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Superman: Doomsday
September 19, 2007
Superman: Doomsday is the new direct-to-video animated film adaptation of the hugely popular DC Comics storyline "The Death of Superman." Produced by Bruce Timm and written by Duane Capizzi, the movie is rated P-13, and as such, I was really looking forward to seeing it. I'll start with the animation. The filmmakers claim during the commentary that they wanted the movie to have a slightly edgier, more realistic look than The Adventures of Superman Animated series, and although that's commendable (the Lois Lane with the purple blouse in The Adventures of Superman is probably the most boring version of her EVER), they fail to achieve that goal on any level. The city and characters all look largely the same, and the ones that don't actually look worse than they did in the animated series (except Lois, who actually is a little hotter in this movie). And for some reason Superman has some jagged Clint Eastwood-esque cheekbones that look horribly out of place on his skin. The question is though, does the poor animation take away from the film? Not really. Much more important are the changes they made to the storyline. Some changes are good, and some are REALLY bad. Arbitrarily adding Lex Luthor into this story we could live with. He is Superman's arch-enemy after all, and mainstream audiences like to see him in every Superman movie, no matter how unrelated he is to the plot. Another key change, unfortunately, is the relationship between Lois Lane and Superman. In the comics Lois fell in love with Clark and they then got engaged. In the movie, for reasons known only to the filmmakers, Lois and Superman are dating and Superman is hiding the fact that he's Clark Kent from her. This is beyond stupid. This changes a fundamental aspect of the Superman mythos and cannot be tolerated by any true Superman fan. They also omitted the Justice League from the story completely, as Guy Gardner, the Blue Beetle, Booster Gold, Maxima, Fire, Ice, and Bloodwynd are nowhere to be found. Also missing are Batman, Wonder Woman, and Super Girl. It would have been nice to see these character's reactions to Superman's demise. I'm sure that the reason they were left out is that the movie is too short to introduce these characters, but my question is, why did this movie have to be so short? With its short length, the story was rushed, as you see Doomsday within the first ten minutes of the film, and five minutes later he is at the edge of Metropolis battling Superman. You could tell the writers did the best they could to cram years of comic book lore into just 75 minutes, but it just wasn't enough. What about the moral questions Superman asked himself as he fought Doomsday in the comics? Deciding whether to save someone or stop the rampaging beast? There was no time for any of these fine details in this abbreviated movie. Other than that, the actual fight between Superman and Doomsday was, for the most part everything you could have hoped for. These two titans destroy a good portion of Metropolis in their epic battle before they finally kill each other. But again, here's another difference between the comics and the movie, as Superman and Doomsday died by punching each other at the same time with their last ounce of strength in the comics, while in the movie, Superman takes Doomsday into outer space and re-enters the atmosphere in a kamikaze dive, having the intense heat and the force of hitting the ground kill Doomsday and in turn, himself (one has to ask oneself whether or not it would have been wiser to have just kept flying into space and deposit Doomsday into the Sun). Anyway, with both Doomsday and Superman dead, you would think that this would be the end of the movie, since it's called Superman: Doomsday. But unfortunately all this action has taken place during the first half hour or so of the movie. The rest of the movie is an anti-climax, going through Superman's resurrection, which was done totally differently than it was in the Comics, although this mattered little, since I didn't really care for the way the comics handled that aspect of the story either. Somehow Superman miraculously comes back from the dead and saves a Lois and some children from the Toyman. The resurrected Superman eventually turns out to be a clone, made by Lex Luthor, leading one to wonder whether or not the writers of this movie had ever read a Superman comic. Ever hear of Bizarro? Needless to say we didn't really care for this new take on Superman's return either. Unbeknownst to anyone, even Lex, Superman is actually alive, but just barely. The robot at his Fortress of Solitude is able to recover his body and works to bring him back to life. Meanwhile, the Superman clone begins to take a darker perspective on his job when he hears about Toyman killing a four-year-old girl. He meets with Toyman as he's about to enter the police station. There, he picks him up, flies him above the city, then drops him back to the ground, killing him. The city is stunned, and Jimmy and Lois immediately know something is up. In an especially retarded scene, four police officers go to arrest Superman, and when he refuses they move in to try and take him down by force, leaving one to wonder if the cops even knew who Superman was. Upon returning to Lex, the clone is berated for his behavior. Lex sends him on a mission to find the real Superman's corpse, threatening to kill him should he step out of line again. The clone then simply uses his X-ray vision to locate a lead-shielded Kryptonite ball in his skull, which would have allowred Lex to carry out his threat, and removes it using his heat vision. At the same time, Lois meets with Lex under the guise of wanting to move on, but first wants to know how he corrupted Superman. As she leans in to kiss him, she stabs him with a tranquilizer and begins looking through his files with Jimmy's help. She and Jimmy discover that Lex is cloning an army of Supermen. After Lex comes to and threatens them, the original clone arrives and destroys the facility. When Lex realizes that the clone has removed the kryptonite in his skull, he tries to hide in a red-sunlight room, only to have the clone toss the entire room to the street. This latest presumed murder triggers military action. Of course the military can do little against Superman. Hearing the news, the real Superman soon realizes that the Highlander was right – there can only be one – and decides to help, even though he is only at 67% strength. To improve his odds, he dons a yellow sunlight-absorbing "Solar Suit" and brings his trusty kryptonite gun developed by his arch enemy Lex Luthor. Meeting his clone, the two engage in another massive battle, Superman's kryptonite gun failing to hit the much faster clone. Jimmy and Lois grab the kryptonite gun to help Superman, though still unsure if he's the real one or not. The fight reaches a head at Superman's memorial, where Lois manages to hit the clone with a shot from the kryptonite gun, which the clone destroys, leaving only the kryptonite canister. As the two Supermen continue their battle, the canister sticks to the clone's chest, and Superman vaporizes it with his heat vision, covering the clone in the deadly gas, reducing his powers. As a consequence, the clone drops the big memorial stone over himself, killing him. Lois is convinced that the new Superman is the real Superman once he kisses her, and the crowd rejoices, knowing they are rid of the evil Superman. In the end he tells her that he's really Clark Kent, and they kiss, all while the injured Lex Luthor plots his next scheme to kill the man of steel. In my not-so-humble opinion, this would have been a far better movie had they made it two hours and concentrated solely on the events leading up to the death of Superman, and ended it with the world's reaction to his untimely death at the ends of the marauding alien juggernaut. I was hoping a follow up series would wrap up the details of his coming back. How else could you fit everything in? Understandably most fans of Superman aren't satisfied with this movie, and most people who aren't fans probably aren't going to go out and buy it anyway, leaving me with the question of why not make a Superman movie for the fans for once? Does everything with Superman have to be dumbed down for the mainstream audience. It almost makes you wish you were a fan of a less popular superhero like the Silver Surfer. At least his cartoon stayed true to the comics. Our Rating:
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