Where: Palisades Center, West Nyack, NY
When: Saturday, July 1, 2006
With whom: Meg, Mike and Mom
Go or no go: Definitely go
SPOILER ALERT!!!I was surprisingly disappointed with this movie. Not that it was bad, far from it, but I was expecting the “wow” factor to get me up on my feet, applauding at the end of the movie, but it didn’t.
Here’s a few reasons why:
- Lois Lane is a skank. In that scene when Lois and Superman almost kissed, Lois pulled back and said, “Richard is a good man.” Oh, now you go all noble, but you didn’t hesitate to lie to Richard about the paternity of little Jason! Sure, in the interest of protecting Superman’s only son, she had to lie to Richard and everyone else…I can grant her that. But don’t make it look like you’re trying to do the right thing by not kissing the man you’re truly in-love with, you lying, skank! I never did like Lois Lane’s character. She was selfish, obnoxious and totally undeserving of Superman’s attentions.
- Anyway, this movie was sadly predictable. I knew from the beginning, when Martha said, “You may be the last one, but you’re not alone.” I knew Superman had a son. How could you not have seen that coming??
- Couldn’t they get John Williams to do the music for this movie? I mean, they used Superman’s theme so much and you could even hear strains of “Can you read my mind?” throughout the movie, they might as well have hired him to fill in between!
- This movie, while revering the 1978 original, was also kind of patronizing it. You know what this movie lacked? Fun. You remember everyone’s reaction when they first saw Superman? You were all sucked in to how amazing his rescue of Lois Lane was. You wanted to cheer but wasn’t sure to believe it or not. I think Margot Kidder’s line said it all for us: “You’ve got me? Who’s got you?!” This movie didn't have that moment for us.
And Christopher Reeve was an adorable geek, you couldn’t help but love him, from the way he keeps stuttering and stumbling over things. Brandon Routh’s Clark Kent is just a big nerd who gets in everyone’s way.
- What scares me most about this movie is that it brings with is so much potential for several sequels. It is inevitable, I suppose. I mean, it happened with the original. They should have stopped making the movies after the second one, but nooooo, they had to go and make two very nonsensical movies after. Only the death of Superman can end this vicious cycle, and I DO NOT want that to happen.
Anyway, here are a few things I liked about the movie:
- “Reports are coming in from Metropolis, Houston, Gotham….”
Hehe. I liked that, Superman’s muscling in on Batman’s territory eh?
- I loved that this movie was an homage to the original film and that it is dedicated to Christopher and Dana Reeves. Brandon Routh did a phenomenal job of portraying both characters just like Christopher Reeve did nearly 30 years ago. He even did the jaw clenching thing whenever Clark Kent disapproves of something. He even sounds a little like Christopher Reeve. It was just such a shame that they didn’t give him much dialogue and much personality.
Courtesy of IMDB.com, here are some
interesting trivia from the movie:"The last line of the fourth Superman movie (the one before "Returns") is Superman saying to Luthor, "See you in twenty." That scene was filmed in 1986. Eerily enough, twenty years later, in 2006, the next Superman movie was released."I wouldn’t say it as eery, a huge coincidence maybe, but not eery. If anything, I thought that was really cool, and I am kicking myself for not picking up on that! Especially since I have been watching the first four movies on dvd all week! Darn!
"After Superman stops the airplane crash, he says to the passengers (including Lois Lane), "I hope this doesn't put any of you off flying. Statistically, it's still the safest way to travel." Superman said the same thing to Lois after rescuing her from the helicopter crash in the original 1978 Superman film."I knew he was going to say that line in this movie. I just knew it!
I don’t usually agree to most movie critics, but I have to say,
Roger Ebert’s critique of this movie, pretty much sums up why I was disappointed with this. And it nearly breaks my heart to agree with him.
BUT (and this is a pretty big but!), I do not want y’all to think I hated this movie, although it may sound like I do. I am one of this movie’s biggest fans. The fact that I can say bad things about it speaks for how I can look beyond my bias towards it. And I am biased towards this movie. Brandon Routh has won my heart for all his effort to try to live up to Christopher Reeve. After all, it’s not his fault that they didn’t give him much dialogue.
I will never get tired of watching this movie. I’ve already seen it twice this weekend, and maybe a few weeks from now, when all the hoopla has died down, I will see it again. Why not? I'm already seeing him in my dreams every night!
