac’s ideals, Superman knocks him out of the ship and they crash into a swamp. As he fights Braniac, Superman forces the cyborg to experience bacteria and micro-organisms among the various chaoses outside his artificial environments he created. Eventually, the combined mental and physical strain reaches its toll on Brainiac as he combusts and is reduced to ash and molten machinery. After restoring Metropolis, taking Kandor to another planet to restore it to its normal size to establish a Kryptonian colony, Superman makes his love life with Lois as Kent public with a marriage proposal. However, placed in the Fortress of Solitude, Brainiac’s remains are still active.

There’s two moments in this movie that reminded me of something else, one where Kara expresses fears and doubts about her and Clark facing Brainiac, and Clark tells her that she has powers and she can fight back this time. This reminded me of a quote from Raliegh at the beginning of Pacific Rim. He’s basically talking about how being instead a jaeger is fucking awesome, saying 

“There are things you can’t fight - acts of God. You see a hurricane coming, you get out of the way. But when you’re in a Jaeger, suddenly, you can fight the hurricane. You can win!”

I really liked this moment for that because it really sends home the fact that Kara’s aggression throughout the film was due to Brainiac coming in and fucking shit up basically. Another moment I dug was during the final fight between Clark and Brainiac when Brainiac was taking every in and didn’t know how to process it. It reminded me of the moment in Man of Steel busts open Zod’s… Helmet I guess? And Zod is just wide eyed taking in the atmospheric differences between earth and krypton and also new found abilities in regard to his senses. He can suddenly see through his own hand and hear all the chaos he and Clark had just caused. Now a lot of folks complain about how Clark spent the better part of his life getting used to his powers while Zod took at most a good 24 hours adapt to them. Well let’s think about that. Clark was an infant when he first arrived on earth and had no idea why he had these powers, where they came from, and knew no one at all that had them as well. Zod was a battle hardened general, a MILITARY leader, guys like him go into places with extremely harsh conditions ALL THE TIME, and on top of that he’s spent several years involved in military action ON OTHER PLANETS, plus he’s aware of how and why this is happening, he knows that this is normal for a Kryptonian on Earth. It’s not going to take extremely long for him. And then there’s Brainiac, he’s part man and part machine, who has not set foot outside his ship for multiple millenniums! There is no way in hell this guy could adapt at all.

But enough about other movies I love, let’s talk about why I loved this particular movie.

PROS:

• Matt Bomer as Superman/Clark Kent.
  
  
  
  He’s okay I guess. (also I would’ve added something for non-binary folks, but I couldn’t find a GIF for you guys, sorry!)
• I don’t watch a lot of Castle, but I LOVED Stana Katic as Lois Lane! Actually, I just plain loved this Lois Lane! Look at this GIF
  
  She and the rest of Metropolis have been miniaturized in that scene and she’s flipping of fucking BRAINIAC! I repeat, she’s flipping off BRAINIAC!!!!!!
• Molly Quinn, who plays Richard Castle’s daughter alongside Stana, who plays his on again off again lady friend, does a terrific job as Supergirl!
• John Noble as Brainiac. 
  So much better than what’s his face from Brainiac Attacks.
• Diedrich Bader plays a great misogynistic asshat in this movie as Steve Lombard, the guy who always picks on Clark and flirts with Lois to ill effect.
• Wade Williams as Perry White…  I love this guy!
• The Lois and Clark dynamic and the Supergirl and Superman dynamic are spot on in this movie, I think this might just be the best I’ve seen them in animation, not even barring TAS! It’s that good!
• This movie was based on a comic by Geoff Johns, that makes me want to read some of Geoff’s other work!
• Another one of my favorite scenes in this movie, is when Clark is on Kandor, and he gets to sit down and have a meal with his aunt and uncle from Krypton. And he expresses delight and amazement at the fact that he’s actually getting to sit down, talk to, and enjoy ACTUAL Kryptonian food with his ACTUAL Kryptonian family! That is fucking fantastic!
• I haven’t watched the show in a while, but I used to be a big fan of White Collar, so I kinda know what Matt Bomer sounds like. Here though, I can’t tell it’s him. All I hear is SUPERMAN! Which makes me kinda sad, he was at one point considered for MOS and Superman Returns, along with some other Superman films that never quite got off the ground. I liked Brandon Routh, and I love Henry Cavill, but I really would’ve like to see this guy play Superman! Shame we likely won’t then.
• On the brighter side, I love that Clark and Lois have ACTUAL couple problems that would ACTUALLY come from being a superhero with a secret identiy and having a significant other who is essentially, a normal being. Might be a tad insulting for a woman like Lois, to call her “normal” but you get my point.
• Clark asks Lois to marry him and she says yes. Everybody go home, we’ve got the perfect animated Superman movie, arguably the best one Superman movie period.

CONS:

• The only real con I can think of, but there’s a scene where Superman is on Brainiac’s ship, and after temporarily incapacitating him he take’s Kandor and hits the road. I get why he’d take Kandor specifically, but why didn’t he try to save some of the other cities? 

All in, this movie was a pure delight, and I enjoyed almost every second of it. I’m going to Superman: Unbound a 9 out of 10! Yep, it’s that good!