DVDFile

Warner Home Video / 2007 / 78 Minutes / PG-13
Street Date: September 18, 2007

This is apparently the first in a series of direct-to-DVD animated features intended to reimagine the Warner Bros. stable of superheroes.  Superman: Doomsday was intentionally created with an unexpected and perhaps unprecedented PG-13 rating complete with implied sex and more violence and death than one might expect.  The strategy seems to be to appeal to a potential audience composed of those enthusiastic about DC’s more intense comic books.  Most notable among them was the storyline that killed of the man of steel; at the time, the series provoked substantial coverage in both print media and television.  Fans clamored to buy the issue in which Superman sacrificed his life to protect the humankind that meant so much to him.  It’s that series that was the inspiration for this animated feature.

Bruce Timm, who contributed to the fresh sensibilities of the animated Batman television series, co-wrote with Duane Capizzi, and co-directed with Lauren Montgomery and Brandon Vietti.  And like the animated film he produced, Batman: Mask of the Phantasm, this new adventure has an aspect ratio of 1.78:1, facilitating an anamorphic video presentation on DVD.  Nice move.

This was clearly a labor of love for all involved, and I wish I could say that the results are as entertaining as Batman: Mask of the Phantasm, but the entire film feels rushed and entirely too complicated for its short runtime of under 78 minutes.  It’s clear that you can’t cram two years of comic books into such a compressed state without an adverse effect.  I fully expected the film to end with the death of Superman and leave the aftermath and ultimate resurrection for one or two additional animated features.  Alas, that is not the case, and the cost of that approach is to severely lesson the emotional impact on the viewer. 

Lex Luthor (James Marsters) is still obscenely rich and obscenely nasty.  He’s funded extensive medical research and discovered cures for terrible diseases, yet rather than take a windfall profit from marketing the treatments, he’d rather have the medications modified to maintenance drugs that would force the world’s sufferers to pay for medication to keep themselves alive for years to come.  One of his projects, this one far underground and well away from Superman’s prying X-Ray vision, accidentally uncovers what appears to be an alien spaceship buried no less than two thousand years before.  It’s soon discovered that it’s an eternal prison designed to house an indestructible, cybernetically engineered super-soldier.  When its alien inventors realized that the brute couldn’t differentiate between friend and foe, and that it simply existed to extinguish all life, it was enclosed and buried on our backwater little planet.  Now it’s been released inadvertently, and it kills everything it can find.  This looks like a job for Superman (Adam Baldwin).

He’s been a little distracted for the last few months.  It seems that he’s become intimate with Lois Lane (Anne Heche), but not so intimate that he’s willing to reveal his secret identity as Clark Kent.  Ah, but Lois is smarter than that.  He fears the knowledge would put her life at risk.  She’s figured it out and only wants him to reveal himself as a symbol of his commitment.  But the relationship has to be put on hold as Superman takes on the monster, and the confrontation trashes Metropolis.  Superman will not walk away (or fly away) from this one.  The world grieves, Metropolis grieves, Lois grieves, Martha Kent (Swoosie Kurtz) grieves . . . even Luthor resents his greatest foe’s death.

Believe it or not, that’s not the fundamental plotline of the film; it’s merely the setup for what’s to come.  And I’ll not reveal more to those who are not familiar with the work that inspired the film.

There is a concerted effort to differentiate this reimagining of the Superman saga from previous Warner Bros. entertainments.  It is intended to stand alone.  Perhaps that’s why Superman didn’t do the obvious.  Instead of allowing himself to be beaten to a pulp, all he had to do is fly the beast out of atmosphere and toss it on an orbital path to the sun.  I don’t care how tough it is; it’s not about to survive the thermonuclear fires of a star.  (In fact, why didn’t the aliens launch its imprisoned creation into the nearest star?  Answer: we wouldn’t have a film.  Very considerate of them.)

The original complex story has been so simplified and condensed, that much of the melodrama and emotional impact have been drained away.  Adding elements that could only exist in a PG-13 film are of only marginal help.  The body count is high.  The sexual relationship is implied but candid.  And Luthor is so paranoid about destroying any evidence that he was responsible for unleashing the terror, he feels no compunction to murdering staff with potentially damaging knowledge.  Jimmy Olsen (Adam Wylie) is front and present, but becomes so disillusioned by Superman’s death that he goes to work for a higher paying sleazy tabloid (an unproductive subplot). 

The film is a missed opportunity.  With the freedom of a PG-13 rating the filmmakers could have imbued the work with a more adult sensibility.  Instead, it was exploited with destruction, death, and mayhem.  Even Superman seems unconcerned with collateral damage as he battles in the heart of Metropolis, not once, but twice.  And the animators made an odd decision.  Drawing a character for reduced budget, low frame rate animation requires simplified characters.  But lines used to portray Superman’s facial features impart an older man look, similar to Bruce Wayne’s face in the Batman Beyond series.  Odd.

