So I made it out to go see Superman and I can honestly say it wasn't that good.
I grew up in the 80s and some of my favorite movies were Superman 1 through 4. And i can honestly say this one was one of my least favorite. Give me Richard Pryor and those jive talking robots anyday.
I'll try not to give any of the movie away but still give a critique, so here goes.
Singer seems to struggle with how much back story to put into the movie. He seemed to just put enough in for a refresher but with little dialogue you're just sort of watching almost a silent home movie. Some people have complained that he shouldn't have put any of it in if it were to be at true sequal of the originals, but I understand the need to connect with the past, though I think the way he did it was campy and too flashbacky.
My least favorite scene had to be when Superman takes Lois for a flight in the clouds, this is pretty much a rehash of the original movie, minus Margot Kidder's annoying monologue, "Can you read my mind..."
Brandon Routh was a fine superman when he was superman he was great, though his clark kent felt like a channelled version of Christopher Reeves. Though I fault Singer for that not Routh because I think it was Singer's design was to connect to the originals as much as possible. Hence the Marlon Brando...
Lois Lane was awful. Kate Bosworth is blond... no matter how much hair dye you use she's still a blond under all that. Plus her frame, her dialogue, her acting its all off and in no way conveys the proud confident Lois Lane. She comes off as more an annoying little girl. Instead of a pesky hot shot reporter we get a pesky teenager struggling through puberty. She didn't seem to command the respect that Lois Lane does. People fear lois because she's so strong, thus it takes superman to tame her in a sense...
Lex Luthor was ok. Kevin Spacey is a good replacement of Gene Hackman though Gene Hackman is probably better in the end, "MISS TESCHMACHER!!!"
Parts of the story are ok, but then parts really are kind of lame. And without getting too much into detail it just didn't have the umph that it needed.
Visually it was great, someone said it was the original with better graphics and I could agree with that somewhat. I just felt that Lex's plan really wasn't well thought out and was similar to his plan in Superman 1... its like dude get a new idea he beat you on that one already.
My big problem with superman is he never has a true knock down drag out action scene. He has no equal so he never really has to use his power mono y mono on a guy. He saves the day but he never has to take out the trash if you hear me. Spidey vs Green goblin, Doc Oct or coming in the next few years Spidey vs Venom. Or Batman vs the Ninja dude, i mean those are great fights. Superman fought those krypton guys but frankly they looked like rejects from a german disco not truly cool badguys.
Now I was a big fan of superman when i was younger. I have probably around a 100 comic books of varing kinds of the old superman. But as I grew older I realized that superman as a comic book character is flawed. A truly great comic book character has to have several weaknesses, which he has two a rock from his home world... which lets face it how many people have access to that. And the struggle that every super hero has his loved ones. And in almost every super hero movie you have the loved ones on one side and greater good on the other and how oh how will he save both???? I mean that has been done to death. And to knock the original superman he chooses the greater good by stopping the nuclear bomb and loses lois so he spins the world back a few times to cause time to go backwards??? I've always had a problem with that even as a kid. I can remember thinking as a kid, "That would cause everyone in the earth to fly into the atmosphere and die. Plus the way the world spins has nothing to do with time..."
Another thing is Superman has no equal here on earth so you're either going to have lex's global destruction thing going on, which gets old after a while (and why does someone want to destroy most of the world? Talk about not getting held enough as a child). OR you have some alien being sent to earth to destroy Superman. Face it superman doesn't have the villians that spidey or batman have. He doesn't have the human element that makes a super hero truly interesting.
As I've gotten older I've found that spiderman and batman really have much more to offer because in a lot of ways they just feel more believable. I mean who can't relate to Peter Parker's struggle with being a dork in school? Or his best friends always turning into bad guys. I mean if some how Jimmy Olsen or Lois lane turned into Superman's arch rivals then that might get me interested. I mean spidey can't catch a break, he's a dork in school, his friends are all trying to kill him because they're either Venom, Doc Oc, or the Green Goblin, is too busy to spend time with the girl, and he's poor. The guy just can't win.
Superman has a good job, gets the girl, saves the day always, can't really be hurt in any sort of way, and has a prime piece of property in the North Pole. Plus all the people around him are so dumb that he doesn't even need to wear a decent disguise. Nope glasses, his hair combed the other way, and a goofy smile.
So I've sort of gone sour on superman. And the movie was just ok.
here's some thoughts i wrote, they're kind of random and not that great...
I've said it for the past 10 years: the only superman movie I think I'd find interesting would be the death of superman. It was one of my favorite points in the comic book because superman finally met his match. You have doomsday a genetic creation pretty much created to destroy life and all the superheros in DC comics go up against him and get pulverised. One guy loses his power completely because Doomsday destroys his super suit (which was the sorce of his powers). So Superman steps up and battles to the standstill where they each throw the last punch and both doomsday and superman fall down dead infront of the daily planet. Then four supermen arise to take his place: One a krypton type being who is tired of mercy and goes around burning criminals and bad guys alive. The other a half cyborg half man superman who claims to be superman recreated---he actually turns out to be the bad guy and the other three superman have to fight him. Superboy who is a clone of superman though they couldnt' clone his super powers they could only close his physical features so they some how infuse him with telekenesis. Then the fourth is Steel which I think Shaq made a movie of already. He's a former arms designer who sees the weapons he created being used by street gangs so he makes a suit of steel and goes around fighting gangs.
Now that movie would be interesting, because you'd have the battle with doomsday and all these cameos of other superheros. You'd have superman's death and subsequent resurrection. And then taking down the cyborg evil superman. Good stuff. Granted there were tons of holes in the plot even in the comic book that would have to be fixed. And frankly they're probably too big to fix so why bother. Like: Where'd the krypton guy come from? Same question applies to superman 2 the movie, where'd those lameos come from? How do you clone superman if he's impervious to needles and such? How do you infuse someone with telekensis and can i sign up for that? Then the fact that superman comes back to life only as a human not a superhero and has to fight the bad guys as a regular joe... yeah that was pretty lame as well.
Posted by holtonian at July 8, 2006 05:28 PM | TrackBack