So in this era of comicbook movies and the inevitable emergence of comicbook fatigue, what better way to try and suck some originality out of the genre than this, superhero pets.
Yeah so in the absence of any financial success for pretty much any of their movies, DC turns to animation and pets to try and eek out some money from any fanbase or audience going. In this kiddie flick we get some brief backstory for DC's greatest superhero Superman but this time with the added bonus of his pet dog Krypto.
Old Sups lives as he does on Earth in a relationship with Lois Lane, his jealous preening narcissistic dog, whilst fighting crime with the Justice League. Unfortunately, the Justice League is defeated and captured by Lex Luthor using orange kryptonite, leaving Krypto alone. In a massive case of sod's law one of Luthor's guinea pig test subjects manages to gain superpowers with said orange kryptonite and decides to take over the Earth. Without the Justice League Krypto must save the Earth with the help of a random bunch of local pets.
So essentially what you have here is a standard generic superhero vs. supervillain plot, in animation form, but instead of Human heroes we have animals. The supervillain in question is a tiny pink bald (due to the orange kryptonite) female guinea pig (had to be female) called Lulu which just so happens to be rather annoying. No real idea why this guinea pig is so evil and the fact it's small yet a massive threat comes across as a tired trope. It doesn't help that this character is voiced by the unfunny (in my opinion) Kate McKinnon). The hero team is your typical quirky gang of misfits that really don't look like they would be of any help at all frankly. A dog, squirrel, kitten, fat pig, and tortoise. Yeah it's a kid's animated flick but really? I also found the fat pig a really annoying character. Just annoying visually, mannerisms, speech, and the fact its essentially a useless character.
Naturally these animals eventually all get superpowers themselves which enable them to fight back against Lulu. Naturally each animal's unique superpower is a trait associated with that animal. The fat pig can grow to an even bigger size. The tortoise gains super speed. The Boxer dog gains strength etc...In turn Lulu manages to gain some more guinea pig minions with superpowers to help her. All the superpowers are what you would expect. This all results in the same generic types of superhero battles we've seen a gazillion times before in both animation and live-action. Lots of throwing characters into things and the obligatory comicbook laser bolts/beams and what have you. Obviously no one is gonna die so expect any stakes here.
We do see the Justice League quite a bit in this movie which did amusingly lead me to think that this was almost like a fallback Justice League flick for the DC. Like, they failed with their live-action movies so let's try and kinda do it again in this animated kid's flick but not outrightly admit it. Plus DC gotta be seen to be keeping up with Marvel. DC went all out with this version oh yes, it was almost like they were trying to appease the fanbase. Obviously the look and feel of the characters are way more comedic and silly but visually at least it all looked comicbook accurate to me. Heck they even threw Black Adam in there too! Plus look at that voice cast! Keanu Reeves, Dwayne Johnson, Kevin Hart, John Krasinski, Alfred Molina, Keith David, Diego Luna etc...You probably could make a live-action comicbook movie with that line up. It also amused me how they still lean on the joke that Batman is kinda useless in this superhero team because he's just a regular guy in a suit.
At the end of the day I'm not a overly massive comicbook fan and never was. I'm not in the know on everything DC and Marvel so I cannot go in deep detail over little easter eggs or what may or may not be comicbook accurate. I can say that I did always find it utterly hilarious, ridiculous, and kinda desperate that DC superheroes have pets, superpets no less. Always felt to me as if the creators ran out of ideas and just gave Sups a pet dog. I'm also not too sure what the language barriers are in this universe, can all Humans understand animals? Or just superheroes? Is it all animals or just specific species?
Anyway I'm rambling on about a children's animated movie (secretly aimed at adult comicbook fans). Is this any good? Well I didn't really engage with it truth be told, I was bored. Yeah the CGI is nice but most of the animals were annoying and looked ugly. The plot is generic as hell and the comedy is tired. I mean, this is literally a paint-by-numbers cookie-cutter superhero flick but instead of Humans it's animals, that's it! It does the job but geez! Superhero fatigue is real.
5/10
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