Superman Returns

[221b]

I felt no connection to the characters. They were very one dimensional. Not enough dialouge, too many special effects. Plus everything else you guys said. Very poor script.Lois acted like her son was just some kid, no connection. Lois put her son in too much danger. Lois acted like she could care less about Clark being back. NO FEDORA on Clark!!! Suit was ugly!

 

[Zach R.]

One question...who is Louis?

 

[Lincsong]

No; "truth, justice and the American Way"? What else did they change?; "faster than melting glacier, more powerful than a hybrid, able to leap tall dandelions with a single bound, look up in the air, it's a butterfly, it's a wind sailor, not it's Superman"lol

 

[zeus36]

...

Next up: Spiderman 3 Lets hope for the best.
(The trailer is online now at Apple.com and Sony.)...

I forgot to mention Toby McGuire as Spiderboy! That was quite a letdown when I first saw him in the movie.

Couldn't they get a man to play Spiderman? or as least and college guy without a boyish face?

Any any actor playing Superman should be at least 30 as well.

 

[MudInYerEye]

I forgot to mention Toby McGuire as Spiderboy! That was quite a letdown when I first saw him in the movie.

Couldn't they get a man to play Spiderman? or as least and college guy without a boyish face?

Any any actor playing Superman should be at least 30 as well.

The Spider-Man films began with the origin, and Spider-Man began as an scrawny, wimpy, pathetic nerd. If anything, I thought Toby McGuire (wimp tho he is) was TOO self-assured and mature for the role. To be true to the comic they would have had to cast a gangly fellow like the actor who played Bill on FREAKS AND GEEKS.
I agree with you about Superman tho. To me the definitive Superman was that drawn by Curt Swan during the 50's and 60's. His Superman was husky, square-jawed, and unmistakeably middle-aged. Bruce Campbell looks like Superman.

 

[Feraud]

I forgot to mention Toby McGuire as Spiderboy! That was quite a letdown when I first saw him in the movie.

Couldn't they get a man to play Spiderman? or as least and college guy without a boyish face?

Any any actor playing Superman should be at least 30 as well.

The comic book Peter Parker was a teenager when bitten by that spider wasn't he? A boyish looking actor is not too out of place in the Spiderman role.

Regarding Superman Returns..
- Routh looks like Reeve but cannot act.

- Singer is an o.k. director but the story contained more homage signatures to the Donner version than original or quality storylines. It was quite Kill Bill-ish in it's veneration to Richard Donner's Superman. There is a fine line between homage and rip-off..

- The costume looks really bad in photographs. The "S" symbols everywhere make Superman look like a branding nut. Those low cut panty briefs are a too "Queen Eye" for a Superman. Singer was letting his freak flag fly on that one. lol
I will say the costume drawbacks were not as noticeable on screen.

 

[zeus36]

I grew up on the original Spiderman cartoons from Saturday mornings. Parker was good at chemistry and other sciences (building his own web shooting devices) and was not portrayed as a nerd or scrawny. Just my POV.

 

[MudInYerEye]

I grew up on the original Spiderman cartoons from Saturday mornings. Parker was good at chemistry and other sciences (building his own web shooting devices) and was not portrayed as a nerd or scrawny. Just my POV.

I was referring to the early 60's Lee/Ditko comics the movies were based on. By the mid-60's (when the cartoons were aired), Parker had filled out, lost his glasses and sweater vest, and was a semi-hip photojournalist with a hot girlfriend. A blossoming of sorts.

 

[Hondo]

I grew up on the original Spiderman cartoons from Saturday mornings. Parker was good at chemistry and other sciences (building his own web shooting devices) and was not portrayed as a nerd or scrawny. Just my POV.

I agree with Matt on Superman Returns, total let down, SM costume, Yes that "S", Kate Bosworth at 22 yrs old as Lois Lane? (too young) , better to be left as comixs and not the big screen, remember SM III with Richard Pryor? :eusa_doh:

I'm waiting for Spiderman III, but I know what you mean, I'm some what disappointed... Thats Hollywood! I also grew up a Peter Parker fan, Kirsten Dunst is not my idea of Mary Jane :eusa_doh:

I'll still watch it, not sure I'd buy it, give me Film Noir any day

 

[Matt Deckard]

Third part of my review

Well, there was no plot. The story was boring and empty from thought... it was literally a rehash of the first movie right down to the earthquake, and when that happend we saw that Superman was really good at catching things. In the first movie he became a railroad track, saved a school bus... created a natural dam. He filled in the San andreas fault! In this one he catches falling stuff.

