Ron Catapano of Ron's Comic World in
Let me start by saying 'I have not seen the Superman Returns movie.'
I have, however, seen enough online and on TV and heard enough about it that I feel confident in voicing my opinion about it. I'll save my money and go see the new Pirates movie.
Let me start at the beginning. I hated the first two Superman movies.
Christopher Reeves was the perfect choice for Superman and Gene Hackman was great casting for Lex Luthor... unfortunately, the parts they were given to play were horrible. We won't even get into the ignorant, somewhat slutty character of
The third movie (with Richard Pryor), while still being a little corny, was the only one that was true to the character.
Superman Returns should have started from scratch and forgotten the old movies. Instead we have a character (Superman??) who after losing his powers (2nd movie), has sex with Lois and then after he gets his power back, erases her memory in order to protect his identity, thus making her conveniently also forget that he had sex with her. Sounds awfully self serving and a bit nasty to me. This is more in line with what I would expect from the villain than the hero.
To add insult to injury we move to the new film which tells us that after Superman has his fun and drops off Lois he decided to head off into space for five years without so much as an 'I'll call you.' Then when he returns, even after he knows her child is also his -- does he explain what happened or even apologize? ... NO!
Is this character 'Superman?' He looks a bit like him, but he sure doesn't act like him. While the special effects look cool, I think they would have done better to look at the comic books or even the Smallville TV show for inspiration instead of two poorly executed 30-year-old movies.
Batman Begins was a good movie and not just a good comic movie; it told a good story while respecting the character the story is based on.
We've seen many times in the past few years that you can tell a story good enough to attract the masses without driving away those who already have an interest in the character such as Spider-Man, X-Men, Batman, and Sin City.
Yes, Superman Returns will make a nice profit, but imagine what it could make if it was a good movie instead of just an OK comic movie.
The opinions expressed in this Talk Back article are solely those of the writer, and do not necessarily reflect the views of the editorial staff of ICv2.com.
