Wednesday, July 05, 2006

Superman Returns to mediocrity

Has there ever been a worse casting decision in a superhero movie than when Ben Affleck was given the role of Matt Murdock in Daredevil? Well now there is one worse; Kate Bosworth as Lois Lane. Yes, Kate Bosworth is a nice piece of ass, but Lois Lane is supposed to be a spitfire piece of ass. She's supposed to be a ruthless journalist and have a sassy atttude. Bosworth exhibits none of these qualities, and when she tries to, you can tell she didn't get to where she is because of her acting talent. The main storyline of any Superman movie should be the attraction of Lois to Superman and vice versa. There is absolutely NO chemistry between Bosworth and Brandon Routh(Superman). He isn't a very convincing Superman either. I believe he was hired only because he physically resembles a young Christopher Reeve.
The major problem with this movie isn't what it did, it's what it didn't do. It didn't try anything new. It seemed as if the director and the writers were so terrified of insulting the franchise that they played it safe and went with familiar plotlines and familiar character types. Spoilers are presented below so you are now forewarned:

The movie does keep the original score of the first movies which I liked. The opening credits were the same lettering and the same blue effects as in the original. That was all pretty cool. We have Kevin Spacey playing Gene Hackman playing Lex Luthor for the whole movie. He has a female partner in crime (just like in Superman I and II) who ends up screwing him in the end (just like in I and II). You'd think he'd have dropped the female after what Miss Tessbocker did to him in I, but this movie has no originality. Hell, if they were just gonna do that, they should have at least brought back Otis who was hilarious. We have Lois Lane in the press room asking, "How many F's are in catastrophe?"; an homage to Superman I. After Superman saves an airplane from crashing that Lois is on, he sets the plane down in the middle of a baseball field where the game is obviously temporarily halted. As he walks out of the cabin he says, "I hope this incident hasn't disuaded any of you from flying. It still is statistically the safest way to travel." That's the line verbatim from Superman I when he saves Lois from the helicopter. That scene in the original alone is better than anything in this movie. The editor, Perry White, is played by Frank Langella and is the most boring editor I've ever seen. He's nothing like the actor in the first movie who played White with a seriousness that bordered on hilarity. Lex Luthor's evil scheme is a real estate deal, just like in Superman I. He wants land and he's willing to destroy millions of people to create this land. Nothing new here. Another thing is that Siuperman has a love child in this movie, and nothing is done with it. That would have been an interesting story to tell, but instead they stayed with old reliable and made a shitty movie.
It's unfortunate that this cast is being compared to Superman I, but that comes with the territory. The cast from the first movie knew how important that movie was and understood that they needed to act a little tongue in cheek. Perry White, Jimmy Olsen, and even Lex Luthor were played by people who seemed to be in on a joke that was being played on the rest of the world. Reeve displayed Superman perfectly and was only outdone by his own performance of Clark Kent. Brandon Routh decided to play his Kent just like Reeve did and that fails miserably. Margot Kidder had the fire and the looks to be Lois Lane. Bosworth doesn't even look like Lois Lane. Lois Lane has straight black hair, not curly brownish hair. Teri Hatcher was a far superior Lois Lane on show "Lois and Clark" than Bosworth could ever be. Bottom line is that if you want to see this movie, save your $9.00, drive to Blockbuster, use $3.oo, rent Superman I and watch that because it is pretty much the same movie, so why not watch the better acted, more original, version than this piece of crap.

P.S. To go back to the beginning, while sitting through dozens of previews in the theater, there was one about the conspiracy behind the death of George Reeves, the original Superman from the 40's. He committed suicde, but apparently there is a big conspiracy theory that he was murdered and that is what this movie is gonna be about. It stars Adrien Brody, William H. Macy, and.....BEN AFFLECK as George Reeves. That guy just won't go away!!!!!


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3 Comments:

At 7:02 PM, Blogger NoOneSpecial said...

I did a double take when I heard that, but then again I didn't see Tobey being a good spidey and he turned out to be to Spiderman what Reeve was to Superman. Have you seen the trailer to Spiderman 3? Looks amazing....they just have to keep the writing team from 2 and it should be a good movie, but it will be hard to out-do 2 because 2 was absolutely perfect.

 
At 1:26 PM, Blogger Sitting on Pineapples said...

Ben Affleck is the antichrist

 
At 1:55 PM, Blogger Risky Business said...

Venom = 6'3", 260 lbs.

Topher Grace = what, 6'0"- 6'1"... 170lbs.?!?

Weak.

Although, I do think he is a decent actor.

 

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