Superman/Doomsday

Plot synopsis:
In Metropolis, Lois Lane tries to sell editor Perry White on a story exposing Lex Luthor's phony charity scam. Perry will have none of it and tells Lois to let it go, then urges Clark Kent to be careful on his foreign correspondent assignment--and to try to remember to write the occasional story. Clark bids Lois and Jimmy Olsen goodbye.Later, at his Fortress of Solitude, Superman agonizes over the fact that even with all his amazing powers he cannot come up with a cure for cancer, lamenting that he wants to be more than Earth's resident strongman. Lois asks Superman why he insists on bringing her to the Fortress so they can be alone, and then accuses him of hiding his greatest secret from her--his true identity, which she claims she all but knows for certain already. Superman claims that he's doing so to keep her protected, but she insists he's doing it because he's afraid to commit.Elsewhere, outside of Metropolis, scientists working for Luthor uncover an alien spaceship. They accidentally open the ship, releasing a monster who kills them all and begins a destructive and murderous rampage towards the city. At the Fortress, Superman's robot alerts him to the trouble, identifying the monster as a genetically engineered Doomsday weapon designed to destroy anything in its path. Superman flies Lois to Metropolis, then engages the monster in a terrific battle. The battle rages across the city until Superman flies Doomsday up into the stratosphere and brings the monster hurling down again, smashing a crater into the city of Metropolis. Doomsday is defeated, but Superman falls lifeless to the ground and dies in Lois's arms.Lois, Perry, and Jimmy are among the thousands at Superman's funeral. Lois sees an elderly woman whom she recognizes from a photo on Clark's desk as his mother. Even Luthor arrives to apparently pay his respects. Later, when Perry urges Lois to take some time off, she journeys to Smallville and visits Martha Kent, saying that she (Lois) and Martha's son (as Superman) had been intimate for several months, and that Martha was the only other person who could understand how Lois felt in the aftermath of Superman's death. Martha invites Lois in for a cup of coffee.With the loss of its greatest protector, the city of Metropolis is overrun by criminal activity. When the Toyman holds a schoolbus filled with children hostage atop a tall building, Lois attempts a rescue. She manages to free most of the children, but the Toyman throws the bus from the roof with Lois inside it. The bus plummets to the ground, but is caught at the last minute--by Superman, who has miraculously returned from the grave! Superman flies Lois to her apartment, where they say goodbye. Lois is concerned that Superman doesn't seem quite himself, but he passes that off as lingering effects from his near death experience. Superman makes his way to Lexcorp towers, where he finds Luthor in a room lit by red sunlight and brandishing a pair of kryptonite-studded gloves. Luthor beats Superman mercilessly, accusing him of leaving before his time. Luthor compliments the unconscious Superman for doing a very good job convincing the world that the Man of Steel had returned, then goes to a private lab where the body of the real Superman hangs in a suspension tank.Later, at the Fortress of Solitude, Superman awakens on medical bed, attended by his robot. The robot explains that Superman's body had all but shut down following his battle with Doomsday, and that it took the robot some time to locate its master after Luthor stole the body. The robot tells Superman that Luthor had created a clone which was passing itself off as the real deal. Superman instructs the robot to do everything possibe to help him get back to full strength. Luthor discovers that Superman's body is missing from his lab.Meanwhile, in Metropolis, the clone Superman hears that the Toyman had escaped prison and killed a little girl. Enraged, the clone grabs the Toyman and flies him high into the air, throwing him back to the ground. He explains to a shocked public that an example needed to be set, to prevent other criminals from similar actions. The dark clone then receives an assignment from Luthor--investigate Lexcorp competition and find Superman's body.Lois visits Luthor, seemingly grieving, but knocks him out with a sedative and, with Jimmy's help, uncovers Luthor's secret lab, where he has grown hundreds of Superman clones to serve as his personal army. The dark Superman arrives and destroys the lab. Luthor hides in his red sunlight room, but the clone locks him in there, tears the room out of the