Close to a month ago, I blogged about Doomsday - The Death of Superman. As I said in that post, I really wanted to see it. I just finished watching it a little while ago. I planned to buy the DVD but I noticed that it was on pay per view so I watched it with my son.
He is 4 and he lost interest within the first few minutes. This is a very adult cartoon. Not in language or sex or anything but in themes. There were a few brutal parts, Doomsday crushes a soldier's head for example. The movie shows Doomsday grab his head, the camera angles away and you hear the crushing sound.
It's not just the insinuated violence that makes say it's adult-themed. The relationship between Lois and Kal-El is very adult and the show spends quite a bit of time on that relationship. The reactions when superman dies are equally adult.
I'm not complaining. Though my son lost interest right away, I thought it was a very good movie. Great graphics and animation. Good color. The story and action were well done. I would watch it again.
It wasn't the book though. The book The Death and Life of Superman and the Graphic Novels were much deeper and contained several concurrent plots. There were many characters involved.
This movie mainly concentrates around the initial fight and death of Superman and then into Lex Luthor, Clone Superman and Superman rebuilding himself. That was kind of disappointing; to know how much story there was and for the movie to be so limited.
I think the only way to really do this justice would be to make it a mini-series. And while I would watch it, I'm not sure how many others would. It's too adult to hold a small child's attention and not many adults want to sit through several nights of cartoon.
I can heartily recommend this DVD to any genre fan though. If you are a fan of Superman, which I have always been, this is a must have. If you are a fan of comics in general, this is a good addition to the collection. If you don't really like animated movies or if you are thinking of a movie for your child, I would say to stay away.
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