Justice League: Doom

I watched this movie with my husband, who is determined to get me to like DC characters and stories. For some reason he seems determined that because I like Marvel comic books and comic book characters I should like DC comic book characters. However, I feel that DC overpowers their characters, and doesn't make them likable. I mean, come on, they have a character that the way to kill her is to make her think she's still in a fight she can't give up? It's stupid.

This movie is about a supervillain who collects a group of people who hate the Justice League and then pays them to follow Batman's plan to neutralize his friends. Although Batman made the plans to neutralize the Justice League, he also had plans to neutralize his own plans. Thus there really wasn't any stress to the movie. Once Batman managed to punch his way out of his parents' grave, he had the plan to fix everyone else's problem.

The movie expected you to already know who everyone was. The closest to an introduction you got to the bad guys was that they all wanted an individual Justice Leaguer dead. I guess it would have been too much for a short movie to explain, but it did seem like it required a little more explanation of who the characters were and what their super powers are.

Overall, I alternated between bored and confused. What was this chemical the Martian character was sweating out? Why did he or I care? Why are they all afraid of solar flares? Don't we get those every day and find them harmless? Yet the bad guy's plan is to cause them? Why did Green Lantern just put down his ring and cry?

I have to give it an F.

All-Star Superman

My husband wanted me to watch this movie because I have been really getting into Marvel comic book movies but haven't enjoyed DC as much. He thought this would be perfect because it makes fun of the exact aspect of Superman that I always hate, namely that he is so over powered it becomes laughable. This movie plays off of that by having every stupidly super powered thing that happens to him over a few years of comics happen all at once in about 2 hours. My husband also thought I needed a better appreciation for Lex Luthor in order to understand comic books.

This movie follows the last days of Superman as he dies following too much solar radiation. He gives Lois Lane super powers for 24 hours, and then Lex Luthor gets arrested, escapes from prison by taking the same serum that made Lois Lane into Super Woman, has an epiphany thanks to seeing the world as Superman does, and on death row, comes to terms with Superman. Superman, meanwhile, becomes converted into pure energy at exactly the same time as the sun is dying and needs to be relit, so he goes on to become the sun.

While I understand that the movie was kind of making fun of this phenomenon, all it really did was annoy me because all of the things that happened in this movie did happen in the comics at one time or another. It just highlighted how overpowered Superman is, and how much I don't like him.

Maybe you needed more background information to appreciate it. I know that the opening scene would have confused me completely if I hadn't seen the newest Superman movie in the theaters. It provided no information and just expected you to understand what they were talking about with vague scenes related to the death of Krypton. Then, he tells Lois Lane that he's Superman, and she doesn't believe him. I guess there's background here, because it's vaguely referenced, but it just seemed random.

This movie is really for the fans. It's not meant to bring anyone else into the Superman fandom. It expects you to know Superman. Since I don't know Superman, it left me frustrated, and feeling like it was just a movie about an overpowered super hero I couldn't relate to.

Overall, I give it a B-.