Years of waiting have gone by and Superman Returns finally landed at the movies! After reading reviews like this one I was fully prepared for the movie to rock my pants off:
"Director Singer, working again with writers Michael Dougherty and Dan Harris (the superb "X2") has devised a beautifully crafted, emotionally resonant and heavily nostalgic Man of Steel guaranteed to appeal to several generations of Superman fans. "
Clearly reviewers did not see the same movie I saw. If by "guaranteed to appeal to several generations of Superman fans" they mean "guaranteed to make several generations of Superman fans want to get bucked off a horse" then they hit the nail right on the head. Let's take a look and see why exactly Superman Returns was an awful movie.
Superman, Lois and the KidThe flick is called Superman Returns because Supes leaves Earth for five years to see what's left of planet Krypton. Upon returning, he finds out that Lois has a kid, that just happens to be.... five years old. Even later in the film we see that the kid is bothered by kryptonite. Obviously, the kid was fathered by Superman. What does this mean? What did Superman do when he found out Lois was preggers?
He comes up with a lame excuse and flys off for five years. That sounds like something a
Deadbeat Dad would do, doesn't it? This bothers me more than Supererman getting Lois pregnant. That's her fault, he's a man, why should he have to use birth control?
Luthor and the CrystalsIt wouldn't be a Superman movie without Lex Luthor trying to pull off some harebrained scheme. This time around Luthor goes into Superman's arctic Fortress of Solitude and steals these Kyrptonian crystals, which contain historical information about Krypton and are very powerful. They also look like glass dildos:
Luthor's plan is to get rich quick by selling prime beachfront real estate. To do this he wants to create a new land mass off the east coast and the US. Somehow doing this will flood most of North and South America but he doesn't care, because he'll be rich! Luthor figures out that if you get a crystal wet it will begin to cause eletrical disturbances and replicate itself, growing bigger and bigger. If this sounds familiar to you, it should: something beautiful that turns horribly wrong when it gets wet is the entire concept of Gremlins:
Nevermind the fact that Luthor's plot was lifted straight from an 80's movie, think about this: all the death and destruction caused by the crystals was Superman's fault! Luthor was able to walk right into the Fortress of Solitude and take the dild- I mean crystals. There was no security.
There was not even a locked door! This is the equivalent of a parent not locking a gun up and their child getting ahold of it. As a society we hold the parent's responsible when their negligence leads to situations like this. Yet at the end of this movie, Superman is applauded as a hero by the very people his oversight almost killed. Way to go you Super-Shyster!
Super-SickoAs if everything else wasn't enough, Superman also abuses his powers several times in the movie. After coming back to Earth and discovering Lois has a boyfriend, he flys to their house, hides in the bushes and uses his x-ray vision to peep in on them! And later he sneaks into the house and into the kid's bedroom and just looks at him! Unbelievable. According to this movie, Superman gets his jollies by spying on people and looking at little boys in their bedrooms--is this guy Kryptonian or is he a
Catholic Priest?
So let's recap: the alleged "hero" of this film is a Deadbeat Dad, leaves sex toys/weapons laying around his unlocked house and is a peeping tom. Way to go Hollywood!
