REVIEW BY: Matt Galvin

I got a chance to attend the Superman/Batman: Apocalypse and see the film early. I want to first make clear that I am a huge fan of these straight to DVD animated films because I was a huge fan of Bruce Tim's animated universe. I have bought every one of these films on blu-ray (using Amazon prime) because of the awesome shorts included and great bonus material (seriously they had a 2 hour documentary on Robin for Under the Red Hood). I pre-order one whenever a new one is announced. I already purchased this film and I look forward to watching the Green Arrow short and all the great bonus material when I get mine in the mail in 2 weeks.

When they announced that Superman/Batman: Public Enemies had been the highest grossing DC Animated film yet, and that another Superman/Batman film was to be quickly put into production, I was a tad disappointed.

While Public Enemies was defiantly better than Superman: Doomsday, maybe tied with Justice League: the New frontier...Public Enemies to me wasn't as good as Green Lantern or Wonder Woman (which I thought was the best at this point).

But at that point, I was a tad disappointed in these animated films. They just weren't as high quality to me as what Bruce Timm and Paul Dini had done before. I felt they lacked real depth and focused too much on the action over the story.

Luckily, Justice League: Crisis on Two Earths came out and blew me away. I thought it was the best out of the animated films so far, mostly because of Dwayne McDuffie's great story writing and character work. It also was awesome that it bridged the gap between Justice league and Justice League Unlimited. Finally one of these films had some great dialogue, character development and to me, meaning.

I was happy to see the quality in storytelling was going up. I had felt like these first films were either super action oriented or origin stories. So to me Two Earths was a breath of fresh air. Then I was really knocked off my socks when Batman: Under the Red Hood destroyed all that came before it.

It was defiantly the darkest, most adult and delt with some really interesting ideas and themes. Also Yes, it focused entirely on Batman and family so maybe I'm a bit bias but I think the fact it wasn't all action and was deeper then the other ones, made me like it the most. It featured more character development and the focus was on story. It still had alot of action scenes (some like Amazo, I thought were even unnecessary) but I get that these films need to sell to wide audience, young and old, so they can't be superheroes standing around talking. That's not what I want either, just a balance, the action has to have a purpose, be motivated. To me Red Hood was that.

So I had hope that for the next one, it would be a mix of everything they had done before...aka the quality would be as high as the last two...Sadly it's about equal to the first, Doomsday.

Apocalypse is based on the Superman/Batman: Supergirl story by Jeph Loeb. I will up front say that I've never been a fan of that book. Sure, it was a fun read but to me it lacked depth, character development and just wasn't too meaningful or deep, but I think that's what they were going for. Big fun adventures for Superman and Batman, and to reintroduce Supergirl in a fun and fresh way. Again the book was not my cup of tea. I just like well told stories, not everything has to be Dark and serious, I like fun straight stories as well it's just they have to be told well and make me care about the action.

So the film, I'm sorry to say is the worst out of all these DC animated projects so far. Its not terrible, it just is really 70 minutes of mindless action. The book it was based on didn't have much of a story and the film has even less. The whole story feels like a montage, within the first 5 mins Kara comes to earth and then boom shes training with the amazon and then attacked by a army of Doomsdays that Darkside sends because he wants her...That happens in the first ten minutes of the film... The next 40 minutes is Superman, Batman and Wonder woman going to Apocalypse to fight Darkside, and then fighting, fighting and more fighting everything and then some.

This movie is exactly like Superman Doomsday, all action very little emphasis on story. In fact I'd say this one even has less story than Doomsday. The story only serves to get to the next action piece.

Is there anything good? Sure, voice cast is spot on. The new animation style for the characters is interesting, it looks like Batman meets Aion Flux, that's the best I can describe it. The fights while extremely long are really well story-boarded and the choreography of the action is great.

The film just feels empty, it has not heart. There are a couple of nice moments, Clark takes Supergirl shopping, Batman's comment about"Being over it". But again I am not over exaggerating when I say I think their is about a total of ten minutes combined of actual dialogue in the film. While the rest is all fight scenes.

I'm sure alot of people here will love it. It's a very straight, forward A to B, good vs evil, big fights and set pieces. It's just all action and that's it. Action scene after action scene you just don't care. Barely anyone even talks, and when they do it's a cheesy one liner. When a thousand doomsday raid Themyscira Batman says "What are you going to do stand their and admire the view or fight"...he says this to an army of DOOMSDAYS. Even the Great Kevin Conroy can't make that line sound real.

The last Superman/Batman film, Public enemies was criticized for being just a giant action scene. But that one I found to be alot more fun, with the witty banter between Batman and Superman, at least they kind of got to show some character, make us care for them and their fight...this one not so much.

I know I sound like I'm being overly harsh, and maybe I am. Just because this one fallowed (to me) the amazing last two films.. this one by comparison is worse. Maybe if those had not come before it and it followed Public Enemies, I would have just found it a lesser sequel to that.

I feel this film is kind of a cash in/rush job because the last one sold so well and was so popular. Which is disappointing because of the talent behind it. I however have high hopes for the next one which is Batman: Year One. I will also say besides one death and alot of scantly clad woman,this one is probably the one most kids will like, because again, it's just all Superhero on Superhero action. Batman even fights huge dogs and flys around on a rocket pack (NO I'm not making that up).