Superman: Doomsday
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DVD Cover Information
Actor: Adam Baldwin, Anne Heche, James MarstersBrand: SUPERMAN
DVD: Region Code 1
Audio: English (Original Language); English (Subtitled)
Format: Animated, Closed-captioned, Color, Dolby, NTSC, Widescreen
Picture Format: 1.78:1
Running Time: 75 minutes
DVD Release Date: 2007-09-18
Audience Rating: PG-13 (Parental Guidance Suggested)
Studio: Warner Home Video
Movie Reviews of Superman: Doomsday
Movie Review: Superman; Generic Evil Monster
Summary: 1 Stars
Man, I hate movies based on things. It's not that all of them are bad. Batman Begins, for example, managed to be one of the best movies I've ever seen in my life, and about half of the recent superhero movies released to theaters have surprising been worth a single viewing. No, I hate movies based on things because there are so many pitfalls for amateur directors, producers and actors to plummet, screaming into as the critics stand calmly above the pit's second level, hurling insults down upon them for their disrespect. The worst part is that the more popular the subject matter is, the harder it is to appease the fans, half of whom will demand precise, unwavering faithfulness to all that's come before, as the other half whines that the story wasn't more original. It's little wonder, therefore, that most directors and writers for movies based on other things just won't even bother trying to appease the fan base, and instead, will try to tell a story of their own with someone else's characters, thus effectively digging even larger and more scream-worthy pits for themselves to fall into when they really, really, REALLY get it wrong.
So anyway. Superman Doomsday.
Here we have a movie that's about, or rather based on... Alright. It's very, very, very loosely based on a series of comics books that I think were first released sometime in the ninties, though I honestly can't remember a thing about comic books from the ninties. Anyway, as my loyal contacts over at wikipedia have been kind enough to inform me, the death and return of Superman was a pretty big event, in which one character; creatively named Doomsday, decides it's a smart idea to go to town and start wrecking up the place. Action and mayhem follow, and there's a whole mess in which a bunch of new superman-style superheroes appear before being quickly voted off the island when the old Superman returns. Apparently, Superman Doomsday was intended to be something like that, but whether the old comics were fun to read or not, this film seems to have gotten a bit lost on the way to funsville.
I think I may have been a bit spoiled by the art and storytelling style of the DC-animated universe, but I still don't see why Superman has to have stupid little black lines on his cheeks in every single scene like he's wearing really insufficient war-paint. It's bad enough they had to dip Lois Lane in chocolate and force Lex Luthor to lose about fifty pounds, but if I were Mister Generic Doom Monster Guy fighting big blue, and I saw those little black "Y's" staring me in the face from either side of the big guy's mug, I'd probably bust a gut, which might make them functional at least.
But how did the movie sound, you might ask? Was the music any good? How about the voices? To that, I'd probably reply, "Oh, I don't know. Okay, I guess." That, of course, being me-speak for "It couldn't have been anything really good, or I'd remember it, wouldn't I?"
I hate it when people do this. I don't know who got it into his head first that background music should never distract from the action in the movie. It's background music. It's supposed to seize you by the shirt collar and tell you how to feel in any given scene, just like it's done in all the good movies ever released; Star Wars, Indiana Jones, Hook, Spider-man, the first Superman movie with Christopher Reeves... Bland, uninteresting, generic tunes like the kinds in this movie only serve to further outline how bland, uninteresting and generic the scenes themselves are, and once you realize that, there's not much else I need to say, is there?
The story... Let's see. I guess there was probably a story, that... Oh, yeah. It started out with Mister Stone Cold Generic breaking loose from some evil monster container somewhere and going after Superman, so they at least got that part right, or at least, as right as you can get a really vague, underdeveloped story concept. Then, for some reason, the movie decides that it wants Lex Luthor to be responsible for all the evil in the world, so he repeatedly unleashes and/or creates every other major threat in the entire movie, apparently not having learned his lesson from the first time.
There's a couple of brief cartoon fight scenes, some equally-generic plot about a robot Superman, then a clone or some such thing that wants to follow the typical "protect people by enslaving them with lethal force" villain motivation textbook, but by that point, I'd stopped caring, and the movie clearly wanted me to care, because so many of the characters seemed to do so directly and loudly.
Subplots are even worse, especially when Jimmy Olsen tries to go punky and rebellious and ends up sliding halfway into disco territory. It's a seventy-four minute movie, for goodness' sake. Do we really have time to worry about who Jimmy Olsen is working for this week?
After that, we march, grudgingly, on to the final point on which the movie tripped and feel on its face; the relationship between Superman and Lois Lane.
I have a confession to make. I hated Superman II. No, I'm not cowardly. I'm not one of those people who quivers in fear when Kryptonian criminals invade Earth and take over. What inspired so much loathing in me were the implications that Superman had allegedly gotten his thing down with Lois without any kind of formal commitment, and this movie is no different in that respect.
I know that in the modern world, you'll be strung up by your bright red underwear for even implying that people should start taking a little responsibility and treating each other right, but are fidelity and honor really such hard things for people to grasp? Is it so hard to imagine that a blue, alien boy scout who grew up in Kansas would naturally want to be honorable and commit to the person that he probably cares about most in the world well before scurrying under the sheets? If that's really so hard to fathom, what does that say about our hero? More importantly, what does it say about the hero concept in general, if we refuse to even conceive of a hero who's smart enough to attach some importance to any part of the mating process?
To say that I found this movie disappointing would be an understatement the size of planet Krypton in its heyday, but maybe I shouldn't be all that surprised. After releasing so much empty, meaningless crap like that "the Batman" animated series, it feels to me like the age of halfway decent DC Comics animation is well over. If you really must see Superman animated on DVD, there's always the Paul Dini and Bruce Timm animated series, or even the Max and Dave Fleischer cartoons, which; short and minimalistic though they were, were still better and more faithful to the character than this piece of garbage.
So to sum it up, animation; ridiculous and silly. Sound, meh. The story is a hopeless, irredeemable mess so mired in nothing's-sacred modernism that it's a wonder Superman can uphold justice at all, and from start to finish, I can't think of anything about this film that might possibly save it from being a overall bad experience, unless you're the kind that likes watching while moviemakers plummet into bottomless pitfalls.
Summary of Superman: Doomsday
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