A Strange Visitor Brings Hope

That strange visitor I speak of is none other than Superman, strange visitor from another planet. What I mean by hope is what I saw in the direct to DVD movie Superman Doomsday an animated film based on The Death of Superman story arc from the comic series many years ago. The hope that this movie brings to American animation is that is shows that there is potential for well done, more mature animated content, and that American creators can do it as well as any foreign studios. Being 2D, the grunt work of animation is, of course, done overseas, this time in Korea, but I'm talking here about good character development, dialogue and awesome voice acting.

The movie brings back memories of the theatrically released Batman: Mask of the Phantasm, which proved that more serious and dark animation for older audiences can find viewers that crave it. You will note in the credits some names associated with that film are also present on Superman Doomsday. This movie also shows that there are still areas where animation shines, able to present things that, even in our CG effects laden world, would be impossible or far too expensive to do in a live action film. This has more city destruction than Armageddon, bigger military battles than Transformers and more super action that Superman Returns. It would cost over half a billion to attempt such a feat in live action. This is a movie made for animation and it was made well.

Still, with all the amazing visuals and explosions, they find the time to give the characters real lives. It's nothing like those cartoons where the characters have no life or thought outside of their current mission. Characters drink, break down and cry, sever relationships, basically do real human things. The voice cast features Adam Baldwin, Ann Heche, James Marsters and Ray Wise among others, like anime notable John DiMaggio. The actors play the characters very real in some scenes and make them very believable.

I could go on about this, but needless to say I was very impressed. I can only hope this leads to more such productions, not just from Warner Animation, but other studios as well. I also hope it leads to such quality being put into animation of all genres in the future.

HAPPY NEW YEAR! I expect great things in 2008! How about you?

Tags: DVD, movies, Art