Superman Batman Apocalypse

Plot

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Weeks after the events that led to Lex Luthor's arrest, the impeachment of his presidency, and Batman's success in saving the world from the impact of an arriving meteor, a spaceship lands in Gotham City Harbor. While Batman investigates the sunken craft, a young girl with no knowledge of English or any other human languages emerges from the water naked and accidentally crashes Batman's boat.

Three longshoremen find her where she attacks two of them in self-defense while the third one just gives up his coat to her in order for her to cover up. She accidentally causes all sorts of havoc with her Kryptonian-like powers until the Dark Knight exposes her to a piece of Kryptonite while Superman gives the blimp that she unknowingly used her heat vision on a water landing.

With Superman's help, they discover that the girl is Kara Zor-El, the niece of Jor-El and Superman's biological cousin. While Superman welcomes Kara, teaches her English, and helps her adjust to Earth society, Batman remains suspicious. Tipped off by Batman, Wonder Woman and Lyla ambush Clark Kent and Kara in a park and take Kara to Themyscira, on the basis that only there can she learn to control her powers. Superman reluctantly agrees, but still prefers to watch to Kara himself.

Meanwhile, on the planet Apokolips, Darkseid learns of Kara's presence on Earth, and orders Granny Goodness to have her brought to Apokolips as a possible candidate to lead the Female Furies since the departure ofBig Barda and the warrior Treasure being a failed candidate.While Batman and Superman are checking on Kara on Themyscira, Kara was paired up in her training against Artemis. While Kara and Lyla later sneak away for a swim, a horde of Doomsday clones arrive from Apokolips. Superman, Wonder Woman and the Amazonian army fight them for a while until Superman vaporizes all of them with a single blast of his heat vision, but Batman discovers that Kara is missing, and that Darkseid’s Omega Beams have killed Lyla (while trying to prevent Kara's abduction).

Distraught, Superman vows to avenge her and save Kara. Batman, Superman and Wonder Woman locate and recruit Big Barda to help them find their way on Apokolips. Once there, Superman tears his way to Darkseid's palace while Wonder Woman and Barda go through the sewers directly into the fighting arena, where Granny Goodness and the Female Furies ambush them. After a long fight, Granny and the Furies are subdued. Batman, meanwhile, makes his way underground and finds the Hell Spores, the source of the fire pits on Apokolips, and activates them.

Superman encounters Darkseid, who sets the brainwashed Kara on him. Kara pummels Superman while Darkseid watches, until Batman confronts Darkseid and informs him that he has activated the Hell Spores, all of which will destroy Apokolips. He issues Darkseid an ultimatum: free Kara and promise to leave her alone and Batman will deactivate the Spores. Intrigued, Darkseid admits his admiration for Batman's tactics. Acknowledging that neither Superman nor Wonder Woman has the "strength of character" to destroy an entire planet, Darkseid relents. Superman manages to defeat Kara, and Barda and Wonder Woman present Darkseid with the subdued Granny. Defeated, Darkseid allows them to leave Apokolips. Back on Themyscira, a funeral is held for Lyla as Kara pays her respects.

With their lives normal again, Clark decides to take Kara to meet his adoptive parents in Smallville. However, Darkseid, who was waiting to kill Superman, ambushes them: he had promised to leave Kara alone, but not Superman or Earth. Darkseid’s Omega Beams blast Superman into orbit, leaving Kara to face the tyrant herself. A lengthy battle ensues with Kara (having received both Amazonian and Apokoliptian training) putting up a respectable fight, but Darkseid eventually overpowers her. Superman recovers and returns to Earth to confront Darkseid again.

He gains the upper hand and pummels Darkseid using a combination of punches and heat vision at super speed. Darkseid grabs Superman and begins attacking him with Omega Beams. As Superman's skin starts to glow red hot from the assault, Kara uses Darkseid's Mother Box to activate a Boom Tube behind Darkseid. Superman uses the momentary distraction to his advantage and pushes Darkseid through. While Superman anticipates Darkseid's eventual return from Apokolips, Kara informs him that she changed the coordinates to a random spot in space, leaving Darkseid floating around frozen in ice.

