Man of Steel

The latest in the blockbusting Superman franchise Man of Steel, directed by Zack (300, Watchmen) Snyder, produced and co-written by Christopher (Dark Knight) Nolan. I was really looking forward to this. Henry Cavill looked great in the trailers. I wasn't too crazy about the costume redesign but I was prepared to let that pass. The clips of Clark Kent wandering in the wilderness looked interesting, and I wanted to see what Kevin Costner and Diane Lane did with the Kents.

Spoiler warning, some plot details ahead. You have been warned.

To begin with we get a lot of time on Krypton and Russell Crowe's Jor-El may get nearly as much screen time as his blue clad son. Then we join a grown up Clark Kent wandering the Earth doing good deeds before leaving town while wearing denim jackets and plaid shirts. If the famous Incredible Hulk TV series music had started playing I wouldn't have been surprised. Then there is almost no time for him to discover his  true heritage in an ancient Kryptonian spaceship before General Zod and the rest of the Phantom Zone prisoners arrive and start blowing stuff up. Forcing Kal-El to suit up and begin a lengthy series of battles of mass destruction. Snyder celebrates with the soundtrack turned up to 12 (one more than 11) and with an almost pornographic fixation on property damage, with no thoughts for all the people who must be dieing in those buildings.

What a terrible film. Oh, the disappointment! Let's get the positives out of the way early on. I like Henry Cavill in the title role but he is given almost nothing to do apart from be rendered as a CGI sprite that bashes into other CGI sprites. Lois Lane starts out the picture as a convincing reporter who tracks down the urban legends about a man walking the earth performing miracles, and the idea that she knows Superman is Clark Kent but nobody else does actually works quite well. However by the last reel she is reduced to her usual role of falling out of aircraft only to be snatched up by a very fast moving hero (no doubt smashing many of her bones and internal organs as he does so). Kevin Costner looks right as Jonathan Kent but the messages he gives the young Clark are just too contradictory and it's never clear whether he wants his son to help people or just leave them to die. And Pa Kent's own death scene makes no sense. In the comics and the proper films Clark's dad dies of a heart attack, something that even the most powerful being on the planet is powerless to stop. Here Costner gets swept away by a Wizard of Oz sized tornado, while a fully grown Clark stands about 50 feet away and just watches. Why?

The Christ imagery which blighted Superman Returns is hyped up even further in this movie. Again we see Superman posing in crucifixion mode. He tells the military that he has been "on this planet for 33 years". Clark spends time in a wilderness and even gets taunted by a satanic figure in a road side bar. And then just before his epic battle with Zod he has a crisis of faith and sits in a church in front of a large stained glass window of Jesus and almost asks that this cup be taken away from him. Couldn't we just have the big, blue Kryptonian who saves people because he can, and does so with a smile on his face?

If the Christ imagery is a little bothersome the recurrent re-creation of 9/11 is really disturbing. Snyder wants to show us those towers coming down again and again, and again. Buildings crash to the ground, planes, trains and automobiles are tossed around like frisbees. Metropolis is basically annihilated while the few survivors emerge from the rubble coated in the same ashen dust that we saw after the attacks on the World Trade centre. And Superman continues to hurl Zod and his followers through buildings with no apparent thought to the humans in them. Superman should try and save people, that's what he does. But Snyder just wants to blow stuff up and twist that volume dial to deafening levels.

And then there is the ending. After a huge science fiction technobabble plot device returns most of the bad guys to the Phantom Zone it comes down to Kal-El versus Zod. In the first act we saw Zod kill Jor-El with a spiky Kryptonian blade which popped from his battle armour, so I was expecting this to return in the final act like a classic Chekhov gun. Instead we got some more punching through buildings before Zod turns his laser vision on some trapped humans forcing Superman to do the one thing he never does. Ever.

Humourless, extremely loud and extremely long, offensive and, in the end, boring. How many times do you want to see a battle suited Kryptonian throw Superman through another building? I can't remember the last time I wanted to walk out of a film but I nearly did here. I only waited for the end to give the filmmakers a shot at redemption by playing the John Williams theme music, and they couldn't even give us that.

0 out of 5 exploding planets. Someone please stop Zack Snyder from making any more comic book movies.

Superman Returns

And the final release from the Superman franchise so far, Superman Returns from 2006, directed by Bryan Singer.