building, and hurls it to the ground.The real Superman has been receiving direct sunlight exposure and undergoing massive physical therapy to bring him back up to full strength. Although he still has recovery to do, he realizes he has to face his dark clone and flies to Metropolis. His robot gives him a kryptonite gun as a way of evening the odds.The army confronts the dark Superman, insisting that he must answer for his recent actions. Superman destroys their tanks and jets with his heat vision just before the real Superman arrives. The dark Superman claims that he is doing what is best for the people of Metropolis, but the real Superman says that the killing has to stop. Dark Superman easily disarms the real deal of the kryptonite gun, sending it miles away. The two fight in a massive battle, but the real Superman is poorly matched against his full strength doppleganger. Lois and Jimmy drive to the other side of town and retrieve the kryptonite gun.In the final confrontation at the Superman memorial, Superman again gives all he has to defeat his enemy. Just as it looks like this fight will end as tragically as his last one, Lois arrives with the kryptonite gun. After a lucky shot, however, Dark Superman destroys the weapon. In the scuffle, the kryptonite charge gets wedged into Dark Superman's costume, and Superman detonates it with a blast of heat vision. With his dying breath, Dark Superman begs Superman to protect the people of the Earth, and Superman affirms that that's why he is here.Superman convinces Lois that he really has returned this time, and agrees that they should have no more secrets--confirming that he is, in fact, Clark Kent. From his office in Lexcorp, Lex Luthor vows that one day, he will destroy Superman.

Tags: romantic

Review:
as an animated movie,this one isn't too bad.i liked the story and the great action sequences and there are some great fight scenes.but if you're really into the history behind the battle between Superman and Doomsday and the aftermath(in other words,if you've read the comic version of the events)you might be disappointed,as i don't think it is that faithful to the source material.but beyond that,the movie does seem a little rushed.i think they may have tried to jam too much into the short 75 minute running time.still,the movie is entertaining.you shouldn't get bored watching it.DC has done better though and although i liked it,it wasn't as good as i had hoped or expected.all in all,though,i'd Give Superman:Doomsday a 7/10 based on it's entertainment value..
All the more reason why it would have been even better in live action, but the budget required to do it justice might be too much.This is a very entertaining and thoughtful movie to watch even if you're not a fan of comics or cartoons.
The reason this movie doesn't feature Jonathon Kent or have any of the other superheroes (all vital parts to the Doomsday saga) is because this is somebodies script that didn't make the cut to live action and instead of when the move to animation came up and all the ability to do it right with the proper character involvement, they were lazy and produced this.
OK, I admit the animation here isn't the best--but the dark story line and a wide variety of "small touches" (like Lois Lane watching the battle, unflinching, as a shard of glass cuts her cheek) more than make up for that.
However, there are quite a few Superman fans who hate the turn in recent years towards darker, grittier story lines (as in the widely unappreciated graphic novel, "For Tomorrow"), which is probably why the reviews for this are as low as they are.The scene-by-scene script and choreography for "Superman: Doomsday" are simply amazing, as anyone who actually stayed in the room to watch this would concede.
You have never seen brutality like you will in this film.The story goes way off the beaten path after Superman's death, but I think Bruce Timm's re-imagining was very well done.
For the first five minutes or so, as a fan of the 1990's animated series, it was a little odd hearing these new voices, but they quickly fell into place and one realizes that this is not going to be your parents Superman cartoons.
So many years, so many attempts at bringing this story arc to the movie format, so many talented people who at one point or another were involved in the project and after all their combined efforts we are left with a light animated version of one of the greatest superman stories ever told.It is hard to judge this movie as a stand alone piece and ignore all the background explored in the comics, and all the drama and money spent over the course of more than a decade.
