Superman:Doomsday is a mediocre adaptation of the controversial (and in my opinion, pretty dumb) "death of superman" saga from the 90's superman comics.
The animated movie treats the subject mater with seriousness and morbidity but for an event as big as the death of superman, the whole thing is no way as epic and dramatic as it should be. The lack of logical appearances from other heroes such as batman, wonder woman and other justice league characters seriously downplays the global importance of superman's demise- all we get to mark this iconic figures death are a few shots of people crying and key characters not smiling that much . Also, the aftermath of Supes death (the return of superman, the superman v superman fight) just lacks depth and conviction, no matter how many things blow up. Visually the film is passable, but the character design for superman just lacks the visual power that the justice league version had (especially with the inexplicable squiggly lines on his face).
On the plus side the voice acting is solid and the cameo from Kevin smith is hilarious.The best part of the film though, is watching it earn that PG-13 rating. While I'm not the type to watch movies purely for violence and mature content, there's something fascinating and genuinely shocking about watching a superman cartoon where people get killed in brutal and visceral ways . Probably the most jaw dropping of these sort of moments is the homo erotic scene where a shirtless Lex Luthor punches the living daylights out of superman, gets on top of him and suggestively purrs "who's your daddy?".
Superman:Doomsday is watchable and can be commended for trying to bring a more adult tone to a superman movie, but because of a very bland and straight forward script, its no where near the epic classic that it had the potential to be. Still, its better than the truly awful superman returns and that counts for something.....
The animated movie treats the subject mater with seriousness and morbidity but for an event as big as the death of superman, the whole thing is no way as epic and dramatic as it should be. The lack of logical appearances from other heroes such as batman, wonder woman and other justice league characters seriously downplays the global importance of superman's demise- all we get to mark this iconic figures death are a few shots of people crying and key characters not smiling that much . Also, the aftermath of Supes death (the return of superman, the superman v superman fight) just lacks depth and conviction, no matter how many things blow up. Visually the film is passable, but the character design for superman just lacks the visual power that the justice league version had (especially with the inexplicable squiggly lines on his face).
On the plus side the voice acting is solid and the cameo from Kevin smith is hilarious.The best part of the film though, is watching it earn that PG-13 rating. While I'm not the type to watch movies purely for violence and mature content, there's something fascinating and genuinely shocking about watching a superman cartoon where people get killed in brutal and visceral ways . Probably the most jaw dropping of these sort of moments is the homo erotic scene where a shirtless Lex Luthor punches the living daylights out of superman, gets on top of him and suggestively purrs "who's your daddy?".
Superman:Doomsday is watchable and can be commended for trying to bring a more adult tone to a superman movie, but because of a very bland and straight forward script, its no where near the epic classic that it had the potential to be. Still, its better than the truly awful superman returns and that counts for something.....