Warning: Spoilers of a 9 year old movie ahead
Greetings Ladies and Gents! It is I, The Shaman of Animation; and welcome back to The Road to BVS: my adventure through various DC Animated films in the days building to Batman v. Superman: Dawn of Justice. If you've seen the second trailer for BVS then you've seen the reveal of Doomsday, one of the biggest and most famous Superman villains; and in honor of Doomsday's big screen debut, we're taking a look the animated movie: "Superman Doomsday'
Superman Doomsday is the adaptation of the 1992 storyline 'The Death of Superman'. When Lexcorp discovers and accidentally releases a killing machine of a monster buried deep underground, The Man of Steel must do battle with this creature, even if it costs him his life.
Okay, let's get some of my personal nitpicks out of the way. One in particular are three of the character designs: those are Lex, Lois, and Superman. Now, growing up watching the Justice League animated series and recently re-watching the first Season of Superman The Animated Series, I do love the art style and character designs by Bruce Timm. That said, I wasn't a fan of the character designs of Lex and Lois in the movie; reason being is that they look younger than they're portrayed as. I assume these characters are in their late twenties to their thirties but they look like they should be chilling with me in school, partying and what not. And in the case of Superman, he looks older than you'd think. His design has these lines down his cheeks and it gives off the impression that he's around in his forties. I respect Mr. Timm for wanting to do something different for the characters instead of copying and pasting what he did for his previous DC Animated projects (Something the newer DC Animated films could learn from), but these designs just didn't win me over.
The next nitpick, albeit this may be a strange one for those reading this. But the relationship with Superman and Lois in the movie. A subplot of this film was that Superman and Lois were dating, yet Superman was not willing to tell Lois that he was Clark despite Lois already knowing. Perhaps it's because I've watched too much Smallville, but the idea that Superman is with Lois, and yet he hasn't told her he's Clark is just odd to me. I would've figured if this was the story you were going for, you would've had Clark be the one Lois is dating and he would say he's Superman, not the other way around. But again, it's a weird thing to gripe about so I'll leave it alone.
Superman Doomsday was the first time an animated Superman project received a PG-13 rating, and boy does it deliver on the PG-13 front, which, in a movie that introduces Doomsday, you have to. Doomsday when he's in the movie kills a lot of people and destroys a lot of stuff, which honestly caught me off guard my first time watching through. Plus, the fight he has with Superman, it's brutal, it's ugly, and there's a significant amount of blood in the fight. It is all around cool to watch.
Now, you may have noticed I said WHEN Doomsday is in the movie. Why exactly did I use those words? Well, it's due to the fact that the big iconic fight between Superman and Doomsday it's in the first twenty minutes of the movie, and the fight itself, if you cut away all the stuff that happens in between, is five minutes. It's a fun five minutes, but it's still five minutes. Which is really odd, considering the movie is titled Superman Doomsday. Then again, I guess "The Death and Return of Superman" wouldn't be as catchy of a title...
And while we're on the topic of Superman's death, let's talk about it, or rather the lack of emotional weight it had for me. Maybe it's because it happened so early on so you knew something was bound to happen. But, I wish the film were a tad bit longer so we could see more of how A world without Superman affects people outside of one admittedly great scene and some lip service. There was an episode in the old Justice League animated series that did the whole "Death of Superman" angle (You're seeing a picture of that episode up above), that did it much more efficiently in my opinion. You see all his friends and family, the people of Metropolis, and his teammates in the Justice League all their in the funeral, and so much more. Granted, I am comparing a scene from a series that's had a multiple season show that built up to it and that show in itself had forty plus episodes to establish Superman and his supporting cast versus a movie that's trying to be its own thing separate from it.
From this review, you'd think that Superman Doomsday was a bad film, but despite how negative I was towards it, there i some good stuff in it: there's a scene between Lois and Martha that was pretty great, the action like I said was a lot of fun, and James Marsters gives a great performance as Lex Luthor. It's not a bad film, but it is most certainly a rather forgettable one.
But that's all for this post folks, stay tuned as on the next stop on The Road to BVS, we'll be taking a look at Superman/Batman: Public Enemies
Til next time, I'm The Shaman of Animation: Take Care...
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