Review of Superman: Doomsday (2007) by Wade G — 21 Jul 2008

If you were around during the time of the "Death of Superman" story arc it was obvious that this event was the biggest and most controversial comic book event in the industry's history. The end to one of America's favorite icons triggered a massive string of press and inspired thousands of people to pick up a comic for the very first time.

One of the key elements to this event's success, however, was the fact that creators managed to make you unsure if America's boyscout would ever return from he dead and, unfortunately, that feeling can't be repeated in this lastest direct-to-DVD outing.

I mean, what do you expect? Superman dies within the first third of the film; of course he's coming back. You cant really blame Bruce Timm (my hero) and crew to completely recreate the epic feeling of the graphic novel omnibus that inspired it, but, unfortunately, that's not the only thing holding Doomsday back.

My main concern is the movies choice of unnecessarily triming down the storyline in order to make the movie more "accessible". This new reworking of the plot is not nearly as convincing and the loss of many of the key characters in favor of a "closer to home" feeling hurts the scale and overall presence of the movie.

The new revamped characters are all fairly paper-thin in Doomsday, making Lois Lane the stand-out and Jimmy Olsen even less cool. Death of Superman was just one of those adaptations that didn't need any dumbing down to be equally enjoyable to both fans and newcomers.

On a positive note, the fight animation is spectacular even for the amazing Bruce Timm and the slightly more violent action makes every blow incredible. These sequences still can't make up for the butchered plotline and poor voice acting (Adam Baldwin suck as Superman) that hinder the enjoyment for season Superman veterans.

This movie wuld be better enjoyed by kids, which is completely contradictory to the rest of Bruce Timm's work, but the PG-13 rating may limit how many of those children will get to see this film. In the end, Superman: Doomsday is a film looking for its identity while its source material stands triumphantly in its rightfully earned place.