Superman Returns Review

[Felix_Leiter]

one word.. 'ouch'

there are plenty of spoilers so be warned..

Can't say when. Can't say where. Can't say how it was presented. But I've seen Superman Returns. And I'm sorry to report that it's an unmitigated creative disaster.

The action is virtually nonexistent, save for one set piece in the middle of the film revolving around a crashing airplane and another sequence at the end where Metropolis falls victim to an earthquake (the effects were still raw in this sequence - just think of it as a better version of the frozen lake in Superman III).

Brandon Routh is listless. Kate Bosworth is shot to look unattractive (why is she wearing a wig?), a huge accomplishment considering how beautiful she is in person. Kevin Spacey plays Lex as a direct continuation of Gene Hackman's super silly portrayal (this time with a collection of wigs he never leaves home without). He's really a mean guy - he locks Lois in a closet. And in an embarrassing sequence, Lois enters a boat only to be terrified at discovering the identity of its owner by seeing a row of neatly lined wigs in a room (think Chekov and Botany Bay in Star Trek II, but a truly stupid version of it). At this point, I was in shock at what I was seeing on the screen. This is the Superman movie we have waited for since 1987? Actually, make that 1981.

Gone is everything that John Byrne's Man of Steel re-launch in 1986 created, which has permeated through the mainstream via Paul Dini's animated series and the WB's Smallville. There's no Luthorcorp. No Mercy. Just wigs - lots of them, and a lame, out of touch and an extremely out of date love story. And once again, a grand devious plot for Luthor to implement a scenario in which he has the most coveted real estate on the planet. At least in Superman: The Movie the plan made some kind of sense. Here, it is something out of a bad episode of He-Man. There are extended scenes involving Lois' son playing piano with great expertise and a rather long and pointless Chinese food family dinner sequence. Are you depressed and horrified yet?

Those craving a kick-ass summer superhero extravaganza must wait until next May when Sam Raimi's Spider-Man 3 opens. In this movie, Superman doesn't have any formidable villains. No Kryptonians like Zod or Darkseid or Braniac. No Doomsday to pose a potentially lethal threat. No Bizarro. No Metallo. Just Lex, a couple of his thugs (right out an episode of Rockford Files) and Parker Posey doing her best (worst) to fill Ms. Teschmacher's shoes (this character will be truly offensive to Superman fans everywhere, especially when she starts playing make-believe wedding with dolls on Lex's train track).

Lex and his thugs bumble through the story with a cockeyed plan to use the crystal that Clark threw into the snow, which created the Fortress of Solitude (in the first movie), to create a new Krypton on earth. In the process, they plan to destroy all the other continents so that Lex and his band of thugs can become the primo landlords on the planet. I have seen better villain plots on Sesame Street. This plot sounds lame by evenbad '50s movie standard - the execution on film is even lamer (in all fairness, the effects for this sequence were not completed - there was a lot of animatics). As Lex says to Lois, people will be forced to max their credit cards out to pay him rent.

I just have one question for Bryan Singer and his lame writers: If you've killed billions of people in a globally cataclysmic event, what sort of social economic system would still be in place where you can use people's credit cards? Come on, Bryan, this is the best you could come up with?

None of this seems to have been on the minds of director Bryan Singer and his lame writing partners, Michael Dougherty and Dan Harris. They're more concerned about what's happened in Lois Lane's life since Superman disappeared several years ago and how Clark and his alter ego now fit into the picture. And boy, does it feel like a daytime soap - a bad one. Lois Lane's love interest, Richard White (played by James Marsden) has almost as big and heroic a role as Routh's Superman/Clark (he's the one who saves Lois at the end). Not that it matters - Jimmy Olsen seems to be the one who has big eyes for Clark and is hoping to land him on the rebound.

And the big twist at the end - Lois' son is actually the one she conceived with Superman (we assume in Superman II). Thus, the Man of Steel whispers to his boy at the end of the film, "You will be different. You will sometimes feel like an outcast. But you will not be alone. You will never be alone."

Warner Brothers was wise to pull their Super Bowl spot. They will yet be wiser to disrupt all AOL instant messaging during the film's opening Weekend as the stink of this turkey will travel faster than a speeding bullet. Because they've got nothing. This is Wild Wild West all over again. This is Superman by way of 1998's Godzilla and 2004's Van Helsing. Don't be fooled by the teaser trailer and the Comic Con footage with John Williams' music and Marlon Brando's voiceover. Brandon Routh's acting is nonexistent. Kevin Spacey's Luthor is hokey and plain painful to watch, considering the evolution of the Luthor character since Superman II in both comics and on TV. The studio has an expensive turkey on their hands, and they will milk it for all it's worth with a last-minute marketing blitz to get the best opening bang possible from an unsuspecting public. When Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest opens the next week, this film is doomed. We're talking a Hulk-like drop of 70-75 percent.

