Well kids, the time has come. Once again Hollywood is taking another shot
at the Man of Tomorrow, the original superhero, and an American, if not
worldly, icon. Man of Steel premiers in
theaters this week. Christopher Nolan
and David Goyer, the men behind The Dark Knight Trilogy, have teamed up with 300
and Watchmen director Zach Snyder to give us a modern take on Superman. Being a
Superman fan I’ve been fearful of this film with every piece of news I heard
about it, but that’s an opinion for another blog entry.
I’ve spent the last 5 Sundays re-watching the last 5
Superman films. Just yesterday I was
chatting to someone about upcoming movies and I mentioned Man of Steel. She said she really didn’t like Superman and
that she liked Batman more. Well, anyone
who knows me knows that this is a good trigger to set me off on a major rant! Some people seem to think the Man of Steel is
just a big blue Boy Scout who never does anything wrong and always plays by the
rules. To those nay sayers I simply
reply, “You obviously don’t know Superman.”
I’m sure they’ve never watched an episode of Smallville or even read The
Death and Return of Superman. There is a
reason the character has been around for 75 years and inspired the entire genre
of superheroes. There are a lot of life lessons to be learned from this character, and these cinematic adventures are just five of them.
Superman (1978): Director Richard Donner was the first to give
a serious take on Superman’s origin and create an epic film for all others to
live up too. Christopher Reeve plays
the double role of Clark Kent and Superman with superiority. Gene Hackman isn’t the most ruthless of Lex
Luthor’s and I’ve never been fond of Margot Kidder as Lois Lane, but the film
itself and Reeve's performance is enough to carry the film to glory. My only negative comment about this film
would just be the ending. Superman spins
the world back-in-time to save Lois, but Jimmy still remembers Superman saving
him? In an otherwise flawless film that
was a pretty big plot-hole Mr. Donner. Plus we all get to hear all John
Williams classic score in this film for the first time, big plus!
Life-Lesson Take-Away from Superman: You have to find out
who you are and you’re place in this world.
Plus you have to do whatever it takes to protect the people you care
about, even if it does involves spinning the world back a few minutes.
Superman II (1980): By the time Superman premiered Superman
II was already in production and almost finished filming, but a disagreement
between Donner and the film’s producers got Donner fired before filming was
done and he was replaced by Richard Lester.
Having seen the Richard Donner cut on DVD I think it was for the best,
but looking at Lester’s Superman III it was probably a combination of both
directors that made this film fly higher than the original.
In this sequel
Superman gives up all his powers and super status to be with Lois. Of course this is the exact time that
Krypton's three greatest criminals, led by General Zod, come to Earth to take their revenge out
on Kal-El. Terence Stamp rules this film
with is portrayal as General Zod and the reason Zod has become such an iconic
Superman villain. I’m sure Michael
Shannon’s Zod performance in Man of Steel will be scarier for today’s audience,
but he won’t win my fear until he says, “Kneel before Zod!” I am looking
forward to a more updated fight scene between Superman and Zod. More like Neo vs. Mr. Smith in The Matrix
Revolutions. “Mr. Kent, welcome back. We’ve missed you.”
Life-Lesson Take-Away from Superman II: Clark’s selfish desires almost caused the
entire world to be placed under Zod’s rule, but eventually he realizes that
Superman belongs to the world, not just Lois.
We all have responsibilities. We
have people who count on us to do our jobs and even if it would be better to
just let go you might end up getting a lot of people hurt. Also look out for bear-skinned rugs that are
pink!
Superman III (1983):
It’s probably a toss-up between this film and the next Superman film as
to which one is the worst ever. I vote
Superman III because it tries to take itself seriously, which is what makes it
so bad. Richard Pryor plays a computer
genius who falls under the wing of an evil billionaire, who is not Lex
Luthor. Pryor’s character and his employer
try to create kryptonite and end up with something that makes Superman go crazy
instead. Clark becomes a jackass version of himself and must find his sanity in order to take down the bad guys
and their super computer located in the middle of frikkin nowhere!
Pryor’s character is so dumb there is not a scenario in this
reality that would make me believe he’s a computer genius. Pryor’s antics take center stage in this film
and overshadow Reeve’s channeling the Man of Steel’s inner turmoil. This dumbs down the film and makes it
horrific to watch. The only redeeming
quality of this installment is Annette O’ Toole as Clark’s high school crush,
Lana Lang. Lana is a far better character than Lois, and easier on the eyes if you ask me. O'Toole went on to play the character of Martha Kent in the series
Smallville. She’s stated the reason she
got the job is because when the creators found out she was in Superman III they
insist she be in their version of Superman.
Life-Lesson Take-Away from Superman III: We all have our inner demons to fight. We have to find a way to beat them down so we
can do what we must do, and what is the right thing to do. But if you ever find yourself fighting your alter
ego in a junkyard you might as well just drop a car on yourself and be put out of your misery.
Superman IV: The Quest For Peace (1987): The only reason I like this film better than
Superman III is because of it’s even more ridiculous and can in no way be taken
serious. That makes it such a good bad movie to watch. Superman is on a mission to rid the world of
all nuclear weapons. But he didn’t count
on Lex Luthor stealing a sample of his hair and attaching one of his genetic
experiments to a bomb that Superman just happens to throw into the sun, thereby
creating his own worst enemy, Nuclear Man. Duh, Duh, Duuuh!
The film is a little over 90 minutes and is so bad it’s
hilarious to watch. Just last week as my wife and I were watching it and she had to
point out the ludicrously of Clark going on a double date with Lois and Superman. I mean that’s just crazy! Reeve should have stopped at Superman II,
or least not been given the opportunity to help write this one himself.
Life-Lesson Take-Away from Superman IV: The Quest for
Peace: The world has problems people,
lots of them. As much as we would like
to change the world we can’t change to people in it. All we can do is keep “it the same as it’s
always been……On the brink. With good fighting evil. See you in twenty.” Oh and
never trust a film where Jon Cryer is the comic relief.
Superman Returns (2006): Well, after those last lines by
Christopher Reeve we do get the next Superman film, twenty years later! Brandon Routh steps into the red boots while
Kevin Spacey shaves his head to play his arch-enemy. Superman has just flown in from his five-year
journey to find the remains of his home planet.
But everyone else has gone on without him. Lois Lane has a family and little secret to
tell the Man of Steel. Meanwhile, Lex
Luthor is out of prison, rich as a hell, and is planning on using kryptonian technology
to re-invest in his real-estate ventures while wiping out most of America.
A lot of people didn’t like this film, which is probably why
it took seven years for another Superman movie to be released, but I’m a fan of
it. It doesn’t have a lot of action, but
instead of taking a tale from the comics and fucking it up royally like most
adaptations do (I’m looking at you Brett Ratner) director Bryan Singer took the
essence of the Superman characters and made something different, with a little homage
to the Christopher Reeve films. He still
made it feel like a pure Superman story.
Some argue that Kate Bosworth isn’t your classic Lois Lane, but she’s a
mom now, parenthood changes us all!
Life-Lesson Take-Away from Superman Returns: We grow up, we move on with our lives, and
people we leave behind also move on. We
have to try to keep the people who are important to us in our lives or
we may lose them. And if your ever gone for five years and your ex has a kid who is four years old you’d better find the next ship back to Krypton!
A part of me thinks Man of Steel will be bad and another
part hopes it will be good. Either way
it has gotten people talking about the character again and I hope it shows them
that the battles Superman face are the ones we face ourselves. I mean he’s called the Man of Tomorrow
people, he ain’t goin anywhere!