As Bruce Timm put it in a promotional interview for this release "There is just so much story there, we can't do this in a movie", this adaptation had to be stripped down to its very basics to fit the 70-minute time frame given to the producers.The movie itself works, it has a good pace and I think the viewers appreciate the effort put into not making it a kid movie but rather a more truthful adaptation of the graphic novel, the PG-13 rating proves it.
The animation is excellent, the music makes the character shine with the heroism and the voice actors (except for Anne Heche) seem perfect for their parts.What intrigues me the most is why after producing Superman: The Animated Series and Justice League, Timm and company didn't adapt this huge story arc to their animated series?
Subject to some controversy surrounding its comic-book accuracy, 'Superman/Doomsday (2007)' does focus less on its eponymous characters than you might expect and actually only features around ten-minutes of the 'Doomsday' character, instead focusing on the aftermath of his battle with our hero and loosely amalgamating several story-strands from the Son Of Krypton's source-material.
Not disappointing, Superman vs Doomsday delivers some good action, but there are some plot holes and oddities in the script which made me feel the plot wasn't supposed to play like this and some of the subplots seemed rushed and some key questions(aftermath) were left unanswered.
Marsters' Lex Luthor and Wise's Perry White are equally so-so; suffice to say that the film is not carried by the performances.With Doomsday it is the presence of death and violence in the story that makes it better than it could have been.
Though I respect Bruce Timm and his team for attempting to bring The Death of Superman story to the screen, the result is an uneven affair.Superman/Doomsday moves at a breakneck pace, refashioning the epic Death of Superman saga with only the core characters of Superman, Doomsday, Luthor, & Lois, and excising the entire Reign of The Supermen storyline.With crisp animation and a strong plot, this darker, more violent Superman story suffers mightily from some weak vocal performances from it's key cast.Adam Baldwin seems a natural for the title role of Superman, but he somehow manages to anchor the entirety of his vocal delivery into a monotone whisper that speaks nothing of the optimistic Clark Kent, or the heroic Superman.
The violence is intense and kinetic, exhausting the viewer as well as it's titular opponents in unbelievable, super heroic displays of cataclysmic violence.The second act suffers a bit from not having enough time to fully develop a world without a Superman, but at the end of the day, the biggest problem lies in the lead actor's failures to bring these iconic characters to life.I applaud the filmmakers once again for going out on a limb and taking a chance with this film, but the results speak for themselves.
(Editor's note: I realize that perhaps Doomsday had been seen in other story arcs, that perhaps there had been other back story eventually created, and that other events had been leading up to this, but when I was young I just read this one particular story  the Death of Superman, and it is the basis for this review.) To fill nearly an hour and a half, perhaps the creators of this film decided they needed to bring Luther in to prove that they were making a Superman story, perhaps they needed to demonstrate a pathetic love story between Superman and Lane, perhaps they needed to show mass destruction in which people HAD TO HAVE died or been wounded, but it was done so poorly that it transformed a good idea direct-to-DVD to a DVD destined to be eventually found in the $1 bin.
In a movie this powerful they should have been a full range of emotion to draw the viewers in, but it's just so absolutely plain and vacant.bottom line: Amazing story that holds its own but Adam Baldwin did a pathetic job voicing superman, and I'm a HUGE fan of his character Jayne in Firefly...
But my fears were irrelevant as this project was in safe hands.Adapted from one of the most popular comic book saga of all time, DCU brings us a highly entertaining experience with Superman/Doomsday animated movie.This is a kind of Superman movie which I wanted to watch as a live action movie ever since I was a kid reading Superman comic books.This movie is enjoyable not only because of its superb action but also because of its effective story.The story of this movie is very interesting because it creates and defines its own new theme rather than just re-hashing the doomsday comic book saga.There may be few fan boys who will feel disappointed that it's not a faithful adaptation of comic saga but I am glad that its not, because the comic book material wasn't designed for a 75 minute animated movie.This new story gives us a fresh experience which is familiar but not predictable to get boring.