Warner Brothers should be ashamed of themselves for thinking that just because Singer did a great job on adapting the X-Men comic books to the silver screen (I guess Tom DeSanto, LS Donnor and Ralph Winter were chopped liver), he would do the same justice to Siegel and Shuster's creation. It's like comparing apples and oranges. Superman is not the same as X-Men. It's this ignorant attitude that used to give movies based on a comic books a bad rep. Singer seems to be blinded by a f*****sh love for Superman: The Movie and its 1981 sequel - so much that he completely ignores the fact that this character was created 45 years before those films and has evolved to great lengths since Superman II. Superman Returns will play to only two audiences: senior citizens and five-year-olds. Somebody please send Bryan a trade paperback of John Byrne's Man of Steel, Jeph Loeb's Superman For All Seasons, Mark Waid's Birthright, DVDs of Smallville and the animated series. When this movie fails, everyone is going to blame the character. It's not the character. It's the filmmaker's vision that utterly fails this incredible, universal, iconic story.

[nomembername]

did you see the movie or you just copying someone else's review?

[HAZE]

Copying. It's not out yet.

[9mile]

pwn3d

[9mile]

Kinda makes you think ... A great read for Women and Girls

Current mood: creative

Girls vs. Grown Women

Girls leave their schedule wide-open and wait for a guy to call and

Make plans.

Grown women make their own plans and nicely tell the guy to get in

Where he fits in.

Girls want to control the man in their life.

Grown women know that if he's truly hers, he doesn't need controlling.

Girls check you for not calling them.

Grown women are too busy to realize you hadn't.

Girls try to put a man 'on lock' by using sex.

Grown women know that it's the sex of the mental kind that makes a man want to 'lock' you down.

Girls fake-moan, lay there and take the stabbing.

Grown women say, "Just stop", get up, get dressed and walk it out.

Girls are afraid to be alone.

Grown women revel in it using it as a time for personal growth.

Girls ignore the good guys.

Grown women ignore the bad guys.

Girls make you come.

Grown women make you come home.

Girls worry about not being pretty and/or good enough for their man.

Grown women know that they are pretty and/or good enough for any man.

Girls try to monopolize all their man's time (I.e, don't want him

Hanging with his friends).

Grown women realize that a lil' bit of space makes the 'together time'Even more special -- and goes to kick it with her own friends!

Girls think a guy crying is weak.

Grown women offer their shoulder and a tissue.

Girls want to be spoiled and 'tell' their man so.

Grown women 'show' him and make him comfortable enough to reciprocate W/O fear of losing his 'manhood'.

Girls get hurt by one man and make all men pay for it.

Grown women Know that, that was just one man.

Girls fall in love, chase aimlessly after the object of their

Affection, ignoring all 'signs'.

Grown women know that sometimes the one you love, don't always love You back and move on, without bitterness.

Girls will read this and get an attitude.

Grown women will read this and pass it on to other Grown women and men!!

7:31 PM - 0 Comments - 0 Kudos - Add Comment

Long Island .. Beers ... Mcdonalds .. Tetris .. Good Times!

Current mood: full

So I drove out to Long Island last night, and from Jersey that is not a pretty fucking hike but I made the drive to see my long lost love Jenny. I adore this fucking girl, I'm so happy I met her cause she means the world to me. ALWAYS when I'm with her, we have the most random times, and the funniest shit always happens.

I finally met her other half James, who is a another amazing person as well. We had good times last night ... LOTS of Mcdonalds which I am paying for today, beers and tetris wars. It was def one of those nights with the girls where we rocked our hoodies and sneakers, put down some beers ate some shitty food and just rocked out to chilli peppers.

I needed one of those types of nights.

Jen your ass needs to come to NJ now ... UR TURN BITCH lol <33

[nomembername]

hahahahah....NEXT!

[Felix_Leiter]

taken from ugo.com

[Felix_Leiter]

pwn3d

[stymie]

Is this really a thread?

[ronnie1]

Is this really a thread?

I know right.. it should be a thread about boxing, ferrets or

SASSSSSHAAAAAAAA

:clap2::clap2::clap2: