2 posts tagged “film”
There's an inherent problem with trying to tell any story involving a character impervious to, well, everything. In Superman, the comics have invented a man who can literally do anything. He's turned back time, his kiss can cause amnesia, he can fly - even into space where us normal humans can't even breathe. His breath can freeze explosions, his eyes see through walls and cause falling debris to vaporize, and he's stronger than anyone else by a long shot. So when you're going to write a script for a $200million-plus film based on such a character, you need to figure out first where the drama can happen.
Unfortunately, the latest movie version of Superman's adventures, "Superman Returns," fails to elicit much in the way of care or hope. The writers have inserted this film into the old Christopher Reeve versions so that it falls just after "Superman 2" so that we can all ignore the one where Richard Prior is a computer genius and the other one no one even saw anyway. The basic premise is that Superman left Earth for 5 years after astronomers located the remnants of his dead home world, Krypton, so he flew away without so much as a goodbye to see if there are any other Super people out there.
Short answer: There aren't. So what this should set up in any other non-fantasy film is a character alone and lonely in a world where he has to hide who he is under the guise of a nebbishy dork no one even gives the time of day. If he's successful in his disguise, he gets to live his life in the sort of dull, meaningless existence the rest of us get to face, too, only he can occasionally don blue tights and red underwear and rubber booties and fly through the sky without wings.
The movie is long, too. Which wouldn't be bad if there was some magic present into which we could sink for that period and believe and care and want there to be a world where Superman might just visit us in our moment of peril, but what we get is a Superman that seems to have no strong feelings about anything but duty, and a Clark Kent so useless and awkward that we wonder why he ever got a job at a newspaper when he never seems to actually write any stories.
But logic is not this film's strong point, nor should it be. But there are so many illogical plot points inserted to allow the story to move forward that long before Supermen lifts a mountain out of the water we've lost interest in every character involved.
Brandon Routh does his utmost to inhabit the famous blue suit, but he's most effective playing the nebbish. He's certainly dreamy enough, and maybe that's all you need -- to fill the suit with muscles and wear the blue contact lenses without blinking. Voila, Superman. Christpher Reeve somehow brought a vulnerability to the role of an invulnerable man, where Routh's performance seems based entirely on teeth and hair. He's somehow empty of any feelings, particularly as the man of steel. So if he's physically unstoppable and also emotionally vacant, why should we care about him? When will he be in any situation we can identify with?
Kate Bosworth's Lois Lane is equally empty, but the script doesn't provide her much to use, either. She gets to blow her kid's nose, hug her long-suffering fiance and argue with Perry White. There. Done. The jilted lover (who shouldn't actually remember having sacked the man of steel) walks through the entire movie feeling sorry for herself. Awwww.
Supporting characters are there only for the purpose of inhabiting roles described in the comics, but are otherwise superfluous. Perry White? Boring. Where's the bluster? Put him and Spiderman's Jonah Jameson in the same room and Perry would become invisible. Jimmy Olsen is there for comic relief, but that's mostly due to looks and gawking stares and awkward silences. Again, the script fails to bring any character to a character.
And what of Lex Luthor, that bald baddy that Gene Hackman imbued with style, flare, humor and substance? What we get is Kevin Spacey slowly simmering on medium heat trying to be "evil villain number three." Again, it's a one-dimensional character in a one-dimensional screenplay that even an actor of his calibur and proven skills can't budge out of neutral.
It's also kind of a mess to look at. The production designer nust have been given an unlimited budget because every surface of every scene is encrusted with gobs of stuff. The Daily Planet is so crowded with flat screens and piles of paper and meandering bodies that it's a wonder anything gets done at all. It's chaotic and hard to watch and jittery to the extreme. Same goes for Luthor's mansion or Lois's country estate or the black crystal candy mountain from which all evil things grow.
I watched Superman Returns at an IMAX theater, and portions of the film suddenly switch to 3-D in an effort, one supposes, to heighten the tension and drama of the special effects laden adventure scenes. It kind of works, but I wondered during the switches why they chose to skip some sequences (the entire Metropolis in peril pieces) and then cut into 3-D at other times (Superman saves Lois and family from drowning). It seemed semi-arbitrary and awkward. The gimmick was only a gimick, and what did it add that was useful?
