Movie Review: Superman - Doomsday

Starring:
Adam Baldwin, Anne Heche, James Marsters, John DiMaggio, Tom Kenny, Swoozie Kurtz, Cree Summer, Ray Wise, Adam Wylie

Directors:
Bruce Timm, Lauren Montgomery, Brandon Vietti

MPAA Rating:
PG-13, for strong action violence.

Release Date:
September 18, 2007 (Video Only)

Synopsis:
Lexcorp accidentally frees the alien super-killer, Doomsday, and Superman is the only one who can stop him. But he loses his life in the process, and Metropolis must cope with the loss of their great hero. Or do they? Superman suddenly returns from the dead and returns to fighting crime, possibly better than ever. But what's wrong with this Superman, and how did he return from the dead?

My Two Cents:
The first thing I wondered when I heard about this was; why wasn't this movie made YEARS ago?? The storyline this movie is inspired from happened 16 years ago. Although truth be told, during the long process of Warner Bros. making a new Superman film, which of course, became Superman Returns, there was an idea of making the movie about Superman's death. And none other than Kevin Smith had written a screenplay for it (or he might have written several drafts, I'm not sure). the project was called 'Superman Lives!', and then 'Superman Reborn', before Warner scrapped it entirely, and went through another long process of figuring out how to make the next movie...

But I digress. Anyway! So this ANIMATED movie is inspired from (I will not say 'based on' because it really overall isn't. There are too many differences) the Death of Superman storyline that ran in the Superman funnybooks. And actually, the commercial for this video claims the movie is based on 'the best-selling graphic novel of all time'!! Uh...really? I'd like to see the numbers to prove that...

The animated DC heroes have a lot of fans who love all the various series, and only want more, more, more. And a lot of those fans are adults as well. This movie is Warner making a more 'adult' animated Superman movie. It's not TOO adult, but the farthest they've gone so far, I think. It has a lot of violence, of course, and A LOT of people DIE in this movie. It's not just Superman. Even Lex Luthor literally gets away with murder in this movie. That's something you wouldn't see on Cartoon Network...

Now, Doomsday has already appeared in episodes of the Justice League show, and there was also a story on that show where everyone thought Superman was dead (but not by Doomsday), and there was a big funeral for him attended by all the superheroes. So in a way, you could say Warner has already done this before. But then again, also not. Whatever the case, this movie is not meant to take place in any established animated Superman/DC continuity, and is its own movie.

And well....it's okay. It sadly is disappointing. It's not a terrible movie, but well...they could have done so much more with it. I know I'm sure not the only one who feels this way...At least they thankfully didn't delve into the 4 different Supermen story...

The story has a lot of problems. First, the fight itself with Doomsday. You do get the point, but in all honesty, Superman doesn't LOOK that hurt. In the original funnybook, he just got the shit beat out of him, and you knew it. You could tell in this movie he was getting hammered hard, and feeling weakened, but...I don't know. It just didn't feel all together...Maybe they didn't want it to be too 'graphic', even though this is a more 'adult' movie.



Now, I'm going to get into spoilish material here. So after Superman dies, there is a funeral, but there are no heroes attending it. Now, again, one reason may be because Warner already had a funeral for Superman before on the Justice League show, and it had all the heroes there. This movie, although animated, seems more like what they would do if this did happen in a film, like Warner planned on doing. You wouldn't see other heroes there, most likely. Although, then again, you could also explain it away that maybe there was a funeral already with heroes, and what we see is just the Metropolis public funeral. I wouldn't call this a problem with the movie really, but a lot of people didn't care for it.

So there is another villain in this movie. Toyman. Yeah. Fucking Toyman. He looks like some semi-gothic loser who lives in his mother's basement, and is very childish. I can't imagine why, of all people, they decided to put Toyman in here... Auy... So Toyman has a giant mechanical ant that terrorizes the city, and suddenly, Superman comes back from the dead and stops him. So this is the first hint about his return, but there is clearly something wrong with this Superman. That's because it's not the real Superman. It's a clone created by Lex Luthor.