Having saved her cousin's life and found her place on Earth, Kara decides to use her powers to fight for altruism under the alias of Supergirl. She is met with applause by Wonder Woman, the Amazons, and, finally, Batman. Superman and Supergirl then fly off to.

Darkseid, seeking a new leader for his honor guard of Female Furies, kidnaps and brainwashes Kara, forcing Batman, Superman, Wonder Woman and defected ex-Furies leader Big Barda to go to Apokolips on a rescue mission. But the focus is less on the story and more on merely presenting the scenes in the right order, and the end result is a poorly paced plot filled with brief scenes that serve no purpose except to transport the character to the next major set piece. Characters act in order to move the plot to the next place that the writer says it’s supposed to go, not because those actions are consistent with who they are. They don’t so much develop as say things like “I’m glad we’re such good friends” to signify that they are now friends with each other.

There are so many characters in the movie and constant cuts back and forth between what’s going on with Superman, Batman and Wonder Woman that each narrative thread fails to keep up any dramatic tension, because we’re only seeing it for what feels like fifteen seconds at a time. Viewers thoroughly versed in the characters will probably enjoy the cameos, and they’re the main target audience, but viewers without that background knowledge will come away confused. Other recent DC animated films adapted from a single source have done a far better job making the story accessible.

In case it’s not yet clear, the writing is the movie’s worst offense. Writer Tab Murphy was nominated for an Academy Award in 1989 for his script of the bio pic “Gorillas in the Mist” and also has writing credits on other animated features, including “The Hunchback of Notre Dame,” “Tarzan” and “Brother Bear.” But his screenplay here was either heavily cut down to the absolute bare bones from the original draft or else he gave up about a third of the way through and just copied and pasted lines from the Big Book of Action Movie Stock Dialogue.

The interplay between Superman and Batman is well done when the pair first discover Kara, but once the story moves to Themyscira everything starts to unravel. My biggest problem is the casual treatment of Superman, Batman, Wonder Woman and Big Barda being entirely cool with killing people. Their attitude towards takinga life is one of the few traits about these characters I’m not all right with changing to suit someone else’s interpretation, and even that’s inconsistent. At one point Big Barda kills one of the Furies to save Wonder Woman’s life and she’s thanked. Then a minute later Wonder Woman’s lecturing her about killing, and is not cool when Barda’s about to kill someone else.

And then there’s the part that a major plot point revolves around Darkseid being convinced that Batman — and only Batman — would be willing to destroy the entire planet of Apokolips to stop him, because Batman, unlike Superman or Wonder Woman, is a human and humans kill their own kind. Except that this is Batman we’re talking about, and for that to make sense it would have to be completely against everything we know about him. And even though this is another scene lifted word for word right from the comic I still can’t believe it and hearing those lines spoken out loud make it sound worse.

I would also be remiss if I did not mention the abomination that is the five minute shopping montage. You see, when Supergirl is first brought to Metropolis she asks Superman to teach her how to be a real Earth girl. And so obviously the first place he takes her is the mall, where her natural female instincts take over and she has the time of her life trying on shoes and clothes while he sits around looking out of his element. Now, first, there’s the fact that I’m not sure the target audience for the movie is going to enjoy this.

Main Cast

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Kevin Conroy as Bruce Wayne / Batman

Tim Daly as Clark Kent / Superman

Summer Glau as Kara Zor-El / Supergirl

Andre Braugher as Darkseid

Susan Eisenberg as Diana Prince / Wonder Woman

Julianne Grossman as Big Barda

Edward Asner as Granny Goodness

Rachel Quaintance as Harbinger / Lyla Michaels, Artemis (uncredited)

Salli Saffioti as Gilotina, Mad Harriet (uncredited)

Andrea Romano as Stompa, News Anchor Vicki Vale (uncredited)