The most interesting DVD releases this week feature superheroes—All-Star Superman is the most ambitious Direct-to-DVD DC Comics animated feature yet, and Megamind is a clever CGI feature that gleefully plays with all the conventional elements of a superhero saga. But there are other key new discs including Todd Phillips’ follow-up to The Hangover, a raft of anime Blu-rays, and a “Best-Of” Invader Zim collection, which if it sells well enough, might convince Nickelodeon to bring the series back.

 

 

All-Star Superman (Warner Bros.,"PG-13," $19.98, BD $24.98), which adapts the 12-issue series by Grant Morrison and Frank Quitely, is the most ambitious DC Direct-to DVD animated feature yet. The All-Star Superman comics each told a self-contained story, but also contributed to the overall narrative in which Superman has to come to terms with his own mortality. It was just impossible to squeeze a dozen mini-narratives into a 76-minute film, and several key parts of the All-Star Superman saga including Superman’s descent into Bizarro World and the very affecting sequence in which he prevents a teenage girl from committing suicide were left out entirely. Other story elements were condensed and the result is a very disjointed and excessively episodic narrative structure.

 

It is clear that All-Star Superman would have been better served if it had been adapted into an animated mini-series that mirrored the narrative pattern of the comic book, but enough of the high concept elements of the All-Star Superman comic book series survive to make this one of the most interesting of all the DC Animated features and a “must have” for all Superman fans. Yes, reading the All-Star Superman saga in its graphic novel form is better than watching the film, which has particular problems with the more fantastical elements of Superman mythos that it brings back from the character’s long history, but the movie is good enough that it may well create interest in the original comic book series. The Blu-ray edition of All-Star Superman not only contains a superb hi-def copy of the animated feature, it also has a full complement of extras including a digital comics version of All-Star Superman #1 that should make anyone who reads it after watching the movie want to read the entire All-Star Superman saga. In fact sales of the All-Star Superman graphic novel should increase in the wake of the release of the animated adaptation.

 

Director Tony Liu does a generally good job of rendering Quitely’s iconic art style into animation.  The movie has the “look” of the original comics. The vocal cast is also very effective especially Anthony LaPaglia as Lex Luthor, Ed Asner as Perry White, and Christina Hendricks as a feisty and playful Lois Lane. All-Star Superman humanizes the Man of Steel and presents the most laid back version of “Big Blue” ever created. Purists may resist this fundamental change in the makeup of the comics’ original superhero, but others will find it refreshing and consider this contemporary take on the character the best aspect of All-Star Superman. Certainly James Denton manages to bring these human qualities to life in a subtle, non-flashy vocal performance. 

All-Star Superman is at its best when it chronicles the saga’s key relationships, between Superman and Lois, and Clark Kent and Lex Luthor. It is least effective when it is trying to cram a majority of the events from the saga’s myth-inspired “12 labors of Superman” storyline in to 76 minutes. There is a definite Joseph C. Campbell-like appreciation of the power of myth (especially in the way death affects mythological heroes) in All-Star Superman, and a good deal of it manages to make its way from the comic book series to the animated adaptation, which despite its flaws, remains  not only the most ambitious, but also the most consistently interesting DC animated movie to date.

 

The extras on the Blu-ray are quite good though sadly there is no short feature (the animated shorts included with previous DC animated features were superb). “Superman Now” is a well-produced 35-minute documentary that focuses on All-Star Superman creator Grant Morrison and DC EIC Dan Didio. The discussion of the creation of All-Star Superman continues in another featurette, “The Creative Flow,” in which Morrison discusses the gestation and creation of All-Star Superman. Other extras include a look at the next DC Animated Feature, Green Lantern: Emerald Knights and two episodes of the 1990s cartoon Superman: The Animated Series chosen by Bruce Timm.

 

 

The top theatrical release is also a superhero-themed animated feature, but Megamind (Paramount, “PG,” $29.99, BD $49.99) is not based on a comic book, rather it takes some familiar superhero tropes and stands them on their head. Supervillain Megamind, voiced by Will Ferrell, is locked in a never-ending battle with the superhero Metro Man (Brad Pitt), which ends quite unexpectedly with the apparent destruction of the “good guy” leaving Megamind adrift until he decides to restore the balance of good and evil by creating his own nemesis. Megamind was released theatrically in 3D, but looks just fine on DVD (very few contemporary 3D films actually use the added depth creatively enough to suffer when released conventionally). Not all the gags work, but Megamind was effective enough to earn a solid 72% positive rating on Rotten Tomatoes.

Due Date (Warner Bros., “R,” $28.98, BD $35.99), Todd Phillip’s follow-up to The Hangover is a raunchy road movie that pairs two rather obnoxious characters, an uptight father-to-be played by Robert Downey, Jr., and a whacked-out slacker incarnated by Zack Galifiankis, who reprises his crazy man role from The Hangover. The comedy in Due Date is as broad as a Kansas cornfield and its debt to better films like Planes, Trains, & Automobiles is obvious. But Due Date definitely has a lot funny moments, which makes it better than 90% of the film comedies that have come out in the past few years. Like The Hangover, this movie is not recommended for the excessively genteel or for those burdened with too much taste, though others will find it amusing.

Leaving (MPI, Not Rated, $24.98) is a French Film (Partir is its real title) directed by Catherine Corsini. It stars Kristin Scott Thomas as a 40-something doctor’s wife who falls in love with the Spanish ex-con handyman hired to construct her studio. This saga of “amour fou” in which a woman gives up everything for love is more Anna Karenina than Madame Bovary, and found more favor with critics (72% positive on RT) than with audiences, but for those who appreciate the often brilliant work of  Kristin Scott Thomas, one of the few actors who is equally good speaking French or English, this is not to be missed.

Get Low (Sony, “PG-13,” $28.95, BD $38.96) is a quirky, depression-era comedy based on a true story about a hermit, who, after living like a recluse for 40 years, commissions his own funeral and attends his own wake. Get Low is a movie for those who appreciate screen acting. Robert Duvall gives another subtle skillful performance that is brought into higher relief by the showier work of Bill Murray as the local mortician. Not a lot happens in Get Low, and even though it’s all about “death,” it’s definitely not a black comedy, but something slighter and yet more difficult to pull off—a comedy built on character and whimsy.