So I just got done watching Superman II on my netflix queue and I gotta say.....meh. It's probably just the fact that I am spoiled to hell and back with today's superhero films but yeah, it was pretty goofy. I mean, I wasnt even born yet when the first movie came out so I wasn't able to catch them when I was super young, and for some reason I just never caught them in their entirety over the past years, even with numerous chances to do so. After seeing the first one to compare it with Superman Returns, and seeing Comic Vines segment on the happy hour, I felt compelled to rectify that. Seeing as the 4 movies have been in my instant queue for awhile now, why the fuck not?
To start, I am a pretty big comic fan. Have been for most of my life, even though I've since gotten out of hardcore collecting I still keep up with major comic news and read my fair share of titles. I am not a huge DC fan admittedly, but as of late I have been slowly getting to like what I have been reading up on whats happening in the DC universe and I am starting to really like their characters. I've always liked Batman and Superman, but that was about it. So with the new Green Lantern movie coming out and reading all the wikis I can on the Blackest Night saga, and catching the majority of the DC animated movies(which I highly recommend!), I think I am gonna dive deeper into the DC comics vault and see what I have been missing. Wow, that was a tangent, back to the movie!
So yeah, Superman II. I had always heard that this was the great one before the fall of the series, just like you all have. The first one was okay, and I really enjoyed Superman Returns, even if it was damn near a full fledged remake of the first Donner Supes film. So I went in to this movie with some trepidation as I do with all coveted movies that are old and don't potentially age well, and was greeted with everything I expected. In short, an 80's movie. Now I know this was the 80's and all and I'm not so naive as to expect special effects from the likes of today and all, and its not the effects I had a problem with. I was impressed with them actually, realizing this was all done in what, 1984, 85? It was just that the movie was kinda dumb and all over the place.
I will say this, after glazing over this fact for most of my youth, Christopher Reeve really is a great Superman. He plays the mild mannered Clark Kent to a T and I really liked the change in his presence when he transformed into Superman. He was, as it should be, the best thing about the film. Everything else is just kinda blah. Margot Kidder as Lois? Ugh. I was watching the Niagara Falls scene and thought to myself, "Damn, Lois is a whore.". I mean, she is obsessed with Supes and just doesn't give a damn about anybody or anything else. And she's stupid. "I'M GONNA KILL MYSELF TO PROVE YOU'RE SUPERMAN, CLARK!!!" That was just nonsensical!!! Also, shes so blase about Clark one minute, but waitaminute, he's Superman?! Well shit her panties sure came off quick, even though 13 minutes ago she could care less about him!!! Also, she doesn't even try to stop or talk some sense into Supes when she catches him giving up his powers to be with her!!! Like I said, kinda whoreish. It's just not how I picture the character of Lois Lane I guess.
The rest of the movie is just sort of there to fill in the roles. I don't really know what to make of Gene Hackman as Lex Luthor. I generally like Hackman overall in the roles I see him in, but he plays Lex like a buffoon in these movies, and not the evil genius he is supposed to be, although that may be the fault of the writers and not Hackman. Zod and the rest of the villians were also kind of lame, they just didnt seem very threatening to me. Also, did anybody else laugh at the big showdown with them and Superman when they start creating the gale force winds? What struck me as funny was during this whole scene, they are creating all this destruction and chaos, cars flying all over the place, structures being ripped from the ground and such, yet they keep cutting to people doing dumbass random stuff like it isn't happening, like the couple that comes out of the KFC and the waitress that comes out after them with their check like they cant hear all the crazy ass shit going down outside!!! And the guy on roller skates getting blown backwards?! Wow. Just wow. Silly is all I can say, and that just didn't jive well with my idea of a Superman film.
Man, I wasn't intending to do a review of this film, and this surely shouldn't be taken as one. To be fair, as much as I criticized it above, I didn't hate the movie, I actually enjoyed it for what it was, an 80's comic book movie based on Superman. Which to be fair, I'm sure the movie studios had no idea in hell about how to handle such movies, let alone decide what kind of tone they should set for them. They did give me Superman though, and for that I thank Mr. Reeve, may he rest in peace! This is just an opinion piece that I felt like sharing after seeing a piece of pop and movie culture, which I will recommend that everybody should see at least once. I will give the 3rd and 4th Superman films ago probably over the next few days. I hear these are the not good ones. Pray for me people!!!
Anybody else have an opinion about the 80's Superman films? Love 'em, Hate' em, indifferent? Anyhow, till next blog people, stay safe!
Oh comic book movies from the 80's, what am I gonna do with you?!
I think it suffers from a lot of logical errors though so I've never been able to warm to it as much as the first one. The first movie spends so much time pounding into young Clark's head that he has a responsibility to do great things, that I found it impossible to accept that he'd abandon what Jor-el and Glen Ford (Pa Kent) kept telling him. Plus, what the hell was that thing with the flying "S" at the end? Still the 2nd movie is still light years better than either follow up. Superman III has a lot of camp value and earn some "geek cred" for having video gaming as a principle story sequence near the end. Superman IV was written in part by Christopher Reeves I believe and has another super powered bad guy but the premise is impossible to accept. In the story Superman gathers all of the worlds nuclear weapons and detonates them in space. Luthor hides some dude in the collection and creates a super-villain through the explosion. It's not how Nuclear Man is created that bugs me, it's the idea that the world powers would sit idly by while Superman steals their arsenals.
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