Superman has been gone for 5 years travelling through space to visit the site of his exploded home planet Krypton. Meanwhile the world has got used to being without him, and Lois Lane has even won the Pulitzer prize for her article "Why the world doesn't need Superman." And then he comes back to find that while he was away everyone, including himself, has got 10 years younger. Kate Bosworth was just 23 when she played Lois in this movie. Brandon Routh was 25, which is only a year younger than Christopher Reeve in the first movie, but he still looks too young, especially if we are to believe he has been on a 5 year sabbatical  Do reporters that young get sabbaticals, or win the Pulitzer?

There was a major costume redesign which went with the darker blue, and the burgundy coloured cape recalling the Dark Superman colours from Superman III. And they added raised texture and details to the shield and his boots. Meanwhile Kevin Spacey turns in a high powered performance as Lex Luthor although we were all fed up with his real estate plots by now. In fact the storyline of this film sucks (again). Maybe it is the essential flaw of the Superman character that he is so ridiculously powerful it is difficult to come up with an opponent to truly challenge him.

So what does that leave us? Well, although he is a touch young looking I really enjoyed Routh's performance, particularly his recreation of Christopher Reeve playing Clark Kent which is spot on. There are also some fun moments including Superman coming up against the Gatling gun on the roof of the bank robbery with the bullet flattening against his eye. Again this is a bit of storyline that makes no real sense, what was the robbers' plan? To steal the loot and then set up a super gun on the roof and kill everyone? Maybe they should have spent some time on an escape plan instead.

The repeated Christ imagery that the film-makers give us with Superman is a bit laboured and, to be honest, boring. Spacey is good but Luthor is an idiot (again). Bosworth looks to be about 16 but everyone else is fine. And the thing is, I really like this film. I enjoyed it the first time I saw it and I enjoyed it again now. What could have done if they had ever found the correct story for Reeve or Routh? Maybe Doomsday would have worked. Still I am all set up for this summer's Man of Steel now. Bring it on.

Superman 4 - The quest for a decent script

Christopher Reeve's final outing as the Man of Steel was in 1987's Superman IV - The Quest for Peace, directed by Sidney Furie.

Superman finally decides to address the problems of the world and dispose of all the nuclear weapons by hurling them into the Sun. However Lex Luthor is back and manages to piggy-back a device onto one of the missiles which leads to the creation of the Nuclear Man (Mark Pillow) who will battle Superman in several pointless and messy encounters.

So many questions from this one. What makes Superman's cape flutter in space? How can he talk to the Cosmonauts in a vacuum? And why does Clark Kent reveal his secret identity to Lois (again) for five minutes and then wipe her memory (again) with that kiss trick? I felt like Will Smith's character in the Men in Black movie shouting "Stop messing with her brain!"

On the plus side Gene Hackman and Margot Kidder return and Reeve is as good as ever. But the special effects are really creaky and the flying sequences are poor. Plus there are those terrible eighties fashions that we all thought were great at the time.

They had such a great actor as Superman and they kept wasting him with duff scripts. Oh well. Let's zoom twenty years into the future and see what Brandon Routh and Kevin Spacey can do.

Superman 3 - The Comedy of Errors

It's been a long time since I did one of these but I have finally caught up with the last two films in the original Superman series. Superman III was directed by Richard Lester and released in 1983.

This is the one where Richard Pryor plays an idiot savant computer hacker who helps Robert Vaughan, Annie Ross and Pamela Stevenson come up with a plan to kill Superman and then build a giant super-computer which can also kill Superman. And let's face it none of that makes any sense whatsoever. The whole plot of this film is ridiculous right from the moment when we are expected to believe that weather satellites don't just monitor the weather but can actually be reprogrammed to make it as well.

Any attempt at the action of Superman II is put aside in favour of broad comedy including the bizarre opening sequence of prolonged slapstick featuring a host of British comedy actors in minor roles. Meanwhile Richard Pryor does one of his movie comedy turns that were so popular in the late 70s and early 80s. The only point of this film is when Pryor's dodgy Kryptonite variant produces the Dark Superman leading to the battle between him and Clark Kent in a junk-yard  Once again Christopher Reeve is too good for this rest of the film and his performance as Superman sinks into an evil slump is compelling and leads to that perfect moment where Clark Kent defeats his evil twin and rips open his shirt to reveal the true Superman shield.
Interestingly the colours used for the Dark Superman costume would show up again when they tried to re-jig the outfit for Brandon Routh in Superman Returns.

Once the real Superman has returned then we have the final showdown with the super computer and some terrible computer game graphics. It's really terrible. The special effects are also worse than in the first two movies and the wires holding Christopher Reeve aloft are visible in several shots. Worst film of the franchise so far, and yet I seem to remember finding it quite funny when it came out. Just shows you that 22 year olds know nothing.

Superman 2 - Donner cut

Richard Donner was replaced as director on Superman 2 by Richard Lester. In 2006 Donner and the writer Tom Mankiewicz edited a version of the film that was closer to their original intentions.

Although it is a bit rough and ready in places it is a much better film. Some of the scenes included look like rehearsal footage and there are some costume and hair inconsistencies particularly in the scene where Lois deduces that Clark Kent is Superman, but the result makes a lot more sense. In the theatrical version there was the rather strange moment when Kent trips into a fire revealing his secret identity. Superman should not trip up. In the Donner cut Lois uses her investigative skills to figure it out and the trick she uses to finally make him "un-mask" is clever although I'm not convinced it would really fool Superman.

The battle with the Phantom Zone villains is better and doesn't resort to the silly wind gags from the original. Nor does Superman make up any new superpowers on the spot, so there is no throwing the S shield from his chest and no kiss of forgetfulness for Lois. Unfortunately this does mean we get the same unsatisfactory turning back the world device from the end of the first film but we can't have everything I suppose.

All in all this is a much better film and just leaves me wondering how it would have been if they had left Donner in charge. Maybe we would have the superhero sequel equivalent of Godfather II. Check out this version if you have not seen it yet.

Now on to number three and all those terrible jokes.

Superman - Two heads are better than one

Marching swiftly on to a swifter sequel. Superman II came out in 1980, written by Mario Puzo, David Newman, Leslie Newman and Tom Mankiewicz, and directed by Richard Lester.

All the main cast return except for Marlon Brando who was too expensive, so Susannah York as Superman's mother does much of the explaining of the back story. We get a complete recap of the first film during the title credits and then it's on to Luthor's escape from prison and Superman saving Lois from the Parisian terrorists and, in the process, throwing the nuclear bomb into deep space where its explosion releases the Kryptonian bad guys from the Phantom Zone.


Terence Stamp makes a suitably menacing General Zod, and the three Kryptonian baddies give Superman someone of his own power level to punch. Not that it does him any good as they are too evenly matched. Instead we get a display of new powers including throwing his S symbol as a sot of catch net (really?) and then it's on to the inevitable 'bait and switch' power removal chamber in the Fortress of Solitude.


Along the way we get Lois discovering Superman's secret identity, him renouncing his powers to be with her and answer the Man of Steel, Woman of Kleenex conundrum. There's that strange bit where the human Clark Kent gets beaten up in a Diner before heading back to the Fortress of Solitude to power up in time for the final showdown. I always thought the moment when the re-energised Kent returns at the end to teach the bully a lesson was a bit odd. Like the Jedi Superman doesn't really do revenge. He should be above all that.


And then we end with yet another new Kryptonian super-power, the kiss of forgetfulness which completely restores the status quo. Having the perfect actor to play Superman and some pretty good special effects it is a pity they couldn't come up with better scripts for the first two films. Let us see whether the Donner cut of Superman 2 is any better.

Superman - First among sequels

It's time for another film marathon after last year's Planet of the Apes challenge. In anticipation of next year's Man of Steel I picked up the Superman box set dirt cheap and jumped back to 1978. Superman directed by Richard Donner and written by (amongst others) Mario Puzo, David Newman, Leslie Newman, Robert Benton and Tom Mankiewicz.

This was a monster of a film at the time. A huge budget, an enormous star cast and a team of powerhouse producers and writers. And it runs to 143 minutes. There's a lot of back story to get through, in fact there is quite a bit of Man before we get to the Super. It is 50 minutes until we see the costume briefly, and another 15 before the helicopter rescue scene.

Christopher Reeve is as good as you remember him. He makes a great Superman and his Clark Kent is still funny. I never really liked Margot Kidder's Lois Lane and the decision to have her smoke seems strange even for 1978. Equally odd is playing Lex Luthor and his accomplices for laughs. The movie Luthors have always been more comic than menacing. It's interesting that the new version has dropped him as a villain, maybe films just can't get him right.

Of course there is a lot of dodgy science in the movie, most notably in the turn back the clock finale. There's always the problem of finding a big enough challenge for Superman. And why is Lex Luthor always obsessed with real estate? To be frank these problems and the mass of money and talent thrown at the screen in an over-long film do diminish the impact, but the late lamented Christopher Reeve makes up for it. Plus Valerie Perrine as Miss Teschmacher is phwoar!