"Superman Returns" fails for four major reasons to my mind. First, "Batman Begins" starts us out with Bruce Wayne as the real man, so that even when he's wearing the costume, we connect with him on a personal level. But "Superman Returns" goes back to the pre-John Byrne days of the first movies, where Kal-El is the real person, and Clark is just the mask. That meant a return to the stumbling, bumbling, nerdy Clark, something I have always *hated*. Byrne did it right by flipping the script and making Clark the real person, and Superman the mask. That approach allowed us to connect to Superman as a real person--Clark. It allowed us to do stuff like go home with Clark, go on dates with him, care about his life, which was real, etc. This is actually closer to the original portrayal of Supes Siegel and Shuster had in mind when they created him back in the '30s. By making the god-like Kal-El the focal point, you have a built in distance from the audience. We can relate to Clark taking a woman on a date, but how many teams can we get connected to Kal-El flying her through the clouds like a demi-god? Second, in "Batman Begins", there was interaction with The Girl, but it wasn't the focal point, and thus, we got more action and more screen time for Scarecrow and Rha's Al Ghul. This met that the incredibly weak and badly miscast Katie Holmes didn't detract from the film the way Kate Bosworth did. But with "Superman Returns" we have the overpowering storyline with Lois. I don't like the actress playing Lois. She looks too young and weak to be the intrepid reporter. That was bad enough ,but I literally laughed out loud when they said Lois won a Pulitzer for her editorial "Why The World Doesn't Need Superman". What the hell do I care that she basically whined her personal feelings into a supposedly serious piece and won an award for it? How boring was it to see her take her shoes off and fly around town with him like a sick puppy? I'm not against romance in adventure films. Indeed, I welcome it. But somehow the focus on lovesick Lois and Kal left me cold--and the inclusion of her s on made it worse. Way too much time spent on that angle that took away from the majesty of the movie. "Batman Begins" doesn't give us any needless humour or silly sidekicks, other than the dead-on deadpan of Michael Caine's Alfred. It was a dead serious movie from start to finish, with dead serious villains. But they missed a great chance with Lex in Superman. I was excited to hear Spacey was playing Lex Luthor, anticipating a more menacing Lex. And man does he deliver at times! But at other times we're back to the joking Lex of the wisecracks, and his silly paramour, trying to fill in for Valerie Perine. I didn't like Hackman's jokes back then and I didn't like Spacey's now. I see *no* need whatsoever to throw in a lady in order to create a strange comedy team. Whenever Lex would do something awesome like attack Supes, we'd get the mood broken by jokes. Even his final predicament was played as a joke. They should have played Lex all the way menacing and cut the jokes. Finally, "Batman Begins" does a great job of drawing us in with Ra's plan to destroy Gotham by driving everyone mad. The scenes of the prisoners and the populace reeling under the fear gas are awesome, as are the steps Batman takes to save the day. "Superman Returns" has some great FX, but Jesus, back to the same plot--Lex wanting to develop some real estate?! How ridiculous is that? And I think by the time the big crisis did come, they'd wasted so much time on Lois and Clark it was actually given short shrift. Just wasn't that engaging. So overall, Tracey, I'd say "Batman Begins" has more humanity in its lead actor with which we can connect, a better plot that balances action and emotional moments, and overall better written characters. Jes' my humble opinion. keith
-------------- Original message -------------- From: "Tracey de Morsella (formerly Tracey L. Minor)" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> > today I read that Singer is making plans for a Superman Sequel. I > recently saw Batman begins for the Third Time and was struck by what a > great storyteller Nolan is. > > While I'm told Superman did OK, it in no way has the following or > success that the Reeve incarnation had or The Tim Burton and Christopher > Nolan incarnations of Batman. > > What does the new Batman movie have That the new Superman movie doesn't. > > Tracey > > > > Yahoo! Groups Links > > > [Non-text portions of this message have been removed]
