It might seem kind of strange to do a film review on what is a video game.
But then I didn't actually play the video game. I've never been a massive fan of Fighters, I find them very frustrating to play. With the exception of Street Fighter 2 for the Sega Genesis. That one was a lot of fun, but I don't remember if there's any story. I think some Magneto looking rip off wanted to conquer the world? But for some reason he also had a street tournament. Doesn't matter.
So the beginning of the story starts with The Joker having detonated a nuke which he had somehow acquired from Lex Luthor. I guess Luthor is willing to give the Joker a nuke? This doesn't make any sense to me. I don't care how maniacal Lex Luthor is, you'd think he'd have better judgement then to give ''the Joker'' of all people a weapon of mass destruction.
But maybe Lex Luthor starting to lose his marbles too. Not that any of this matters because in an alternative universe it's described that Lex Luthor hadn't had any criminal involvement before Superman became a psychopath. Which then opens up a question: ''Where the heck did the Joker get the nuke?!
I can't imagine that anybody else with the capacity to invent a nuke would actually give him one. Unless we're supposed to believe that the Joker can create his own atomic bomb.
Which given how ridiculous Batman's gotten over the years it might not be that hard to believe that the Joker is also capable of creating super weapons. After all how do you combat a guy who has a billion dollars, unlimited resources and an intellect that puts Brainiac to shame.
I guess none of it really matters. The Joker has a nuke, he detonates the nuke, he found a way to screw with Superman's brain. Somehow convincing Superman that his wife Lois Lane was actually the super villain Doomsday. And as you can imagine Superman turned her into pudding.
This in turn forced Superman to kill the Joker. And I guess after that he decided that Joseph Stalin was right and that the only way to control the world is through brutal dictatorship. I would think that Marlon Brando would have taught Kal-El a little better than that. But then Marlon Brando at that stage was pretty drunk.
Or maybe Superman got the wrong Marlon Brando! My God this explains so much.
Now Batman has to create a temporal field between time and Space. Somehow sucking other superheroes from another dimension to activate a super weapon to stop Superman. That's a ridiculous plot. How the hell does Batman know how to alter time and space? I mean I get it; Batman's amazing at all, but come on. He's performing science that even Darkside would find hard to do.
Once again none of this matters. It's all a big set piece that prepares the stage so we can have an ultimate showdown between Superman and Batman. And it's at this point that I realised that this video game picked up the wrong franchise.
This should have been an X-Men video game. The conflict between two best friends who have been altered by different ideology is a lot more impressive between Charles Xavier and Magneto. And the roster of different characters is more evenly matched in combat between X-Men and the Brotherhood of evil mutants.
But unfortunately we're stuck with the DC Universe. And as much as I enjoy DC I know that their power dynamics are to unevenly matched. Realistically it shouldn't matter how good Batman is, Superman should be able to win in the long run regardless. The only way you can make Superman lose against Batman is by turning them into a brain-dead moron who's willing to let Batman get into his head. Or cheating and giving Batman the ability to yank characters out of other dimensions**.
The small parts of the story aren't that bad. It's fun to see unlikely alliances between certain characters. Like Cyborg and Deathstroke or Hal Jordan and Sinestro. But overall I think it's still wasted potential. The great battle in the middle of the story looks ridiculous. It has Aquaman coming out of the sea riding on a giant shrimp. And that part's not so bad, but he's fighting an army of Helghast that are under Superman. Their armed with assault rifles and they stand up in a line and charge the crabs like a group of badly trained Napoleonic soldiers. Why would you fight in such a stupid way? Truly this Superman has no idea what he's doing.
But it's biggest fault is being set in an alternative Universe. I don't care what happens to any of these characters. Some of their lives are already ruined from the start and you know they're never truly going to get better. Superman's lost everyone he's loved. And he turned himself in to a Sani Abacha. There's a lot of things you can do in the world that you can ask Redemption for. But becoming a centralised tyrannical dictator is not one of them.
Also how lame is it that it's a superhero versus other superheroes. I don't want to see a DC story about good guys fighting other good guys. I want to see Good Guys overcoming bad people, dealing with Frets from beyond the stars. Or dealing with other bad guys who are so powerful that you have to team up with normal bad guys just to fight them. Once again the X-Men do this better. The whole thing makes me sound like a Marvel fan boy. Which is hilarious when I consider that I actually prefer the DC Universe overall.
*The particular cover of this game is really misleading. It has both Black Canary and Batgirl on it. But I don't remember seeing them in any of the story. And it's a shame too, Batgirl's always a fun character and Black Canary would be really fun to play as given all or interesting powers. though I imagine she wouldn't last long in a Utopian society ruled by Superman. Or maybe I should call him Hitler-man.
**So this is just my brain nerding out. But how cool the story would it be if the villain was actually Raven's father Trigon and Superman had to yank out the Doom Marine to fight him. I think that be a lot more interesting. Also it means we could have a raven centric story-line and the more Teen Titans we can get the better.
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