Posts
This is a
fun movie with a clever philosophy clash that elevates it above most action
pieces. In it Superman is confronted by
a team of young superheroes who grew up idolizing him. At first Superman works with them, helping to
lead and educate them on how to handle disastrous situations. After several encounters a difference of
methodology begins to take shape.
Superman, being them most powerful hero on Earth does not kill human
opponents, he does not think he has the moral authority to do so being that he
is an alien at that if he did, then he would just be a tyrant rather than a
good Samaritan. The Elite do not have
such restrictions on themselves. They
see terrorists and dictators and violent criminals as targets for violent
dispatching. When the Elite begin
pushing this further and further Superman tries to stop them and ends up in a
full on showdown.
 |
| The movie is based on this comic from the 90's, which in turn was written as a reaction to the very adult "The Authority" |
This is one
of the best Bruce Timm animated productions made since the end of the Justice
League series, the animation has a modified style, the characters each have
their own look and distinct abilities allowing for very diverse and easy to
follow action. The voice acting hits the
same super high standard all of the productions reach, and most importantly it
does try to have the discussion of whether might makes right. And I really think it holds together right up
until the final confrontation and the resolution.
I did not
really get what prompted the Elite to have a showdown in Metropolis. They
could have just said, "Superman, we respect you a great deal, and if you
want to go on saving lives and averting disasters, please do. But we are
not as powerful as you, we feel we have to get down and dirty in order to force
the world to be better. If you don't agree that is fine, but if you try
and stop us, you will actually be helping terrorists and third world dictators
to continue their crimes against humanity. Even if you think our measures
are extreme, you should just step aside. If you think we are about to
turn into the monsters that we hunt, then go ahead and stop us, but right now
all we have done is taken out permanently those who were definitively and
demonstrably evil."
What spurs
the main conflict in the movie is a war between two countries, both of which
have been developing super weapons (giant bug monsters and ray guns) instead of
developing their countries' infrastructure. They go to
war and the civilian casualties are so horrific Superman steps in to try and
halt the violence. Superman is nearly
killed by the highly advanced weapons and the Elite save him by killing a large
number of troops (who had it coming, seriously they tried to kill
Superman). The Elite get admonished by
Kal-El but then go beyond that, the Elite attack and kill the leadership of
both countries and force peaceful capitulation.
Superman is horrified, but the world looks up to the Elite for the
actions they took. Then for no real
reason, the Elite and Superman decide to fight each other to prove who is
right.
And, up
until they started fighting Superman for no real reason, the Elite were right
with what they were doing. You don't win wars through delaying action and
hoping for peace talks, you typically win by inflicting a measure of harm that
keeps the other side from continuing, and in this instance neither side could
do that without costing millions of people their lives.
The battle
is actually really cool too, they teleport to and from the moon, cars are
flying, Superman appears to go crazy and start killing all the Elite. Truth is Superman was illustrating his point,
the whole battle was a big publicity stunt in a way. Superman had complete control of the
situation the whole time, with robots and fail safes so that it could appear
that he was killing the Elite and disregarding the safety of the public so he
could show the world of a superhero just using his powers to dominate
(ruthlessly protect) the world rather than just trying to be helpful. Unfortunately Superman's reasoning is wrong.
 |
| He goes a little nuts. |
Superman
ultimately only wins the argument because he is so powerful that he can prove
his point without actually killing anybody, and that is a luxury that no one
else has. I understand his reasoning, that in general "might makes
right" is a poor philosophy that the Elite are perpetuating, but even
Superman has met beings he would willingly kill: Darksied, Brainiac, and
General Zod are all examples of that. Hell,
in Superman/Batman #5 Batman nearly talks Clark into vaporizing Luthor in the Oval Office. In other words, might makes
right is still the philosophy at work, its just a more soft power approach than
what the Elite ascribed to.
There is
also another point: Superman takes away the Elite's powers at the end of the
movie. I also very much disagree with
Superman taking away the Elite's powers. There was no trial for their
actions. Superman just decides to take their powers. That isn't
okay by his own logic. That is the same as the government taking away
people's freedom to travel or work certain jobs without trial.
What is
more, the movie kind of knows that Superman is wrong, and goes out of its way
to show the Elite as all very Hedonistic loose canons. One of the team members drinks too much,
another is a jealous and temperamental, another is very lusty. The team leader, Manchester is portrayed very
unevenly. As a child Manchester was
homeless and lived with his little sister under a bridge and stole to survive,
when one day they are caught by the police and his sister falls into the path
of an oncoming train Manchester uses his powers for the first time to stop the
train from killing his sister. The
accidental catastrophe which follows is tragic and really informs the
character, who lies to Superman telling him what happened, but not that people
were killed on the train by the untrained force of Manchester's powers. In context of trying to save his sister those
actions are justifiable, but are shown in the movie as indicative of future villainy,
which is really unfair considering he is a child at the time, and probably only
told Superman the lie because he was ashamed of what happened.
So, yeah...
Good movie, I liked it alot, but its message gets really foggy toward the end
as it continued to shave of the depth and complexity of the argument in favor
of a very paternalistic Superman being right because he is so powerful you
can't disagree with him. I give it a 7
out of 10.
(This review was spurned into existence mostly in reaction to this video, by Solkir, on the Agony Booth)
No comments:
Post a Comment