Avoid at All Costs

I have never wasted an entire day in such a complete and thorough way before. Was Stonekeep suppose to be as nightmarish as it was? If so mission accomplished. Having woken from that dream I may never chance going back to sleep again. But more thoughts on that horrendous descent into Interplay's monstrous desecration later.

For now, I'm only going to shout out a brief warning for any Superman/Batman fans: Superman/Batman Apocalypse should be avoided like the plague. I should have known better, but starving for some kind of animated superhero action I loaded it into my Netflix instant watch queue and let train wreck unfold.

I'm not familiar with the 6 issue run the movie is associated with. So if you think that's important for me to appreciate it, please discount anything I say.

The two biggest shortcomings were its story and Darkseid's voice, Andre Braugher (I have nothing against the man, he may be great in other stuff, but he, or at least how he was directed, was...well...he's just no Darkseid unfortunately).

Braugher's lines were rushed and about as ominous as a pile of dirty socks. From his delivery it sounded like Darkseid wasn't even interested in his plot to enslave super G, or maybe he was just talking so fast so as not to prolong the horror...oh the horror.

And what of the story? Surely I can't blame the movie's story if it's constrained by the source material. I mean it's based on a graphic novel for hell's sake. Well my feeling is they make so few animated superhero features, that of all the available source material to pull on there were at least ten other titles off the top of my head more deserving. Or come up with your own god damn story. I mean the animation was beautiful for the most part, having come a long way since Mask of the Phantasm, a gem from my boyhood of which I will never let go. Even if Batman's face was hanging low, wobbling to and fro, and I'm not by any means a fan of the anime-lite style, the overall quality was great and executed with deft skill.

By now I should preface that I fell asleep 2/3rds the way through this flick. So strike two against me if you once again wish to ignore my caustic rant. Me falling asleep however is strike three against the movie, after Braugher and the story (Batman's rendering rolls in at more of foul tip).

In the end this movie is no Red Hood, whose awesomeness gave me great hope for a fresh start in DC animated features, but alas this is, for the time being, not the case.

Avoid it like the plague my friends.