First off, though it's nice to have Tim Daly back as Supes (not that there's anything wrong with the voice acting of George Newbern), Clancy Brown and no Corey Burton (as Lex Luthor and Brainiac, respectively) are absent, so it loses points there. In their place are Powers Boothe and Lance Henriksen. Boothe is certainly no Clancy Brown (though he makes a good Gorilla Grodd), but Henriksen, as Brainiac, is particularly bad; less than a pale shadow of Corey Burton. I would say the lack of proper voice talent alone is enough to give this a miss. But anyway, moving on...
The story is...not so good. Actually, there are 3 annoying things about it: 1) It forgets that Brainiac is, himself, from Krypton, at least in the SM Animated series. He appears in Superman's very first episode. 2) It ignores any continuity from the Superman and JLU series. I know it was never intended to but that doesn't make it any less lame. To be specific, Lex Luthor and Brainiac were already allies, in both series, with results far, far, better than what's seen here (and that may actually be an understatement). So it's hard to see why anyone would be impressed with this story. 3) It's boring and thin (the story, that is). Much of the time is taken up with Superman and the Brainiac robot (which sports a terrible design) thrashing the tar out of each other and lots of missiles and beams being shot all over the place. Besides that, there seems to be no motive for Brainiac's destructive rampage. His M.O. is to absorb the data of planets and then destroy the planets themselves so that he is the sole possessor of said knowledge. Here he just goes around Metropolis shooting things. He even spouts clichés and...laughs. It's all really rather dull and pointless.
Characterizations are not very good either. As mentioned, Brainiac just goes on a destructive binge for no apparent reason. The characterizations of Superman, Lois Lane and Jimmy Olsen are a bit flawed, too, but most apparent is that of Lex Luthor. Instead of the arrogant, sinister figure we've seen in the series, here we get a clown. It's almost as if Luthor has sustained some sort of brain damage and has turned into some sort of idiot savant.
That leaves the animation, the only saving grace for this rather pointless exercise. But it's not reason enough to watch this (at least not more than once), not when you get the same quality animation with JLU, etc. only paired with much better stories.
The story is...not so good. Actually, there are 3 annoying things about it: 1) It forgets that Brainiac is, himself, from Krypton, at least in the SM Animated series. He appears in Superman's very first episode. 2) It ignores any continuity from the Superman and JLU series. I know it was never intended to but that doesn't make it any less lame. To be specific, Lex Luthor and Brainiac were already allies, in both series, with results far, far, better than what's seen here (and that may actually be an understatement). So it's hard to see why anyone would be impressed with this story. 3) It's boring and thin (the story, that is). Much of the time is taken up with Superman and the Brainiac robot (which sports a terrible design) thrashing the tar out of each other and lots of missiles and beams being shot all over the place. Besides that, there seems to be no motive for Brainiac's destructive rampage. His M.O. is to absorb the data of planets and then destroy the planets themselves so that he is the sole possessor of said knowledge. Here he just goes around Metropolis shooting things. He even spouts clichés and...laughs. It's all really rather dull and pointless.
Characterizations are not very good either. As mentioned, Brainiac just goes on a destructive binge for no apparent reason. The characterizations of Superman, Lois Lane and Jimmy Olsen are a bit flawed, too, but most apparent is that of Lex Luthor. Instead of the arrogant, sinister figure we've seen in the series, here we get a clown. It's almost as if Luthor has sustained some sort of brain damage and has turned into some sort of idiot savant.
That leaves the animation, the only saving grace for this rather pointless exercise. But it's not reason enough to watch this (at least not more than once), not when you get the same quality animation with JLU, etc. only paired with much better stories.