Superman: Red Son

The animation was emotionless, the story was forced into a mere 84 minutes. The source material was so rich, so brilliant, that I couldn't believe I was witnessing this dumpster fire. The motives and character didn't come through, simply due to lack of time, and just bad dialogues. The final punchline, for example, was ruined by the verbosity. A TV Series could have done the material justice, because novels are best approximated by series and movies follow the structure of short stories more closely. Brilliant story, ruined by bad adaptation, I recommend people to try the graphic novel instead, and not to think of the novel lowly due to this movie.

I could have been a little biased because I've read the source material. I'm sorry, if that has colored my judgement.

Okay, silly headline out of the way, this could have been great, but instead, it turned into the usual America-good-Russia-bad oversimplification that's been going on and off for the last few decades. Promising start, but it was quickly undermined by poor dialogue, so-so animation--and it felt and looked rushed, cramming the source material into 84 minutes or so--and characters you couldn't really care about.

I get the twist on the usual DC characters--Batman, Green Lantern, and Wonder Woman--in this universe, but they weren't the least bit likeable. The voice acting was good, but if they'd had lines that mattered, it would have been more enjoyable.

Bottom line: read the graphic novel, or see the motion comic on other social sites. That's infinitely better than this version. DC usually puts out tremendous animated movies. Justice League: Dark, Gods and Monsters, Wonder Woman, and others are far superior examples of animation. This one isn't. It isn't a total disaster, but it could have been something great.

The comic of Superman: Red Son, despite its various "comical" moments, is one of the most exquisite DC story in recent history. The animated version, however, didn't thoroughly delivered even half the charm of its source material. In the comic, its writing was clever yet satisfying. They were reduced into uninspiring small talks and some were even cut off in the animated version. For those who seeks a new, light-hearted experience from an elseworld story, Superman: Red Son can provide you with an exciting premise, nothing more. I would love to recommend the comic to everyone, not this animated version.

Overall the movie was entertaining and it kept the most important plot points of the graphic novel as well as its essential meaning. In certain aspects it lacks the depth of the source material e.g. the rivalry between Superman and Luthor does not feel like the intense chess game it originally was and the way Superman's reign affects the citizens of the Soviet Union is depicted even less detailed. There were also some interesting differences in the movie that provided a bit of a surprise element and sometimes even more nuance.

However, Hollywood's tendency in recent years to shoehorn social justice messages into every kind of fiction has also marred my viewing experience with this movie. Most evidently Wonder Woman's character was totally changed and ultimately ruined to score some cheap PC points. She is not really a character in this movie but a mouthpiece for blatant, in your face feminist propaganda combined with shallow and superficial man-bashing. The men are mostly portrayed as warmongers, some of them crude, some of them insidious, who destroy the planet whereas the few women in this movie are basically flawless, stunning and brave human beings who care for mankind and Mother Earth. Oh yeah, and Wonder Woman is of course stronger than Superman and a lesbian. My eyes hurt from rolling them so many times throughout the movie.

When will Hollywood learn that this kind of clumsy and frankly insulting inclusion of "progressive" messages into a comic book adaptation undermines the very effect it was supposed to have? It does not open people's minds towards social justice, on the contrary, it turns people off and makes them weary. As a liberal myself, I often find myself more and more drawn to conservative points of view because of movies like this.

Superman red son was a film that had a lot of potential to showcase interesting story but it failed big in delivering that to us,lets start with accents which everyone ones was bad and hard to listen to,also this film has a lot of political messages that doesnt fit inside of this story and they just felt like they were pushed in our faces to accept them and not to dare to doubt them,lets not forget that wonder woman is annoying as hell in this film with hers female power speeches that felt out of place,and just repeating them over and over again was tiresome and useless in every way,superman red son is wasted potential that failed in every important aspect of film