We have got a fascinating Luthor which is one of the best on screen characterization of this complex character.With a masterful use of sound and visual design and no dialogue at all, we are shown all we need to know about relentless personality of Doomsday.There are so many fresh elements in this story but perhaps the most interesting idea of the filmmakers was to bring a Dark Superman.
At first I was a little annoyed that there is such a small amount of Doomsday, but then I thought to myself "Would I be so mad if I didn't expect a 70 minute long ridiculous story that involves a bunch of garbage justice league characters ending up that ends up at the end of time itself?" of course not." I suggest everyone else does the same.This is definitely NOT the movie version of Superman / Doomsday complete with Hunter/Prey etc story lines.
Expect this "disappointment," and you will enjoy this movie as much as I did.The action is directed fantastically with great camera angles, and the animation is wonderful (like 90's superman or JLU plus two.) I was really wishing that they stuck to the old character designs and voice actors for Superman and Lois, but I really liked the new Lex and Doomsday.
I couldn't even decide on whether to give it a 7 or 8, and the 8 almost won out if it would have meant it would stay higher than SUPERMAN RETURNS: for that is the benchmark for how wrong Warners can get Superman and yet fool so many people into thinking it's "really Superman."As for this film, it's a little better, but still has its problems, so it gets a 7.The relationship between Lois and Superman is such that they appear to be sleeping together, but she doesn't know he's really Clark Kent.
However, Superman himself appears to be trying to kill his doppleganger, making it seem somewhat hypocritical to say the least.Ultimately, the story about Lex's Superman clone is just not as interesting as "Reign of the Supermen," which kept comic book fans guessing in 1993.
It looks like Superman gets much better scripts for animated movies than he does for the big screen, lately.
Adam Baldwin as superman was pretty good but i rather had Tim Daly again as superman he made that character work on the series and some of the movies so it would of seemed fair to bring his voice back again to have some fans of the series familiar with the tones but all in all he did his job and it worked for this movie; but James marsders (Spike from Buffy and angel)as Lex Luther did NOT, he sounded bland, no emotional depth to the character and not much feeling of synergistic grandeur like the voice of the person playing lex in the justice league series honestly you'll watch this film and will be asking that same question, "where's that other dude's voice-over from Justice league?" other voice-overs like Anne heche as Lois, Swoozy kurtz as Clark's adopted mother did their job well but you wouldn't really notice all of that as the movie picks up steam but at the same time falls short quickly with the story.For a movie that's at least an 1 hour and 45 minutes they should of pushed it for a normal movie length for 2 hrs cause there's a lot of story that was missing from this movie; For comic fans, most will notice it on the fly like where's the four impostor superman that took his place?, where's the justice league (Booster Gold, etc.) that at least stalled time against doomsday for the inevitable battle?, Wasn't super girl in this as well?, how come they didn't get into detail about Doomsday background to at least understand why he is the way he is (even though its mentioned briefly) along with other plot holes?
For those that haven't read this comic or novel you probably wouldn't really care and the movie will fly by with fast paced violence and cool fight scenes.I gave this movie a 6 out of 10 for the fact that even though this movie did it's job to discuss his death and made it a pretty climatic battle which I did enjoy; the artwork was a bit off not your typical superman: TAS artistry some might like it and some like myself would find it and the character design a bit flimsy and off.
What I mean by "This" is The Death Of Superman/A World Without Superman/Return Of Superman which I consider to be an epic masterpiece.I knew going into this that the story would have to be streamlined for it to fit into 75 minutes but I didn't expect this, I feel I should have.This is NOT related to that at all, make no mistake the epic Superman vs Doomsday battle including countless other heroes does not happen and in fact Doomsday is in the first quarter of the film and that's it!This is another story altogether regarding Luthor and a Superman clone and not any of those from the original story.If I had never read the comic book I may have found this relatively entertaining but knowing the source material this is an embarassment.Why even call it Superman/Doomsday if the latter is barely going to be in the film?Fingers crossed DC don't decide to make Batman/Bane based on the Nightfall story as I'd imagine they'd do the same.This is just a mess.The Good:NopeThe Bad:Doomsday looks....offFew of the voice cast are badly cast (All I can hear is Spike from Marsters)Awful adaptationThings I Learnt From This Movie:It should have been called Superman/LuthorThis simply shouldn't have been made.
