It's a bird! It's a plane! IT'S.......a fairly decent film.

First, I didnt have really high hopes for this movie. As a boy, I grew up glued to Batman: The Animated Series. Perhaps one of the best cartoons on tv. It shocked, gave kids nightmares, and featured batman, robin, nightwing, and batgirl kicking ass in a very pulp fashion.
Superman the animated series, though alright, lacked the spark of life that Batman had.

Superman Doomsday is alot like Superman the animated series. ALOT. However, it does not take place in the DC ANIMATED UNIVERSE. So it has nothing to do with Superman/Batman: TAS or Teen TItans or Justice League at all.
So in order to differentiate it from those Universes, Bruce Timm's character designs have been altered to look different. It takes some getting used to, but it works., sometimes.

Superman is a big beefy guy. No longer a broad-shouldered young guy, he is a big man with longer hair than we are accustomed to seeing him with. He also has a few wrinkles and cheek bones which are weird to get used to.

Lois Lane is Latino.......I.....I don't know why. She has more defined facial features and bigger eyes making her look cuter.

Lex Luthor is white. He's younger. His nose is smaller, his chin more pronounced, his head thinner. He looks like he could be the son of Luthor from the animated series. He certainly looks younger. Like he's in his 20's.

Jimmy Olsen no longer looks a thing like Jimmy Olsen. He looks like some other redhead guy. Which is fine.

Now.
On to the story. It's 'ok'
Honestly not alot happens. They had to make it more accessible to the public so they had to take out alot of stuff in the book. As long as you don't compare it to the comic book, it's ok. It's very loosely based. Doomsday comes out, kicks Superman's ass pretty fucking hard, Superman smashes him into the earth "asteroid style" and then keels over and dies. This happens in the first 20 minutes of the movie.
So it's probably a good thing it wasnt called The Death of Superman, because his death, while a major plot point, is not the focus of the film.
Oddly, the film focuses on two main things.
Lois Lane trying to find out what Superman's identity is. She is pretty sure he is Clark but isn't certain until later in the film. And Luthor's bizarre slightly homoerotic obsession with superman.

It's entertaining, but it doesn't flesh the characters out too much. But then, that's not really the point of the film. The point is to watch Metropolis deal with a tragedy and it's aftermath when Luthor makes a Superman clone who is a dick to everyone and provides some humorous moments.

The flaws of the film:

- As Johnny Utah mentioned, Anne Heche is a horrible voice for Lois Lane. Adam Baldwin makes a 'decent superman' and strangely James Mardsen (Angel from Buffy the Vampire Crappy Show) makes a pretty good Luthor. His voice has got a definite forboding quality to it.

- the animation in the non-fight-scenes areas sometimes approaches a Teen Titans level of choppiness

- Luthor is clearly gay

The Pros of the Film:

- The animation in the fight scenes is wonderful. Great choreography, sound effects, blood, and the BEAUTIFUL explosions one has come to expect from Bruce Timm / Paul Dini films. As usual, very little cgi is used. Doomsday is pretty awesome for the very short amount of time he gets to spend onscreen.

- Kevin Smith and his running gag from "An Evening with KevinSmith" gets in the film during a great Scene with the villain Toyman voiced by Joe Dimaggio (Bender from Futurama)

- Luthor is clearly gay. And shoots people.

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Overall, I'd give it a B-.....maybe a C+
Just dont go in expecting anything at the level of "Return of the Joker" or "Mask of the Phantasm"
Worth a rent definitely. Buy it too. Even if you hate it. Maybe if we buy enough, the people at Warner Brothers will pull their heads out of their asses and get Paul Dini and Bruce Timm to do another superhero show.
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HEY LOOK A SHIRT.

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and now a completely unrelated picture: