Tuesday, September 8, 2020

Superman: Man of Tomorrow

7/10

Superman: Man of Tomorrow is about Clark Kent/Superman (voiced by Glee/American Crime Story season 2's Darren Criss), brand new in Metropolis and trying to figure out whether he should reveal his abilities to the world. I found this to be one of DC's better animated movies.

Yeah, this isn't the first Superman origin story ever told or him feeling like an outsider and trying to find his place in the world, but to its credit, this is the first time I've seen it done as feature animation. The script does a decent job of exploring the character of Clark and his fears of the world distrusting an outsider. In fact, this includes one of the best gosh-darn-likable Clark's. Heck, this includes some of the better depictions of Lois Lane (Percy Jackson's Alexandra Daddario), Ma and Pa Kent (Bellamy Young and Scrubs/The Middle's Neil Flynn), Lex Luthor (Stare Trek/Heroes' Zachary Quinto), and other Superman/DC characters. 

There are reasons I didn't rate this higher. Not every story decision worked for me. Some things seemed to happen just because the writer wanted them to happen regardless of whether they were natural. Superman has a big speech in this that is supposed to be persuasive but comes off as schmaltzy. Also, the movie felt a little too tragic and morbid with the villain Parasite (Agent of Shield's Brett Dalton). His depressing, dark storyline seemed to be at odds with the more hopeful, upbeat feel of Superman's.   

The whole things looks great. I felt that a lot of DC animated character designs, especially recently, have been so-so. Here, some sort of new process is used giving the characters a more rotoscope-type appearance. They just feel a little more detailed than a lot of character designs today. Although I miss the old-school original humanoid appearance of the Parasite and haven't been a big fan of the comics making him look more like a parasitic creature these days, I admit that this particular monstrous design is pretty good, especially his weird feet.   

Overall, I think any DC animation or Superman fan will like this.

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