It was fun to watch, and Brandon Routh pulled it off, and with a surprising homage to the performance of Christopher Reeve. He had the meter and voice down pretty pat. This film lacked a lot of the playful fun of the first two Supes flicks, but it was still a good action ride. Although at two and a half hours, I could have used more action, and more Parker Posey, and a lot less Lois. Kate's cute, but she is no strong-willed single mother/experienced ace reporter. But she wasn't nearly as bad as the reviews had prepared me. (Note for the 3-D fans, it's just 3-D in four sequences, not all the way through, and it was a 3-D extraction from a 2-D print, so it is rather planar and not truly three-dimensional.)Sure, this movie lacked the soul of the X-Men, but it was a very good Superman movie— its primiary flaw being that while very good, it could have been much better.
And I want to kiss Bryan Singer on the lips for the opening credits. Kevin and I both said afterwards that we felt like we were suddenly 12-years-old again, and had an immediate rush of excitement to be seeing a Superman movie. Whatever the emotional equivalent of muscle memory is, my brain released the same chemicals and triggered the emotional state of my first time--young, truly care-free, and excited to see a Superman matinee.
I had a matinee-idol fascination with the tall, dark and handsome Christopher Reeve then, and not so much for the new Brandon Routh, although he fills out the spandex quite nicely if slimly. I was able to make a bunch of queens' heads turn as we were filing out of the IMAX madhouse. In turned to Kevin sotto-voce, in the clichéd Jewish-mother tone, "What? Two and a half hours and less than a second with his shirt off?"
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Kevin has two riffs on the Supes film he wants to put to paper: One on the timing of the movie and the state of today's geo-political scene, and one on the clear "yadda yadda yadda-ing" of "the American Way" in the line from Perry White: "Does he still stand for truth? Justice? All that stuff?". Kevin-- once you put words to screen feel free to voice them here in the comments section.
2 comments:
My original riff regarding "all that stuff" is still forthcoming.
But I couldn't pass up the timing of the recent headline: Power-saw assault in New York subway
http://sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/n/a/2006/07/06/national/a101031D03.DTL
Would it be too wrong to interpret "truth, justice, and all that stuff" to, oh, possibly mean stop a chain-saw yielding maniac? Where was Superman then? I mean- this one seems like a no-brainer. It's also got a lot of horror movie cross-over. A new untapped movie demographic? (squeeky clean super hero and slasher flick)Or an insipid conspiracy to push through legislation to ban violence of television or video games? Oh, I can hear the orgasmic glee of those conservatives when this crazy fuck says he did it because of too much tv as a kid. Puhleeze!
Web-searching the phrase “truth, justice and all that stuff & superman” reveals how one simple and intentional (?) omission can create such an uproar. The screenwriters wanted to avoid outdated jingoism. Instead, they ended up writing a bad sentence. Would any English grammar teacher have allowed such a sentence? No- at least none of mine. Before and after reading all the opinions, I’m not for or against omitting “the American way.” If the writers truly thought it was antiquated they should have ended with a simple period after the word justice. Screenwriter, Michael Dougherty, states the term American way is “uncertain,” and people may think in idealistic terms of the 40’s and 50’s. And so what? Every American has a different opinion as to what the “American” way is. That is who we are. Some opinions are idealistic, some more realistic, and some just regurgitate what the talking head on their television told them to. Mr. Dougherty then adds the global market may have an entirely different interpretation. Ah! Now he’s getting closer to the truth. Or so the studios think. In other words, $$$$; the world audience may not view the movie. Would the global market really react to such an innocuous line anymore than the myths of streets of gold, Dynasty mansions and beautiful blondes running along the beaches of Baywatch? I don’t think so. At least no more or no less than those Americans who perceive the parts of the world as the “Chinese” way, the “Korean” way, or the “French” way. In other words, some will get upset about their generic misconceptions about other parts of the world and want to rename their french fries to freedom fries. “All that stuff,” if anything, has just embroiled the patriots, pseudo-patriots and talking heads of this country into creating a buzz over nothing, really, (it’s a Superman summer movie for Christ’s sake!) which translates into ticket sales. Duh! What’s next? Getting upset over the phrase: as American, I mean, as human as sports and pie?
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