Starring Adam Baldwin, Anne Heche, James Marsters
Written By:
Directed By: Lauren Montgomery, Bruce W. Timm
Studio: Warner Home Video
Buy on Amazon.com link
I’ve liked Superman for as long as I can remember. Heck, when I was a wee little’n, I had these unbelievably superawesome Superman-suit pajamas that even had a Velcro-on cape. But I wasn’t really hooked until I woke up one cold Christmas morn to find a stocking topped with issue #75 of Superman, AKA The Death of Superman issue. The whole thing blew me away, and I spent the following years spending a lot of money on comics. To this day, the Death/Funeral/Return of Superman story arc is my favorite in all of, uh, comicdom.
Naturally, I’ve always hoped to see the story in motion, be it live action or animated. There was a close call in the late 90s in what would have been a disastrous live-action film. Nic Cage was to play a non-flying, angst-ridden Superman who was killed by Doomsday and brought back by Brainiac. Or something. All I know is that after reading the descriptions, it would have been utterly, utterly terrible. But finally we do have a decent approximation of the story in direct-to-DVD animated form.
There’s one important thing to know before watching this: it’s only loosely, and I mean loosely, based upon the comic storyline, and clocking in at 75 minutes, it’s extremely shortened and simplified. Another important thing to note is that while the film was made by many of the talents behind the various other DC animated series, including Superman: The Animated Series, it has no connection whatsoever. It’s intended as a stand-alone movie, and to drive that point home, it was given entirely new character designs and voice talents.
The voice-overs are a mixed bag at best. Superman is portrayed by Adam Baldwin. I admit I had my doubts. After his gruff and tough Jayne from Firefly/Serenity, I wasn’t expecting him to sound so… heroic. But he pulls it off well. We also have James Marsters giving a great performance as Lex Luthor, though not as great as his Brainiac on Smallville. On the flipside, Anne Heche gives Lois Lane the absolute shrillest, bitchiest voice I’ve heard in a good long time. John DiMaggio makes a random unexpected appearance as Toyman, and I suppose he does a good job for this particular version, but the problem is that he just comes off sounding too much like a crazier version of some of his characters on Futurama (particularly that one fat dude with the hat and wifebeater), and that was really distracting to me.
Now the plot itself, as I said, was massively reduced and simplified from the comic series. Most disappointingly, the entire Reign of the Superman story arc was dropped in favor of a bizarre alternate resurrection story involving Lex Luthor, Toyman, and… well, one other Superman, but not any of the ones from the comics. But frankly, this movie isn’t really about the plot. It’s about the fights. And I’ll tell you, this ended up with a PG-13 rating with pretty good cause. Doomsday spends his first few minutes of screentime snapping people’s necks like twigs or pounding their heads into concrete. The Superman/Doomsday fight, while too short for my taste, was still incredibly brutal (though the finale isn’t as brutal as the final comic, where they ended up beating each other to death).
As I mentioned, much of the comic plot was dropped, but they also added two random subplots. The first is the aforementioned Toyman, although that itself partially echoes a story that appeared not long after Superman’s resurrection in the comics, involving Toyman and Cat Grant’s son. The other (and even more random) subplot involved Jimmy Olsen quitting the Planet and becoming a tabloid paparazzi. For some reason. It’s never really explained, other than a vague hinting of Jimmy randomly becoming a greedy SOB.
So I guess the point is, this movie is its own thing, and if you go in expecting a fast-paced, action-packed flick loosely inspired by the comics, you’ll come away mostly happy.
The DVD also has a handful of bonuses, most of which are useless, but there’s a great 40-minute documentary on the actual comic series, told mostly by the creative teams behind the whole thing. It’s pretty fascinating and insightful, and even brought back some random memories for me. For instance, it reminded me of the publishing hiatus after the final Funeral for a Friend issue. Being a youngster at the time I was just confused and irritated by the lack of new issues, but now I see it was a crazy gimmick to keep people guessing if they actually would be bringing old Supes back to life, and if so, when and how. Anyway, it’s a cool little documentary piece.
On one last note, I’m also quite amused by the DVD’s packaging, which includes one of them fancy lenticular cover things that changes when you view it at different angles, along with a big giant sticker proclaiming this to be “THE FIRST EVER PG-13 SUPERMAN ANIMATED FEATURE!” Aw yeah. That’s the sort of thing consumers SHOULD be excited about.
Features:
Audio Commentary
Featurette
Interviews
Other
Audio:
ENGLISH: Dolby Digital CC
Video:
Widescreen 1.78:1 Color
Subtitles:
Favorite Scenes: The Superman/Doomsday fight; Luthor going nuts in his red-sunlamp room
Rating: PG-13
Running Time: 75 minutes
Extras Rating:
Overall Rating: