JulianPerez
Council of Wisdom
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« on: June 28, 2006, 09:33:00 PM » |
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I saw SUPERMAN RETURNS and I had a good time at the movies.
The Daily Planet scenes were spot-on. Clark Kent getting his job back because someone died? The pictures of Perry White with the sign "Get to know your Planet?" featuring an artificial (and possibly painful) smile on Perry's sour puss? Someone once described the original Superman movie as being a three-act play with sudden lurches in style, with the Daily Planet scenes being the snappy comic strip portion of the film. This was certainly true here. The hundreds of extras in the Planet scene for the first time got across what a big operation this was. Perry White, played by the amazing Frank Langella (Dracula and Skeletor himself, as well as Whoopi Goldberg's former live-in boyfriend) was dynamite in his few moments on screen. Strange how a movie that's 140 minutes long can feel so short.
And now we get to the REAL star of the film: Jimmy Olsen!
Jimmy Olsen did for this movie what Paul Giamatti did for the Burton PLANET OF THE APES - a fun, scene-stealing character that got all the best lines in the film. If there is a sequel, hopefully it will give us a lot more of a piece of Jimmy. The idea of a Jimmy/Clark friendship is one that is a downright warm idea that justifies Jimmy's existence; previously, Jimmy was a glorified version of all those squid monsters in the back of the bar in STAR WARS; now, as a friend of Clark, he has a reason to be there, and something to offer the film: jokes and timing. With Jimmy, I'm reminded of all my friendships with more sophisticated older men, and it would be interesting to see if other films pick up the ball that SR is setting rolling here, with Clark being Jimmy's hero and pal.
Kevin Spacey as Lex Luthor? Kevin, as well as the screenwriters, "got" the character very well. His establishing moment as being a scheming crook with a sense of humor was SOLD the moment he tossed some little girl his hairpiece and said, "hey kid, you can keep that. The rest is mine." BOOM!
Denny O'Neil once said in a "How to write comics" book, that if you want to be a slacker, forget your hero and focus all your attention on your villain. This was something this film remembered and applied: Lex Luthor
Lex Luthor in this film was much more of a frightening figure. He had a sense of humor, to be sure, and great, snappy dialogue just like a great like Hackman did, but in the previous film, Lex's increasingly outrageous hairpieces were the source of many a sight gag, whereas here they were a symbol of fear and menace. Lois comes on Lex's wigs, and we the audience get CHILLS. Not BAD, Singer, not bad at all!
One thing I think was significant about this film is that it captured one element that I always liked about Lois Lane: unlike other superhero girlfriends, Lois Lane gets into trouble because of her own actions and curiosity, unlike many other girlfriends, notably Gwen Stacy, who totally innocently bumble into trouble by being in the wrong place at the wrong time. Other girlfriends have the worst luck ever; Lois, with her nosy curiosity, makes her own bad luck.
I'm absolutely and unashamedly in love with Parker Posey (the only movie star I'm totally in love with, except Caroline Munro and Pam Grier), so when it comes to her I can't possibly be objective. But I thought she was demure, slow witted but in an endearing Doris Day sort of way, and the wardrobe people gave her some pretty great hats and fur coats. She wasn't the Goldie Hawn gun-moll that was seen in previous films, which is certainly one area of improvement over the other films.
So far I've been ignoring the white elephant in the middle of the room: the new kid, Brandon Routh. Was he any good? Well, obviously he wasn't Christopher Reeve good, but Brandon Routh didn't overplay, didn't pose...he let the costume do all the work. A friend of mine and I were talking about the film GLADIATOR with Russell Crowe, and he went on about how great Russell Crowe was in that film. Now, me, I had to disagree. Sure, Russell was great, but the thing is, ANYBODY would have been great in that film because the production values surrounding it, the writing, the directing, were so sharp that only by casting someone WAY out of place (*ahem* Pauly Shore) would they really blow it.
Superman is a lot like that, now that I think about it. It's really hard to "blow it" playing a character like that. All the same, the writing made Superman consciencious without being sanctimonious, polite without being old-fashoined. Routh had a lot to work with.
It really is so banal in a movie like this to start by talking about the special effects, but they really are worth mentioning for one reason: Superman's last picture was in the mid-1980s. He has never before been shown in the era of JURASSIC PARK and LORD OF THE RINGS. And Superman delivers. I was concerned about something like a very conspicuously artificial CGI Superman flying, but they were smart and let us see a "real" Routh flying instead of a MUMMY RETURNS-esque CGI-faced pixel Routh. Superman hoisting astonishing weights, flying to the rescue of jets, and bullets breaking on his eyeballs. Well, let's just say they impressed even this jaded as hell moviegoer.
What was especially interesting was that the look of the film wasn't just computer. The set design was terrific. Lex Luthor's yacht, for instance, was a triumph in set design, with the walls, ports and classical decor. There's often a problem with very big ships, where it is possible to forget one is at sea (often because the sets are on dry land at a studio). With the yacht set, not once did you forget that you were on a big boat instead of a building.
And then there was the Daily Planet. The giant plasma televisions that surrounded the place Grand Central Station-style, the art deco, old New York look was a real improvement over the gritty, cubicle look of the original film, which was more like the sets in Sidney Lumet's NETWORK.
The film had many a cute, unpredictable moment. For instance, there was a big, burly mean thug who sat down with Lois's son for a piano duet!
The film had the wispiest, barest hints of the humorous Lex Luthor/Superman relationship, which was a sort of Martin and Lewis relationship in the Chris Reeves movie, with Superman as a glowering straight man to Luthor's antics. But for me, not enough. Superman said "I see an old man's sick joke," and then Lex Luthor dances around him.
The business about Superman inspiring Lois and her family to aid him would have been more dramatic if this had been a theme of the film that was realized, but it just sort of popped up there.
Superman needs to get one hell of a better security system for the Fortress. Forget about the possibility of a person finding the Fortress and making sense of it (which is unlikely, especially considering your Joe Schmoe couldn't make heads or tails of it). Rather, I'm surprised when Superman and Lois weren't doing the nasty back in SUPERMAN II that a polar bear didn't just walk right in on them! Also, if the crystals cause blackouts when they grow, wouldn't Superman know that and identify that something may be up with his crystals? Also, while the movie has been great about getting details from the original two films right, it should have remembered that
Lex Luthor's plan had a few logical flaws. For one thing...who the hell would want to live in that ugly Crystal Island of his? If you go to the window and it looks like a cross between Dante's Inferno and an especially ugly STAR TREK THE NEXT GENERATION set, I doubt it will give incentive for panoramic high-rise views. Unless these crystals have some property that wasn't explained, how is someone going to farm on these crystals? How about get materials or mine? The point is, Lex didn't really think this through much - though the maps with Lex's master plan were grandiose and creepy.
While others may have been critical of the fact that the film used similarities to the Donner film, I don't think that's necessarily a bad thing that Singer wants to put his film in that tradition. The original SUPERMAN has such a power in people's minds that actually, I think it would be a mistake to NOT use those elements. And there's no topping that show-stopper of a theme! I wa humming bar after bar of it on the way back.
And finally, we have the business about this kid that the film strongly hints is Superman's son. Jeez, is that really a spoiler by now, since everyone's probably heard about it at this point? What's more, it's the most obvious plot progression ever. But Superman's kid is a quiet, creepy little no-account. Roger Ebert said, and I agree with him, "It would have been much better to give him a fun, brassy kid like one of the SPY KIDS and make him a part of the plot."
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