Though not an outright adaptation of the "Death of Superman" comic story arc, this film(the first of Warner Premiere's direct to video animated movies) does borrow a number of elements from there but ends up carving out its own unique storyline.
When artwork on a "movie" looks similar to artwork on a "tv series", its either the TV series had a sky high budget or this movie was drawn "on the cheap".However, look past the lackluster artwork and the slightly un-attractive character designs(which honestly look like a cross between "The Batman", "Zeta Project" and "Hellboy Animated"), and there is an awesome narrative, very human characters and a heartwarming story to be seen in Superman:Doomsday.From the start, we get into this new portrayal of LEx Luthor.
Superman is my favorite Superhero and I think that the Doomsday story is amazing but this was nothing like the comics.
If your not a comic fan, you might like this better than someone familiar with the Doomsday (Superman dies) storyline, a lot of things are missing from the comics, namely it seems that Superman is the only hero on Earth in this animated movie, no Justice League or any other hero, maybe due to licensing rights, odd since this is put out by WB who owns DC comics, so not sure how any licensing problems would occur.The animation is so so, I liked the animated Justice League better, the animation seems hodge podge of different styles, some anime, some Justice League type animation, and some 80' style, Also Luthor in the animated TV series seems so much more better done, this Luthor seems flat, and murderous for no reason, killing mercy seemed contrived, and put in for shock value.Also the whole death of Superman seemed equally flat, no world reaction, of course no superhero funeral possession, just a few minutes of his grave etc, just no emotional value to it, Superman is dead, here is his monument, OK on with the story, and his return seemed equally as flat and just thrown together, clone and resurrection..The animated Justice League did a death of Superman storyline not associated with Doomsday, and it was so much better done, this just to me, came off as a rush job, and slapped together to fill 90 mins, and pretty much leave out everything that made the comic book storyline on Supermans death so well done..
But the fight scenes between Doomsday and evil Superman was amazing.If you have read the comics you would enjoy this movie..
i was a superman fan as a kid and recently i got hooked on this villain called doomsday i haven't read much but doomsday was created as a result of an engineering gone wrong on krypton by Bertron a scientist obsessed to make something that can cheat death doomsday killed almost everyone until the people on planet Calaton made him battle radiant doomsday got killed and his body was thrown out in space in a containment suit it landed on earth somehow doomsday came back to life found his way to the surface battled justice league which leaded to his final showdown with superman the outcome was the death of superman.now this film shows a wrong story from start to finish first of all what was Lex Luthor doing here he had no business second a Superman clone appears in the second half and doomsday is just in the start after fighting he just disappears,the film never shows where doomsday came from they made him like a robot.the plot:lex corporation unleashes doomsday and superman now has to face the most dangerous villain ever.the cast direction music everything don't matter here this film is an insult to doomsday fans as well as superman the only guy who will be laughing watching this lame story must be batman.i liked man of steel the 2013 film i can say only Zack Snyder can make a real life action film and doomsday will look cool i cant wait for those films this is a pure disaster as animation is even bad why DC comics allowed this film to be made its over my head.Overall My Rating For Superman/Doomsday 2007 is 3/10 watch it only if you are a hardcore superman fan.otherwise Skipp it.
Running Time: One Hour & 17 minutes.My Take : **1/2 (Out of ****) -or- 6.3/10 'Superman: Doomsday' is a short animated movie inspired by the epic, multi-issue 'The Death of Superman' comic book story-arc from the early 90s.