Quick Review: Superman- Red Son

On a whim, I decided to spend $1.80 to finally see this recent DC Release.  Was my big purchase worth it?  Let's see...

In this Elseworlds (it is, but it isn't) tale, we see what would have happened if Superman's rocket had crashed in Soviet Russia in the 1940s.

' In Soviet Russia?'  Can I get sued for copyright infringement by Yakov Smirnoff if I use that expression?

His rise to prominence comes during the Cold War, which I guess happens exactly the same in a World full of Superheroes.  Go figure.

A 'good' Luthor makes his own Superman for America!

As time goes on and the conflict increases, Superman finds kinship with Wonder Woman, who is just an Ambassador in this story.

Will DC shoehorn a romance between them again or are they over that?

However, thing will get even more tense as a challenger arises from within the USSR- Batman.

Does Soviet Batman throw sickles instead of Batarangs in this one?
Nope, he's basically the equivalent of 1980s Osama Bin Laden.

Can there be peace between East and West with a literal Superman in charge of one side?

To find out, rent/stream the Film.

A good attempt at handling a complex narrative on a number of levels.  The pitch for this story is simple- what if Superman fought for Russia?  It could be simple if they just left it at that.  Instead, they- and the Comic Book- try to tackle alot of things that maybe they just quite can't.  Can Superman stay a good guy when running a Country so rooted in corruption?  Can Luthor be a good guy when fighting against them, even as he makes many dangerous choices.  Can Batman be opposed to Superman without being a terrorist?  Can Wonder Woman walk the proverbial tight-rope as a Mediator and neutral party?  If they could have done a good job with all of these ideas, this would be a really great Film.  As it is, they don't quite do that.  They get an A for Effort, but maybe a C+ for Execution.  Superman- thanks to some time jumps- loses his morality quite a bit, even while doing speeches about how moral he is.  Luthor does very bad things in his efforts to stop Superman and is rebuked by Lois...but then time jumps undo all of it.  Batman is just a straight-up terrorist here and never gets the chance to be more nuanced.  He basically just become a worse copy of V from V for Vendetta.  Wonder Woman basically just keeps saying that 'men are bad' (which they are, to be fair, in this story) and never does much more than lecture people to stop the events from happening.  Without going into SPOILERS, I will also say that they make sure to give Superman a bit of an out here, which is a shame.  Make him a good person that goes bad before giving him a realistic redemption arc- just not this.  Speaking (vaguely) of that, the Film is notable for Casting the great Paul Williams as Brainiac (seen above).  I have to mention that since he's so enigmatic that someone once made a Film about how they released he was still alive...and that was 9 years ago!

A good, if heavy-handed and kind of muddled Film.  There is clearly a good idea here, but they don't quite commit to making it work overall.