Now...you know what happened the other times Luthor tried to clone Superman? Bizarro. Yeah. That's how Bizarro was created in Post-Crisis Superman, and on the Superman animated series. So apparently Luthor has not so much difficulty creating a clone THIS time, but all those other times he sure did. Weird.

So does the real Superman return? Of course. And guess how. Come on. Well, you're not going to. So here is the secret; he didn't REALLY die. Nope.

Okay. So Superman has a robot in the Fortress of Solitude that took the 'carcass' from Luthor, and the robot brought him back to the Fortress to rejuvenate Superman. He explains that...Superman did not really die. His body simply slowed way down so he could heal... Does that make ANY sense???? ANY??? And since when CAN Superman do that??? This may not take place in any established continuity, but there should still be consistency with what Superman can and can't do, right?

So anyway, yeah, that was a real sour point in the movie....And pretty much the worse point. So the robot helps Superman to heal, while the fake Superman fights crime, and...to an extreme. He basically becomes a facist, and declares that he alone is the lone authority that gets to decide what is best for the city. He even threatens an old lady about keeping track of her pets, after he gets her cat out of a tree. I'm serious. He makes it clear to this old lady not to let it happen again. Oh and he also kills Toyman. Yeah. After Toyman is arrested for murdering a 4-year-old girl (also VERY serious. You don't see it at all, but it is reported on the news), the Superman clone takes him into the sky and drops him onto a police car. And trust me... Toyman is DEAD. So this clone is basically taking over Metropolis, and of course, only Superman can stop him. And as you can guess, he does in the end, after he heals. He even wears a black suit similar to the one he had in the comics when he came back to life.



Meanwhile, Luthor was actually trying to create an army of Superman clones. Again, so in this movie, he has very little trouble cloning Superman, unlike in other continuities. You do see the usual failed experiments in cells, indicating there were some problems. But this secret lab is largely full of clones who look perfect. So not too much trouble. But the active clone destroys the lab, right before he knows he must make his final stand against the city. The voice acting is really good in this movie, and was cast very well. Baldwin was a good Superman, and Heche was… well, not who I'd probably have picked for Lois, but she had some great moments. But Marsters as Luthor was really good. He really fit the role well and sounded like a great, classic Luthor. DiMaggio did Toyman... ermm... maybe too well... That's all I'll say...

One thing that bugged me was they drew Superman with these lines/creases on his face that sometimes made him look really old. I guess it was supposed to be his cheek bones, mostly, but..in this type of style, it didn't really work... Luthor got a radical redesign in his face, and sometimes... he looked REALLY creepy... I thought it was overall weird at first, but then I thought it was fitting.

Another thing that bothered me; what did they do with Doomsday's carcass after the fight? Was he even dead? You don't know. They..left that out, for some reason. In the comics, Doomsday was...sort of dead. He did die, but one of his abilities is one in which he can keep coming back to life. So he died and returned, but was thrown into space by the fake Cyborg Superman. But in this movie, you have no idea. I suppose he died, for all intensive purposes, but it's a mystery of what happened to the carcass.

Also, the Superman clone breaks free from Luthor's control when he decides Luthor is not the best authority figure; he is. But Luthor controls the clone through the use of a Kryptonite bomb in the clone's brain. The tiny shard will kill him if Luthor sets it off. So the clone removes the shard from his own brain by reflecting his heat vision off a mirror and into his own head. Now, that was just plain weird. Is that even possible for Superman to do?? CAN he hurt himself with his own heat rays? I've never heard of that. So Kryptonite is not his only weakness after all...

The movie is overall not really 'bad' to watch, but again, you can't help but think they could, and should, have done so much more with it, considering what the subject is. Superman doesn't even actually die at all in this movie. That's the biggest scam of all. I'm also not sure the title is really that fitting, because the actual fight with Doomsday is not that long, and it's not the whole movie...

So if you like Warner's animated DC heroes, you may want to check this out. It's not the best it could be, but it's not that terrible either.