Emily and I saw Superman Returns tonight. It just didn't do it for me. Probably part of my trouble was that I never really saw any Superman before.
I knew Lex Luthor was the bad guy, but I wasn't really convinced. And this movie didn't convince me he was nasty until about half an hour in, by which time I rather liked him. He made classical references. He was educated. He looked like Dr. Vanderpoel and even had Vanderpoelian mannerisms. He was daring, thorough, and decisive. He listened to symphonies and opera and had a good sound system. There was some conversation, that was supposed to prove he was nasty, but it was all talk until he and his henchmen started beating Superman around on the island in the most unimaginative manner possible. With kryptonite, of course.
And in that same half hour, Superman spectacularly failed to gain my sympathy. He was cute. Really cute. He was ridiculously strong and capable. He made flashy rescues: a plane including Lois Lane saved from crashing, snatching people out of midair, stopping gigantic globes from squashing his editor: and he had several annoying scenes consisting entirely of basking in crowds' adulation. His main trouble was winning the heart of Lois Lane, who now had another good man--a live-in boyfriend, but a very solid guy. (Richard proved himself a good egg over and over. Lois doesn't deserve either him or Superman, though she is sweet and remarkably pretty.)
Superman's mother isn't as cool as Spiderman's Aunt May. Granted, it would be really hard to do. Superman's editor isn't as outrageous as Spiderman's, either.
The moral of the story didn't really make sense to me. They repeated the phrase, "The father becomes the son and the son becomes the father" several times in a significant way, but I'm not sure what they meant. Em was explaining it to me. I guess it has something to do with the old movies, but l didn't see them. "With great power comes great responsibility" is blunt, but at least it makes sense.
One thing I found rather interesting was the smoking theme. Superman exhorts Lois not to smoke, and Lex Luthor does smoke. On Lois' last "what do I do now??" moment, she pulls out a cigarette and then decides not to light it. I'm glad smoking is painted negatively, because it really is bad stewardship of oneself, but--it's so heavy-handed, and I just wonder at their priorities. There are such a lot of worse vices than smoking.
Upon consideration, I think the movie suffered from pacing and characterization problems. It would have been better if there had been more characterization through action early on, and if there hadn't been so much denouement. Not much really happened after the dramatic final battle.
There were good moments. Superman's friend, Jimmy I think his name is, is a uniformly good minor character. He's funny. :-) Richard, as I mentioned, is a good guy. The son is okay, though I wish he had more superhero moments. The opening credits were utterly Star Wars, theme, wonky font, spacey background, and all.
In my opinion, the best line of the movie was "We had some trouble downstairs. Brutus is dead. He was hit by a piano." Although, "These pictures are great. They're iconic. They were taken by a twelve-year-old with a camera phone" comes close.
So...yeah. I enjoyed Superman, but I didn't think it was as good as Spiderman. I actually liked X-Men 3 better, too. I say this, fully expecting at least half of you to disagree with me passionately. :-)
6 comments:
Superman didn't want Lois to smoke because he didn't want her to get lung cancer, not because it was a vice. :)
You know, I have so much Superman stuff ingrained in my upbringing that I can't even approach the movie without knowing everything about the guy. Also, it is important to remember that it is a sequel. If you haven't seen the previous ones, you will be missing out on plot.
I don't think there was any larger thematic/moral reason for the "father will become the son" bit. That was just tradition at work.
I suppose you are entitled to your opinion. Spidey is definitely better. In my opinion, X3 is much worse. I have no desire to see the latter again any time soon. And it had a much worse worldview.
no passionate disagreement here, either. I liked it better than X3, though, perhaps because my expectations were higher for X3.
The thing about Superman is that he's not human. He can never really rest because he knows everything that's going wrong. He would die for everyone, because he values them all higher than himself. He is almost too perfect to be real.
In short, he is a Christ-figure. I like him. :)
Yeah.. Superman's non-humanity is both his story's weakness and strength. It's the premise. But I tend to agree with Ben and Eco: we want stories about gods, demi-gods, and supermen, but Superman isn't quite satisfactory. I wonder if, even just on a story level, we need a god who became man.
I need to go re-read Eco. I can't remember his essay more than vaguely.
You know, everybody keeps talking about how much better the first two X-men movies were than the third. I liked the third well enough, I think I'm motivated to go watch the others.
Regarding the villain... :-D
I haven't seen the movie yet, but I'm a bit curious about the way the Lex Luthor theme ran. From reading your commentary (and hearing that of others), I get the idea that this movie goes for the "People who seem nice can be evil" approach. It's been done well in the past, but I don't gather that it contributed much in this case. What do you think?
- Nic
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