Thursday, June 29, 2006
Superman Returzzzz....
They should give out Academy Awards for movie trailers; the trailers for Superman Returns were goosebump-inducing. This was going to be THE comic book movie. What's even more amazing about the trailers is that they were able piece together these brilliant 2-minute clips from two-and-a-half hours of crap.
OK, maybe that's not exactly fair. Superman Returns isn't really a bad movie, it just isn't any good. It doesn't know what it wants to be: Is it a sequel? A remake? An homage? Brandon Youth... oops, I mean Routh, does a fair job imitating Christopher Reeve's Clark Kent. Fine. But if it's supposed to be that kind of sequel, then shouldn't Kate Bosworth be channeling Margot Kidder? Not even close. And there are a half-dozen little scenes/lines of dialog lifted directly from the first 2 films. That makes sense in a remake, but not in a sequel.
The whole movie just seems long. The big climactic "ending" takes place about 20-30 minutes before the credits roll, and you're just left sitting through all of this forced-emotion stuff begging for it to be over.
It's not all bad: Kevin Spacey is very good, but you see all of his best stuff in the trailers. Cyclops is actually a pretty good character. The scenes are shot and framed like comic book panels, which works just fine.
Maybe I just got my hopes up too high. Superhero films work best when you care about the characters first, and their powers second (see Spider-Man). I just found myself not caring what happened to anybody on screen.
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They should give out Academy Awards for movie trailers; the trailers for Superman Returns were goosebump-inducing. This was going to be THE comic book movie. What's even more amazing about the trailers is that they were able piece together these brilliant 2-minute clips from two-and-a-half hours of crap.
OK, maybe that's not exactly fair. Superman Returns isn't really a bad movie, it just isn't any good. It doesn't know what it wants to be: Is it a sequel? A remake? An homage? Brandon Youth... oops, I mean Routh, does a fair job imitating Christopher Reeve's Clark Kent. Fine. But if it's supposed to be that kind of sequel, then shouldn't Kate Bosworth be channeling Margot Kidder? Not even close. And there are a half-dozen little scenes/lines of dialog lifted directly from the first 2 films. That makes sense in a remake, but not in a sequel.
The whole movie just seems long. The big climactic "ending" takes place about 20-30 minutes before the credits roll, and you're just left sitting through all of this forced-emotion stuff begging for it to be over.
It's not all bad: Kevin Spacey is very good, but you see all of his best stuff in the trailers. Cyclops is actually a pretty good character. The scenes are shot and framed like comic book panels, which works just fine.
Maybe I just got my hopes up too high. Superhero films work best when you care about the characters first, and their powers second (see Spider-Man). I just found myself not caring what happened to anybody on screen.
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