The Death of Superman Review (VIDEO SCRIPT)

Story

• With this being the third iteration of the story on film, this was the most accurate
• Will leave that up to you to decide if that’s a good thing or not
• It synchronises with the Animated Movie Universe that started with War well enough where you don’t HAVE to watch any of the other films, but you should probably have at least War and Throne of Atlantis under your belt to catch the references
• Feels more like an “event” movie than a Superman movie, though Superman is the primary focus

Characters

• Superman: Out of all the canon DC Animated Movie Universe movies I’ve seen, this is the most Superman I’ve seen him act. In the past, he felt very 1-dimensional and very “We’ve Got A Hulk” like, as opposed to the beacon of the world and the leader of the JL he’s known to be both pre and post New 52. This feels more like a return to form for how he usually and should be represented
• Lois Lane: More of a negative. Because of how certain events in the Animated Movie Universe played out, her relationship with Clark almost comes out of left field. A lot of the content in the verse up to this point is inspired by New 52 storylines regarding JL, so we’re asking a lot of questions and questioning a lot of things involving Lois since we’re kinda thrown into the middle of their relationship. Also doesn’t give us enough time to get to know HER outside of prior knowledge from past film, tv and comic appearances
• Wonder Woman: Rosario Dawson continues to show me that she’s a great fit for the character. Animation with her in it is always fluid and awesome, and her bout with Doomsday was easily my favorite part of the movie. Torn between what I’ve received in the movie. One hand, they did a good job showing the result of Clark and Diana’s break-up on her end (despite being off camera), but handled the explanation and execution poorly.

Dislikes

• The way the film handled the course correction between the New 52 narrative they’ve been developing since War just to make the movie more comic accurate than Superman: Doomsday
• Because Superman’s fight with Doomsday was pretty much the second half of the second act and all of the third, there wasn’t enough time to make Clark’s relationships with both Diana and Lois defined and as meaningful as the film wanted them to be, which to be honest, would’ve made his “death” a lot more impactful.
• It’s like they cared so much about making the movie as comic accurate as possible, that they sacrificed 4 years of story-telling and development to do it, and felt that they could just wrap it up/introduce it in one or two scenes and prior knowledge of the characters and their comic arc equivalents. It’s not fair to those who enjoyed the ship due to lack of closure, it’s not fair to those wanted to see proper development in Clark and Lois’s relationship, and the film suffers a bit overall because of it
• I also do NOT like Rainn Wilson as Lex Luthor; I wanna meet the person who thought casting him was a good idea

Likes

• The nod to Steel and Superboy were pretty cool, and their end credit scenes established what roles they’re gonna play in Reign of the Supermen
• The last bit of the fight between Superman and Doomsday was very well animated; almost theatrical release quality, and I WISH DC put that much money into their animation budgets for these movies overall

Overall

• The Death of Superman is an “okay” movie. Not good or bad, but right in the middle
• It did a lot of things about Superman the character right that the Animated Movie Universe didn’t really touch on till this point and had a good amount of well-animated scenes in them
• It also focused too much on making the movie as accurate to the comic event as possible that it sacrificed a lot of the series progression, pre-established relationships and character developments without properly compensating for them, that could’ve made the movie not just the most ACCURATE Death of Superman movie, but the BEST one
• I wouldn’t recommend buying it if you’re not already collecting the Animated Movie Universe movies. It’s only worth a rental or streaming on DC Universe if you have it.