Superman: Doomsday
Filed under Reviews on December 10, 2007
Keywords: movies, superheroes, Superman
Superman is my favorite comic book hero. My first comic was a Superman comic. I own issues 1-100 of the second Superman series (the one John Byrne launched), along with a large chunk of other titles starring the Big Red “S” from the late 80s to early 90s. That run included the “Death of Superman” storyline (yes, I own multiple copies of issue #75). So when I saw the Bruce Timm adaption coming to video, I was fairly excited. I’m a fan of his Batman and Superman animated series.
Superman: Doomsday arrived from Netflix last week and I watched it Saturday afternoon while the kids napped. With a PG-13 rating, I didn’t think it would be appropriate for my 4-year-old son, and I was right. The violence is pretty intense and bloody, and the film is sprinkled with second tier “adult” language (shame on you, Perry). It also has some “adult situations” between Lois and Superman.
I didn’t expect a literal translation from the comics, and thought the overall plot was a good adaptation that remained faithful to the original concept. Unfortunately, that didn’t compensate for some huge mistakes in execution.
The character designs for the two lead characters, Superman/Clark and Lois, were poor. The lines used to define Superman’s cheeks reminded me more of scars, and Lois looked like a teenager. The overall quality of the art was lacking; I felt like I was watching an hour-long Saturday cartoon, not a DVD movie (run time is 1 hour, 14 minutes).
I also didn’t like the voice actors playing the lead roles. I am a huge Adam Baldwin fan (Chuck, Firefly), but his voice was too soft, which might have been fine for Clark (who had hardly any screen time), but did not fit for Superman. Anne Heche was all right as Lois, though a bit whiny at times. It was hard for me to get past the fact that it was Anne Heche (not a fan). That is the danger of casting known voices.
Finally, the fight against Doomsday revealed a glaring inconsistency in the depiction of Superman. Twice, Superman’s actions showed a blatant disregard for collateral damage and the safety of Metropolis’s citizens that ripped me from the story. The first is when he hurls Doomsday through a building, causing it to collapse upon itself. There were lights on in the windows, so you could only assume it was occupied.
The second instance was the “deathblow.” Superman grabs Doomsday and rockets into the atmosphere. It appears he is going to release him in space, but Doomsday gets free and they scuffle. Superman regains control and instead of continuing out into space, he does a re-entry with Doomsday as a thermal shield. For some inexplicable reason, instead of heading somewhere less populated, Superman decides the center of Metropolis is the best place for a touchdown. The resulting explosion levels several city blocks. I can’t imagine how many innocent lives where lost. It certainly lessened the impact of Superman’s sacrifice.
I gave Superman: Doomsday 2 out of 5 stars on Netflix. I would have done 2.5 if the system allowed for that. It was a good story, but poorly executed. I’d love to see the next live-action Superman movie be an adaptation (IIRC, one of the proposed scripts for Superman Returns was a “death of” storyline).
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