Now I come to the weirdest outlier. This one was the last DC Animated movie before the “adult” movies began. Is it just for kids or a worthy time?

Superman: Brainiac Attacks (2006, 75 minutes)

Plot: Brainiac and Lex Luthor unite to destroy Superman. Ok, it’s not densely plotted.

Source Material: This is basically the DCAU except out of canon with roles recast. The designs are DCAU designs and it’s from veterans of that world. But really this is the tie-in to Superman Returns, released at the same time but for kids.

Animation: I’m having a lot of luck in what I selected for this run because this is a really great looking film. Very clean, expressive character designs. Animation is fluid. Colors are rich. And the action…yeah the action kills. This is a blast to look at on a big tv.

Script: For two acts, this felt majorly like a real movie. There’s nice subplot work throughout. Character work crackles. Dialogue is often funny. It’s well paced. Sadly the last 20 minutes are a bit of a slugfest and undo any development. But honestly that’s a very minor gripe. This held me hard.

Voice Acting: Tim Daly and Dana Delany return from the animated series and are awesome as always. Love them in these roles. The late, awesome as his name Powers Boothe steps in for Clancy Brown and delivers a sillier but still wonderful Lex Luthor. Lance Henriksen is Brainiac so I’m not even bothering with reviewing that. Just…Bishop is Brainiac and it’s as great as it sounds. Also have to praise voice acting goddess Tara Strong for getting to play different notes than usual as the seductive Mercy Graves and tearing it up.

Final Verdict: I avoided this one on the first go around because I’d heard it wasn’t all that hot. My bad. 4/5 easily, only muting a bit because it’s not the densest plot. Had I seen this as a Saturday matinee though I would’ve gotten my money’s worth and more. This is a hell of a lot of fun.