In the end, I was bored. And isn't the the worst thing one could feel in a Superman film? There should be some emotion running through me, elation or anger or happiness or frustration, but I actually felt nothing at all.
Other than the pain in my ass from sitting on it for over two-and-a-half hours.
Three out of five stars, because it still wasn't as bad as Superman 4: The Quest for Peace.
I avoided this film for weeks because I hate Tom Cruise. I was trying to figure out when the tide turned, because I used to like Tom Cruise.
I'm sure I already hated him before the whole weird Oprah's Couch Adventure, and I hated him before the Scientology crap started to spew. I can't quite recall if it was the time he sued two people into silence about him being gay, or the time he suddenly divorced Nicole just days before he'd have to give her half his money as part of a pre-nup he signed. The man has no balls. Yet he always pretends they're made of high grade stainless steel, assuming stainless steel comes in grades.
In truth, I could have gone my entire life without seeing this film if only to avoid putting any more money into Mr. Cruise's tight-fitting pockets (gay) except that a friend and his girlfriend both agreed that it was "worth seeing," and it was a shame that it wasn't as massive a hit "as it deserved to be, in spite of Tom's assholishness." Or words to that effect. And with an empty Sunday afternoon to fill up, my manfriend and I found ourselves sitting in a half-empty Metreon theatre (the one all the way on the far end, around the corner, past the always closed consession stand and the empty Poseiden: The IMAX Adventure theatre, munching decent popcorn without yellow popcorn "flavoring" and sucking on a giant Cherry Coke waiting for the commercials to stop.
By the way, have you seen those new Sprite commercials? The "subLYMONal" ones, where giant yellow and green things are injected or inserted or dripped on people like this is how one wants to feel while enjoying a refreshing drink? Exremely weird, but entirely effective as advertising because look, I just remembered it out of all the other stupid commercials shown to me on that giant screen and I'm sharing it with you. Even though I drink Coke Zero. Which is delicious.
The film starts off with a ballsy premise. It shows you the ending, so you know that everything about to happen over the next two hours will not effect Tom in the least. While that's hardly surprising - after all, when was the last time the hero actually died in one of these technical masterpieces of noise and nothingness? So you know going in what happens at the end, but you're still willing to sit there for two and a half hours not peeing just to get back to that point.
Because if MI:3 is nothing else, it is effective. Ving Rhames returns as the only other character to have appeared in all three films, the new team consists of two very capable operatives whose names aren't important and whose acting talent consists almost entirely of fitting into tight quarters or taking pictures with hidden cameras. Still, somehow, you're hoping none of them die because you sense that something is going on here that you can't see, and neither can they, or maybe they can, and who's zooming who, here, anyway?
Helicopters dodge windmills, bridges blow up, cars and vans fly through the air, Tom does his usual two acting "looks" (the mega-watt smile and the determined scowl) shit explodes, rubber masks are torn off and applied using some very effective CGI and Philip Seymour Hoffman manages somehow to steel every scene he's in by remaining absolutely calm amid the turmoil that Tom is causing.
I really did need to pee very badly by the time the film was done (damnable "medium" Cherry Coke!) which is a testament to its overall enjoyability. It's tensely fun. It's dangerously giddy. It flies from The Vatican to Hong Kong to Berlin to Maryland's Chesapeake Bay Bridge and blows up everything it can find. It succeeds in spite of Tom Cruise. Hell, even Vin Diesel might've managed to get away with this film, that's how slick it is.
It's a vehicle that works not because you care about what happens to the characters and not because you want to figure out the convolutions of the plot and not because it's pretty (because mostly it's just dark), it succeeds because all those ingredients are there just under the surface, but the revenge fantasy is strong enough that you will not be satisfied until the bad guys are dead, dead, dead.
Also, you're curious about whether New Tom will explode in some wild halucinagenic tirade against psychology again. Which is almost as much fun to watch as M:I III, or "Miiiii!" as Stephen Colbert called it.
4 out of 5 stars for not needing Tom Cruise and supplying two satisfying endings.
