Good, but not great. Slow. Long. The amount of ass Superman kicks is quite limited. The number of one-liners he says is zero. The Superman from 1 and 2 actually liked being Superman, but this Superman doesn’t seem to like his job very much. The second half of the movie is mostly messianic shots of Supes silhouetted against the sun, which gets old fast.
I have three kids, which means I don’t get to go to the movies very often. It always irks me when I waste an opportunity on a merely good movie like this one. But now that we’ve got that out of the way, maybe we can actually get a really good movie with this cast and crew next time. One where Superman actually punches somebody.
Superman doesn’t get to punch anybody unless he’s up against someone who can take it. I loved the movie. I thought they got Superman pretty much dead on, except for what they had to keep since it was a sequel to the first 2 movies.
Superman clearly liked being Superman. Did you see the glee he experienced in shocking that dude who shot him in the eye? The only one who really brings him down is Luthor because Luthor is the only one who has ever hurt him.
They also had some great Superman lines. “Don’t let this put you off of flying. Statistically speaking, it’s still the safest way to travel.” A great callback to the first movie.
Superman, unfortunately, isn’t a funny guy. He’s not known for his one-liners. Whenever he says something, it’s usually in that gosh-golly hero way like “Careful with those firecrackers in the future, Timmy.” He’s not the Flash or Spider-man wit-wise.
But I would like to see more Clark. I’d like to see more of him bumbling around and hiding the fact that he’s Superman. Actually, I think the ways in which he could use his powers to trick people and maintain his secret identity is a great part of the Superman story that’s really left out most of the time.
Finally, I’d like to make a costuming comment. Clark Kent should always wear ill-fitting suits. I know it’s not popular to dress your main character badly, but he should be slouching in suits that are too large for him. This is two-fold. He hides his height and general physique, but it also allows him to fit a big billowing cape under his street clothes and not make it obvious. It’s a small criticism, but that attention to detail is something I think is important.
Minor spoiler warning.
I did like the movie, although I felt Lex was a weak villian… his evil plot was just… lame. Other than that, though, I dug the Superman saving people sequences. Some of the CG was off in a few shots that made me really notice that I was looking at a digital person. I probably wouldn’t call attention to it if it wasn’t for the fact that there were obviously other shots where I didn’t notice at all and only in retrospect thought, of course that shot must have been a digital actor as well. So just a tad inconsistant.
Only other complaint I had was how Superman didn’t really notice that the big island was practically teeming with green K. :p I’d have to agree with Lex, someone of Superman’s criteria should be able to at least “look before he leaps.”
I wasn’t too taken with the movie. I am not a huge Superman fan, but something about this movie just didn’t do it for me.
I did however, find it funny that when the newspaper editor was telling the staff what he wanted them to do and asked the question, “What does he stand for now..” he says “Truth and Justice”, but leaves off the “American way” part.
A lot of people have made a lot of noise about that, and Singer and co have actually stated in interviews that they see Superman as more of an international character, so they cut “the American way”. (Oddly enough, it looks like Frank Langella actually says “the American Way” in the movie, but they overdubbed it with “all that stuff”.)
Now, I am willing to cut them a bit of slack here, but if they start making movies where Superman can’t act unless he gets a UN Security Council Resolution passed, or where Superman gathers up all guns and throws them into the sun, I WON’T be watching.
So, know Superman 4 for you?
I thought the idea behind “all that stuff” was just a way of “yada yadaing” it, sort of a post modern expression. It’s not part of some global liberal media conspiracy.
And Singer’s Superman may be an international figure only because he’s a global figure. He’s the most powerful hero on the planet and constantly saves the Earth from global threats.
But, I still think that he stands for the American way. He still doesn’t overthrow dictators or enforce his will on others. He’s just a guy doing what he can to make the world better and I think that in those regards, in the way he acts, he stands for the American way. But, nowadays, saying “The American Way” is very loaded. A lot of people are co-opting the name “America” to represent a very narrow set of ideals or a very narrow bandwidth of the political spectrum. Actually a lot of narrow bandwidths and a lot of narrow sets of ideals are individually co-opted by a lot of people.
We’re already very politically and culturally charged. Look at how many people were willing to call Superman gay just because the movie had a gay director. Or look at how many people are up in arms about Christ imagery despite that metaphor being ubiquitous in American literature (Old Man and the Sea much?). Too many Johnny Soapboxes are willing to co-opt any piece of pop art that comes down the pipes and champion it as a symbol of their cause or the symbol of everything they stand against. It’s a bunch of white noise and it’s annoying. Art is what it is to its audience and the artist can only go so far with his or her intentions into the art piece. Once it gets released to the wild, it doesn’t matter entirely what their intentions were. I’ve done things in film school that were taken differently than my intentions. I shut my trap and accepted the praise and I noted my mistakes when I was criticised, but the point is, the work as it is must stand alone. So, even if Singer didn’t want to say “American way” because it felt like cheesy 40s Americana and wanted to update the character, I still read it as your typical post-modern joke.
In his early films, Superman fights “a never ending battle for Truth and Justice!”
“The American way” was added to the radio show during the war, around the same time as my own favorite catchphrase: “Superman Says YOU can slap a jap!”
And you know what? Superman didn’t slap a single Jap in this movie either. Not one! Brian Singer must totally hate America.