In anticipation of the upcoming Green Lantern direct to video film and to build my anticipation for the Superman/Batman: Public Enemies direct to video film, I’ve decided to go back and review the current DC Universe animated titles. I’ll try to do one a week, we’ll see how this goes. First up, we’ve got the one that started it all, Superman Doomsday.
I’ll admit, I was both excited and terrified by the prospect of this film. I had read the original “Death of Superman” trade many many MANY times over where I could almost recite it word for word. The story fascinated me as it was the death of a major hero. I still remember the final image of the comic, a crying Lois holding Superman’s lifeless body as his torn cape billowed in the wind like a flag in the background. It was iconic and an image that remained with me for a long time.
My fear wasn’t that they wouldn’t the comic justice, it was that I wasn’t sure HOW they would adapt it. The story was long, it spanned every Superman comic book as well as Justice League America. It had guest appearances out the rear end by almost every major character in the DC Comics Universe at the time. Plus there were events that were specific to that time period such as Lex Luthor not really being Lex Luthor but a younger clone that couldn’t really be duplicated without some form of explanation. Then there was the Reign of the Supermen story line that introduced 4 men claiming to be Superman: The Eradicator, Superboy, Steel, and a Superman cyborg. Just…too much to compress.
The producer’s way of compressing everything? They didn’t. The story for Superman Doomsday takes the Death and Return of Superman story arc and boils it down to it’s essentials. The finished product bares little to no similarities to it’s comic book counterpart. In a way, this was good but, also, in a way this was bad. I understood from the beginning that parts of the story would have to be excised, but I never realized how much or how little resemblance the movie would have to the original story.
In the film, Superman and Lois are getting serious about each other, even having rendezvous at the Fortress of Solitude. Lois wants more from The Man of Steel…like to know his real name but Superman just isn’t willing to give up the last piece of his privacy. In essence, he is unwilling to give himself totally to the woman he claims he loves. She knows who he is, she alludes to it constantly that she knows he’s Clark Kent and even comments on how the closer the two of them get, the farther away Clark Kent is. (In the movie, Clark is taking a field reporting job overseas.)
Meanwhile, Lex Luthor is scheming…as usual. He has an excavation crew digging up a space ship that crash landed long ago. When asked how deep underground they were, one of the excavation crew responds “We’re deep…like before Christ deep.” While trying to open the space ship, they unlock a recorded message in an alien language. Failing to understand the message, they crack open the space ship and unleash Doomsday who is destruction given monstrous form. Lex realizes that the alien message must have been a warning while he hears the excavation crew being slaughtered and dispatches Mercy Graves to cover up that Lexcorp was ever there to begin with.
As Lois and Superman continue to argue over relationship boundaries, Doomsday carves out a path of destruction on his way to Metropolis. (Why he is drawn to Metropolis is never really explained…he just is.) He begins smashing up the town and ONLY when he reaches Metropolis does Superman’s robot (HE HAS A ROBOT?!) informs him that the city is under siege and the people are in danger. What follows is an impressively choreographed fight between Superman and Doomsday as the helpless citizens watch. As is common knowledge by now, the two fight to the bitter end, the final blows so hard that it kills both Superman and Doomsday.
The citizens of Metropolis and the world mourn the loss of their greatest hero including Lex Luthor who psychotically screams “Why did you leave me?!” The story lags a bit for awhile as it shows the impact that Superman had on those around him and how his death has affected everyone until Lois becomes the damsel in distress…again…while trying to save a bus load of children from the Toyman. Superman shows up to save the day but he seems different, changed some how. It turns out that Superman is actually a clone, created by Lex Luthor. As strange as it sounds, Lex Luthor needs Superman…without him, Lex has no reason to exist. All the while, the real Superman, thought to be dead, is recovering in The Fortress of Solitude. Turns out he was never dead, his heart slowed down while his body regenerated…or some crap. To be honest, this part of the movie screamed contrivance.
Back in Metropolis, Super-Clone discovers he’s a clone and goes mad with power. He kills Toyman so that he can’t hurt anyone again, destroys the Super-clones, and nearly kills Lex. The military gets called in to take him out but it’s futile. The real Superman shows up, yet another well choreographed fight ensues, the day is saved, and Superman has a mullet.
As you can tell, by the end of the movie, my patience had worn out. The story was hackneyed, the plot points contrived, and there were STILL too many things going on at once. The screenwriter (The Batman’s Duane Capizzi who shares a story credit with Bruce Timm) had a good basic story to draw from but became mired in all of the plot points he felt compelled to put into the movie. Did we really need Jimmy defecting to work at a tabloid? Did we really need the side story of Lois wanting to get closer to Superman? Or how about the borderline perverse relationship Lex had with Superman? In a TV series or if this had been broken into two films, yes…because there would have been time to explore these things, but in this film? No. This film was too short to support all of the story they tried to cram into it and the whole film suffered. What results is a mess of a story that doesn’t work well.
The voice actors in Bruce Timm’s previous DC Comics efforts (Batman: The Animated Series, Superman, Batman Beyond, Justice League, Justice League Unlimited) have always been a highlight for me as Andrea Romano generally knows how to pick her cast and get great performances from them so when I found out that she was working on this project, I was excited by whom she might be casting. I was, however, equally let down by who she picked and how they performed. I’ll start with James Marsters as Lex Luthor. I’m a fan of Marsters, I loved his work on Buffy and Angel but he didn’t have the right voice to suit the character on screen. Marsters has a youthful voice and the character model for Luthor looked to be in his 40′s. Adam Baldwin played Superman and, for the most part, did an ok job but he paled in comparison to George Newbern or even Tim Daley. His line deliveries were a bit flat and he didn’t seem to emote very well in pivotal scenes. Anne Heche as Lois Lane…what can I say. About half of the time, she excelled at the role but there were other times when it sounded as if she was holding back for some reason. When she let loose and embraced the character (like her dialogue during the final battle) she was a damn fine Lois Lane.
Overall I could only recommend this movie to hardcore comic fans and even then, I’d have to caution them that it’s not very good by even those standards. If more time had been spent developing a better script or if this script had been broken into two films, this may have turned out to be a better film.
Rating: Meh
