"Superman vs. The Elite" is an animated adaptation of "What's So Funny About Truth, Justice & the American Way?", a comic which made a contrast between the classic morality of more traditional heroes with the actions done by morally ambiguous antiheroes, which question the consequences caused by the decision of Superman to don't kill anybody, not even the worst villains, considering that sometimes this could do more harm than good.
The bad thing is that even with such interesting premise, neither the original comic or this animated movie made a very deep exploration of those themes, and instead of that this movie takes the easy way out of turning The Elite characters into typical villains (instead of the antiheroes that they were supposed to be) in order to make Superman to be automatically right. In other words, what could have been a complex story turns into another predictable battle of good vs. Evil and black and white morality. Superman is right, and the Elite is wrong, there is nothing to question here.
I appreciate the fact that the animated movie tried to add some little shades of gray making The Elite a bit (just a bit) more likable than their original comic counterparts, also showing the collateral damage caused by the decision of Superman of not killing any villain. But that's it, at the end this animation follows the same pattern of the comic, without going any deeper than that.
But at least this had some entertainment value (Though I liked the original comic a bit more: It is true that the story was more simplistic, but at the same more direct, without any of the unnecessary filler material that was added to this animation) Even if at the end this is just a classical "good vs. Evil" story disguised as something more complex,, it does still have some virtues that deserve appreciation, such as a good voice acting, some decent action scenes (Though the animation of this isn't so good as it could have been) and the fact, that despite how deeply flawed this was, at least was something funny to watch.
I guess that this movie has a good point and a correct message, but if somebody think seriously about it, at the end Superman makes the same mistake of the Elite, seeing the things merely in black and white: He is completely right and the others are wrong, even if they have some valid points to make. And in my opinion, that's a bit contradictory.
The bad thing is that even with such interesting premise, neither the original comic or this animated movie made a very deep exploration of those themes, and instead of that this movie takes the easy way out of turning The Elite characters into typical villains (instead of the antiheroes that they were supposed to be) in order to make Superman to be automatically right. In other words, what could have been a complex story turns into another predictable battle of good vs. Evil and black and white morality. Superman is right, and the Elite is wrong, there is nothing to question here.
I appreciate the fact that the animated movie tried to add some little shades of gray making The Elite a bit (just a bit) more likable than their original comic counterparts, also showing the collateral damage caused by the decision of Superman of not killing any villain. But that's it, at the end this animation follows the same pattern of the comic, without going any deeper than that.
But at least this had some entertainment value (Though I liked the original comic a bit more: It is true that the story was more simplistic, but at the same more direct, without any of the unnecessary filler material that was added to this animation) Even if at the end this is just a classical "good vs. Evil" story disguised as something more complex,, it does still have some virtues that deserve appreciation, such as a good voice acting, some decent action scenes (Though the animation of this isn't so good as it could have been) and the fact, that despite how deeply flawed this was, at least was something funny to watch.
I guess that this movie has a good point and a correct message, but if somebody think seriously about it, at the end Superman makes the same mistake of the Elite, seeing the things merely in black and white: He is completely right and the others are wrong, even if they have some valid points to make. And in my opinion, that's a bit contradictory.