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ANI-MOVIES, *Superman: Red Son

Being the second DC animated movie based on an official Elseworlds title, Superman: Red Son takes one of the overused Elseworlds' premises where, "instead of ending up in Smallville, Superman's rocket landed in ____," which before has varied from Gotham City, Apokolips, and an Amish village. Red Son however has a significant effect on the entire world as Superman was raised in Russia, making this version of the DC Universe a totally alternate reality. Originally a mini-series, the movie expands greatly on the comic by Kick-Ass creator Mark Millar.

A young farm boy in the Soviet Union is revealed to be an alien being with powers and abilities far beyond those of mortal Ruskies, he is later revealed to the world under the Communist Party. During the era of Joseph Stalin, Superman becomes the prime spokesman and source of defense for Russia, setting American industrialist Lex Luthor to apply his genius and government resources to somehow defeating this powerful Red Menace. His first plot is to rig a Russian satellite to crash in America, which Luthor plotted for Superman to stop from destroying Metropolise, and leads to an encounter with his wife Lois informing the Man of Steel about how his government is really keeping several Russian citizens in gulags, including his childhood friend Svetlana(Lana Lang)who dies telling Superman about the truth of their country's corruption. In a total spin on the original comic's story, Superman then terminates Stalin himself, and then takes control of the Soviet Union, which spreads its influence to a large portion of the world, including Themyscira where it's advocate Wonder Woman starts a slight romantic friendship with the alien premier. Luthor meanwhile has created his own clone of Superman called "Superior Man", and sends it to battle his counterpart, but this Bizarro-stand has all its actual power transmitted to him through Luthor in America, and eventually burns out dead. Sometime later, the alien android Brainiac descends upon Stalingrad and shrinks the city, only for Superman to disarm the robot, and implement the advanced space technology to accelerate Russia's science, and also to turn rebellious Soviets into brainwashed cyborgs. During this new age, a masked terrorist known as Batman raises a movement against Superman's order, and kidnaps Wonder Woman to lure Superman into a trap laid out with red son lamps supplied by Luthor which evens the playing field as Batman pummels Superman. Wonder Woman manages to escape Batman's hold on here by destroying her golden lasso, but this act magically ages Diana, making the princess sever ties with Superman and Russia. Luthor is later made President, and reverse-engineers an alien power ring into America's own Green Lantern corps. The Lanterns head across the ocean to invade the Soviet Union, but are stopped largely by Superman, even though a final "goodbye" from Wonder Woman stops the Lanterns, as Superman and Brainiac in his big skull-ship proceed to Washington DC. Once there, Lois presents Superman with the bottled city of Stalingrad, where he learns that Brainiac could have restored the city at any time, and was really playing the part of a docile reprogrammed subordinate who truly intended to take over the Earth through Superman's rise to power. Luthor arrives in an armored suit to help Superman defeat Brainiac, but the android's destruction causes his ship to self-destruct. The explosion would destroy most of the Solar System, so Superman rushes the ship into deep space, which makes most everyone on Earth believe he sacrificed himself, but a disguised man in glasses catches Lois' eye during Luthor's ceremony stepping down as President.

The movie has quite a few difference from the original source material, like Bizarro destroying himself in order to save London instead of having a metldown, and longtime DC character Pete Ross had a significant role on the comic as Russia's head minister who secretly assassinated Stalin. But the real difference that split alot of fans down the middle on judging this film was the ending where Superman lives for several millennia watching the Earth be destroyed by its own folly, which actually leads to a time paradox that has baby Superman being sent back in time to Russia, meaning the entire causality loop totally pointless by the narrative's point of view. At least the movie leaves the future hopefully open-ended. Despite this fan-gripe, the movie is an considerable improvement over the original comic, and the animation style is memorable of 90s DC Comics animated titles. It doesn't veer off from its Elseworlds origins, unlike Batman: Gotham By Gaslight, so its a better bookmark in the DC movie library.

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ANI-MOVIES, *Tangled

For their 50th full-length animated theatrical feature, this take on the tale of Rapunzel had Disney going back to the well for a standard "Disney Princess" story, but with taking a hint from Dreamworks by giving it a modern sense of humor to it. Tangled managed to bring about a third renaissance to Disney's non-Pixar animated films, and also helping them bring themselves out of the dust that their Pixar releases had left them in recent years. First time directing for Disney regulars Nathan Greno and Bryon Howard(who also directed Bolt), this was changed from the title character to Tangled to make it seem like less of a "girly" picture that the whole family could enjoy.

In a fairy tale-like world(which is supposed to be in the same universe as Frozen!)an old woman named Gothel finds a magic flower that fell from the sun to continuously rejuvenate herself, but the nearby kingdom's queen was sick while prior to giving birth. The king had his knights find famed magic flower, and its healing power was transferred to the newly born Princess Rapunzel. Gothel then kidnaps Rapunzel and spirited her away in a hidden tower for 18 years where she made the princess think that Gothel was her only family while using Rapunzel's magical flowing blonde hair to keep her youth. One day, a cunning thief named Flynn Rider steals the Princess' tiara that the kingdom kept in case she ever returned, and the dashing egotist is chased into the woods where he seeks cover in the secret tower. Flynn is knocked out by Rapunzel and her pet chameleon Pascal while Gothel is out, and he gets roped into helping Rapunzel to escaping her tower so she can see some lanterns the kingdom set out every year on the birthday of their missing princess. Flynn concedes, and leads Rapunzel to a tavern filled with thugs to try and scare her off. The plucky long-haired blonde instead gets all the ruffians to doing a sensational sing-a-long about following their dreams. All this noise has the royal guard horse Maximus on their trail, so Flynn and Rapunzel go into a daring escape where the healing power of the magic hair is revealed. Maximus eventually tracks them down, but Rapunzel convinces the bloodhound horse into letting them visit the kingdom's lantern celebration. While touring the city, Rapunzel and Flynn start to recognize their romantic feelings for each other, even though Gothel arrives and convinces Rapunzel that he abandoned her for his original prize. Flynn was instead knocked out and captured by the royal guards, while Rapunzel goes back to her tower and ends up figuring out on her own that she's the lost princess. Flynn breaks out thanks to his ruffian bar buddies with Maximus and makes his way to Rapunzel as she confronts Gothel's deception. Gothel stabs Flynn as he arrives, but Rapunzel talks Gothel into letting her heal him with her hair, where Flynn uses a piece of glass to cut off the magic hair, reducing the long blonde hair to brown. With the magic gone, Gothel age catches up with her as she falls to her death, but the last of Rapunzel's magic heals Flynn in the stereotypical "magical death tears" trope. Rapunzel reunites with her real parents, and Flynn cleared of any past crimes.

The movie ends on the note that Rapunzel and Flynn would someday get married, which was followed up in the short Tangled Ever After, but this gave way to an ongoing animated series started by made-for-TV movie done in 2-D format. Tangled itself at this time is the most expensive animated movie ever made, and it proved to be Disney's breakthrough in non-Pixar CGI productions. Alan Menken's music numbers are memorable, and the casting is something too, especially Mandy Moore as Rapunzel(who otaku original spurned for playing Aerith in Kingdom Hearts!). It caters a little less to children than other standard Disney flicks, which helped get more than just families showing up to watch it in theaters. Even if you're a pure cynic of happy-go-lucky fairy tales, there's more than likely something in this for you to get a laugh out of.