Point of fact, this Superman was so much more selfish than his predecessor!

They never covered the real subject at hand, and that was why do we need a Superman?

It's his kid and they never talk about it? "Where the hell have you been Supes?"..
Even better question... where was the rapport with Lois and Clark, and "Where the hell you been Clark?"

He builds a ship made to crash? why? I don't get it! If it was the ship he had as a baby... well tight fit for 5 years... still crashes... good job!

There was no story... there was no dialogue... It was like watching the second Matrix movie in the respect that the writers really don't need the characters to interact!

I did like Lois Lanes outfits.

I can suspend my belief in reality only so much, though when you have to watch a remake of a movie that was made in 1977 and see how the story was corrupted and lines rehashed... well it isn't cool!

He lands on the island and his powers are gone, though when he wants to he can lift the whole damn thing and throw it into space? Must be only certain times of day that Kryptonite affects him.

And why why why have the random questions from Cyclops regarding Clark Kent's height and weight... out of the blue for no reason other than just to randomly... randomly suggest for a split second that Clark may be supes... Why Randomly like that out of the blue? It was soo stupid!

 

[Dalexs]

But Matt, tell us what you really thought of it! lol

 

[Doctor Strange]

I saw it with my kids a few days ago, and frankly, I'm still processing it. My feelings were mixed.

First of all, let me state for the record that I'm a lifelong Superman fan. I learned to read on the comics circa 1960, and adored the George Reeves show and the Fleischer cartoons as a kid. I have found something to admire in pretty much all the versions since then - I even thought Lois & Clark was an interesting variation (though Dean Cain couldn't pull off Superman - luckily, Clark was the important character)... I loved the first two Chris Reeve films, though with a few reservations (the wildly varying tone, the campy villains who seemed to have wandered in from the 60s Batman show, Supes needing to give up his powers to sleep with Lois [WTF?!?]). Anyway...

I found myself very moved at times by the new film, and very impressed with the production design and the effects work. Hey, it's state-of-the-art Superman! But I also had some complaints, some of which have been aired here before:

It hewed to the 1978 and 1980 films MUCH too closely. Both in terms of Routh doing an impression of Chris Reeve, the only memorable musical themes being those of John Williams (what DID Ottman do?), and in terms of the characters. I wanted a touch of the more adult George Reeves/Fleischer/Alex Ross Superman, and this film couldn't deliver it. (It was written by kids, for kids.) Kate Bosworth's Lois was lame - none of the tartness of Margot Kidder (not to mentin Phyllis Coates!) - and just too young to believe as having been involved with Superman (as the thirtyish Kidder) five years before.

Considering how many little homages were sprinkled in throughout, a couple of nods to other versions of Supes (beyond the cameos for Noel Neill and Jack Larson and Perry saying "Great Cesar's Ghost!") would have been welcome.

It fell victim to the "Return of the Jedi" syndrome: here's a third film with an unlimited budget, and the best finale they can come up with is to destroy the Death Star AGAIN?!? Lex coming up with another real estate scam was too repetitive. Been there, done that! Kevin Spacey was okay, but he should have been allowed to go a bit broader, since he was supposed to be the Hackman portrayal (not even one chance to say "Lex Luthor, the Greatest Criminal Mind of Our Time!"???) For that matter, how about just having had Hackman return as Lex and digitally de-aging him (as Patrick Stewart and Ian McKellen were in the X-Men flashback)!?!?

I could have lived without the amazingly heavyhanded Christ parallels - how many times did we have to hear Brando's "my only son" line? Apparent death and resurrection doesn't sit well with me, whether it's ET or Superman. It's a dramatic cheap shot (not to mention offensive to my Jewish sensibilities - Superman was created by Jews, let's have more Moses and less Jesus!) And I thought it was badly done too - we didn't see what really revived him. Was it Lois's fairytale kiss? Solar radiation? Just resting a bit? And then the film aburptly stopped rather than ended: don't show us poor Martha anonymous in the crowd when Supes is near death without also giving us a resolution by having Clark drop in on her after he's suddenly okay. This was simply bad screenwriting!