My seemingly endless complaints aside, perhaps the film could work well for those unfamiliar with the comic books.  I haven’t read them, and even though I was aware of the furor of the death of Superman from media publicity at the time, my mild disappointment as I viewed the film grew as I watched the supplements and truly began to understand the complexities that had been discarded.  But the voice cast is uniformly excellent.  Anne Heche and James Marsters both surprised with their fine readings.  Luthor may be the most complex of all the characters in the film.  And listen for Ray Wise as Perry White and comic fan Kevin Smith in a voice cameo as a grumpy man.

I enjoy animation.  I particularly enjoyed the Batman animated series when it premiered and ran on Fox (it diminished somewhat when it was transitioned to the now defunct WB).  I was impressed with Mask of the Phantasm, so my expectations were high, but what we have here is a C+ execution.

The Video: How Does The Disc Look?

The production’s original aspect ratio of 1.78:1 is presented in anamorphic video and the results are pretty satisfying.  Modest halos are visible, most obvious in the black lines on top of Luthor’s white suit, but they are low amplitude and don’t really intrude.  Colors are vivid without being overdriven into iridescence.  There isn’t the slightest hint of color smear.  The video dynamic range is impressive, from bright whites to deep blacks.  You’ll find neither blooming nor crush.  As with most budget animation, small object detail and finely grained textures are moot; they don’t really exist in the images, even in the more complex backgrounds or the CG animation.  The presentation is crisp and pleasing; I doubt if the halos will be noticed with a viewing angle of 30 degrees or less.

The Audio: How Does The Disc Sound?

Odd.  The Dolby Digital 5.1 track has some surround effects, but they are so infrequent as to be gratuitous.  And the louder discrete sounds seem to emanate from the right surround exclusively.  EX decoding will neither help nor hinder the presentation.  The rather pedestrian action orchestral score by Robert Kral seems generic and uninspired, yet the fidelity is quite reasonable.  I suppose I should be grateful that it’s an orchestral score as opposed to synthesizers or source tracks.  Sound effects are okay without being particularly impressive.  There’s deep bass, but it failed to move my clothing.  The dryly recorded voices come through with persuasive fidelity and remain crystal clear throughout.

Optional English SDH subtitles are provided.

The Supplements: What Goodies Are There?

Warner has been quite generous with the extras.  In fact, I may have enjoyed the supplements even more than the main feature.

We begin with a commentary track by co-director and co-writer Bruce Timm, writer Duane Capizzi, voice director Andrea Romano, and executive producer Gregory Noveck.  They discuss the deviation from the comic epic from which the story was derived.  They explain the intent of the production and what they tried to convey.  A brief history of the concept to production is offered.  We learn about the casting; expect quite a bit of fawning over the performances.  I enjoyed the discussion of plot structure and the efforts to avoid plot flaws.  A bit of the commentary tends to be a mutual admiration society, but if you can overlook that, there are interesting tidbits of information to be gleaned, like how to achieve a targeted PG-13 rating. 

The best supplement is the Requiem and Rebirth: Superman Lives! featurette (43:10), which is organized into five parts and presented in 1.78:1 anamorphic video.  Most of the documentary describes the history of the Death of Superman storyline as published over the course of two years in comic book form.  We learn about how the plots of the various individual editions are planned at an annual conclave of writers.  It’s revealed that ABC’s Lois and Clark television show caused them to abandon Lois and Clark’s wedding in print.  In fact, that gap provoked the notion, “Let’s just kill ‘im.”  The film examines the development of that plotline and the impact it had in the media.  This is an excellent overview of an unexpected cultural event.

Next is the Justice League: The New Frontier teaser reel (10:44), also presented in 1.78:1 anamorphic video.  This is essentially an extended look at the next direct-to-DVD animated production in which the superheroes are given a definite retro treatment.  The film will take us back to a more naïve time, both contextually and stylistically: the ‘50s.  Will this film be more satisfying than Doomsday?  We’ll have to wait and see.

Behind the Voice (5:18) is a short 1.78:1 anamorphic featurette that reveals the voice actors both at work and as the subjects of very brief interviews, discussing their characters.  It’s always a pleasure putting faces to names for those actors not completely familiar, and I was surprised at how many I recognized but failed to know their names.  I was intrigued to see that many of the actors recorded their lines together, which gave them the advantage of bring able to interact and play off of one another.  This is atypical for animation voice work.

Next is a rather pointless game called Superman's Last Stand.  I simply don’t get it.  The filmmakers went for a PG-13 rating, yet included a game suitable for the under thirteen set.  And so little effort went into this game that the video is in 1.33:1 full screen as opposed to anamorphic video.

Last, you’ll find trailers for The Last Mimzy, I Am Legend, Babylon 5 – The Lost Tales, Spawn – The TV Series, Blade – House of Chilthon, Smallville Season 6, and a teaser for the Blade Runner 25th Anniversary Edition that’s more of a preview (1:31) of what appears to be an intriguing documentary than a trailer for the film.  I’m psyched.

Final Thoughts

A bit of a disappointment, Superman: Doomsday had more potential than payoff.  It’s a decent enough first try for a new series of direct-to-DVD animated features, but I can only hope that future efforts are more compelling.  I simply don’t understand how the opportunity to push the boundaries with a target PG-13 rating was missed.  The documentary, on the other hand, is excellent, informative, and fascinating.  It might be worth a rental for that alone.