Superman: Doomsday

Cast

• Adam Baldwin ---- Superman / Clark Kent / Clone Superman


• Anne Heche ---- Lois Lane


• James Marsters ---- Lex Luthor

Rating: PG-13

Superman: Doomsday is very and I do mean very loosely based on the 1992 DC comics event The Death Of Superman, Reign of the Supermen, and finally the Return of Superman.

One of Lex Luthors's operations uncovers an alien craft with a being inside. After inadvertently damaging the the pod a hologram proceeds to issue what Lex takes to be a warning, and the being escapes killing everybody around. The movie cements its pg-13 rating by having Doomsday kill a deer on his way to metropolis.

The alien being wreaks havok as he moves closer to the city, and proving his very indestructible nature by surviving unscathed an explosion of a tanker truck.


Meanwhile, in the fortress of solitude Superman in a full out relationship with Lois gets a warning from his Super-robot butler about Doomsday. Having access to Jor-El's archives the robot informs superman about how indestructible, and uncontrollable the being is.

Superman hastily flies towards metropolis to face the being. A long, very nicely animated and action packed battle ensues after which superman flies the creature up into space, and then brings him down at full-on terminal velocity and impacts him into the ground in metropolis leaving a huge crater.

After exerting himself so, Superman stumbles towards Lois and collapses into her arms. Lois weeps as the man of steel exhales on last time.

A few months later as ToyMan has taken a school bus hostage and threatens to drop it off a building Superman re-appears and saves the children and Lois who trying to save the them as well gets trapped by Toyman in the bus.

After a while it is revealed this Superman is a clone created from the real superman's DNA by Lex Luthor. As it turns out Lex Luthor starts to have a breakdown after Superman's death as he blames him for leaving him, and so he creates a new Superman he can control, and one he can beat to a pulp in his specially contructed Red sun room.

After a while the clone starts to loose superman's morality and kills ToyMan after he had killed a child in another of his outings. The death is all there, showing Superman dropping ToyMan from the sky onto a police car.

Meanwhile in the fortress of solitude the fortress robot guardian has retrieved Superman's body from Luthor's compound and is working on restoring the man of steel's health and strength as he was not really dead. His vitals had reduced to almost nothing to help him heal.

Once he's somewhat restored he returns to Metropolis to stop his rampaging clone form destroying the Military that had been sent after him.

After another action packed, and property damaging fight, he takes down his clone with the help of Lois and a Kryptonite gun he had taken from Lex Luthor in the past.


Animation is nice and crisp, very reminiscent of the Justice League style of animation.

Voice acting is pretty good all around. Baldwin offers a great voice for the man of steel. Deep, manly, but caring. And is exceptionally well played when he has to talk to, argue and ultimately confront himself.

Marsters gives life to a deeply troubled Lex Luther, and offers some excellent range both in vocals and in acting ability. Going from deranged and almost psychotic to controlled, devious and conniving all without missing a beat, and making it look quite natural for the character.

Heche on the other hand doesn't quite deliver a believable Lois turning her more into an annoying girlfriend rather than an independent reporter.

The movie deviates from the comic book quite a bit in order to provide a more streamlined story for a movie format. The movie is only 1 hour and 14 minutes long which seems a little short, an extra 30 minutes might have enabled them to include characters such as the Erradicator, Cyborg, and Steel. As it stands it barely lets you feel the death of superman before bringing him back.

The movie offers some violence and quite a bit of blood for those lookin a more mature version of Superman.

Extra Features

My version of the movie is thew regular single DVD version. It offers a holographic cover, and several extra features such as a 3 part look into how they decided and went about killing Superman in the comics.

Commentary by Bruce Timm, Writer Duane Caprizi, Voice director Andrea Romano and Executive Producer Gregory Noveck is available.

The DVD also has some sneak peaks, and featurettes and a DVD game where you get to play as superman and fight Doomsday in a remote button pressing deal. Its not very good.

There's enough content there to keep you busy for a while.

At then end the movie is good, but not great.
Fans of the comic book will be disappointed with the watered down story.
However casual viewers should have a decent time with this movie. One to pop in on a lazy afternoon when there's nothing else to watch.


4 out of 5 reels.