(A slopply technical mistake that dropped my jaw occurred at the end too: as recovered Supes is flying over Metropolis, the Daily Planet globe was clearly visible atop the Planet building - who put it back up there, wasn't it just a day or two later?!?)

However, alot of it still got to me, even though it wasn't really the Superman movie that I wanted to see... I just have so much invested in the character that I found myself frequently getting all ferklempt...

 

[Matt Deckard]

Yeah... well the emotions hit me too the first time i saw the film, though the second time around I realized this isn't my Superman.

Some of those lines that they had Brando echoing into Brandon's head could have been mouthed by Brandon and I think it would have looked more powerful. Never place one above the rest or something like that... him just mouthing some of the lines like that in rememberance rather than Brando over and over and over again.

 

[Filthy]

Super Duper Man!

Saw it and loooooved it! Casting really really worked for me, I hope we see it a lot more of Brandon! And KS always rocks the house! I had a blast at this one! Glad to hear you all enjoyed it as well!!!! Let's hope the sequel is in production now!

Fabulously yours!,

Robert!

 

[Miss_Bella_Hell]

Saw it and loooooved it! Casting really really worked for me, I hope we see it a lot more of Brandon! And KS always rocks the house! I had a blast at this one! Glad to hear you all enjoyed it as well!!!! Let's hope the sequel is in production now!

Fabulously yours!,

Robert!

Haha read the reviews, not all of us enjoyed it! I thought it was so-so at best.

 

[LizzieMaine]

I finally got around to seeing this, and like a lot of folks my feelings are very mixed. My experience in seeing the film was compromised by poor projection at the local multiplex -- the popcorn-jockey in charge selected the wrong audio channel, so all we got was the optical track thru the behind-the-screen speakers -- and any surround-sound effects were lost, which rather damped the excitement in a lot of the scenes. I should know better than to even bother with multiplexes, projection snob that I am, but I'm too big a Superman fan to miss the film...

Anyways, I think my biggest problem with the picture itself was Bosworth's portrayal of Lois. I'm old school when it comes to Miss Lane -- the Phyllis Coates portrayal in the first year of the TV series left a lasting impression on me as a little girl, and helped push me in the direction of a career in journalism. Since then, I tend to hold any portrayal of Lois up to that standard, and in the case of Bosworth, she just seemed too young and cute and perky to be convincing. Lois needs an edge -- she's a hard-boiled reporter, not some just-out-of-college chickie, and I don't think Bosworth was able to offer that.

I will say, in her favor, though, that facially she's a dead ringer for the way Joe Shuster originally drew Lois -- her eyes and jawline especially. If you gave her a late-'30s hairstyle, and appropriate attire, she'd be just about visually perfect.

Which makes me wonder -- how come no one's ever tried to do Superman as a period piece? The early New Deal/Champion of the Forgotten Man squinty-eyed barrel-chested version of the character, set in 1938, would be very interesting to see as a movie.

 

[Maj.Nick Danger]

Which makes me wonder -- how come no one's ever tried to do Superman as a period piece? The early New Deal/Champion of the Forgotten Man squinty-eyed barrel-chested version of the character, set in 1938, would be very interesting to see as a movie.

Yes, exactly! Why not set all the comic book inspired movies in the correct era???
Having read some of these comics almost from their inception,( and thoroughly enjoyed them) I am always extremely disappointed with Hollywood's lame attempts at trying to tell the stories set in modern times.
Hollywood has some awesome material to work with in comic books, but they always make these stories into empty, silly special effects fests!

The last one I saw was "The Hulk", which like almost any comic, could have been a spectacular movie. But to my utter dismay, it was shmucked up into one of the lamest wastes of film I have ever suffered through! :rage: (Luckily, I saw it on TV and did not have to pay for such an outrage!)

I guess their logic is that their target audience can only relate to the stories if they are set in modern times. :eusa_doh:

 

[Solid Citizen]

Truth, Justice & ALL THAT STUFF

1. I just don't see why you need a "remake" of Chris Reeves superior portrayal [huh]

2.There were a number of local media reviews on the movie that were "not" positive + around here you could walk in opening Day 1 & get a seat. Thats "not" a good sign :eusa_doh:

SC

Great Caesar's Kryptonite, I mean ghost!!!!

 

[MudInYerEye]

Just saw it. Very spare.
But, while somewhat disappointing, it was much better than KING KONG or X-MEN III.

 

[Marc Chevalier]

Anything is better than the KING KONG remake.

.