Preternatural handsomeness is also one of his powers.
Given the news that Ta-Nehisi Coates has a deal to write a Superman movie, why not check out the movie versions again? (I mean, the ones filmed after 1975 and are easily accessible to ordinary human beings.)
Movies sure have changed in the past 40+ years.
Superman: The Movie, 14 May 2021, streamed via HBO Max
Wait, how is this movie two and a half hours? I thought ballooning runtimes were a newish thing! Or is this a problem endemic to Superman movies generally?
This score is the soundtrack of my childhood. (Also ET and Star Wars and Indiana Jones...you get the picture.) Also, the opening in black and white, throwing back to the 30s, is neat.
One look at Ursa and have I already found the queen of my heart?
I like that they killed off Jonathan with a heart attack instead of that insulting nonsense with the tornado in Man of Steel. Clark being unable to stop a heart attack = someone who knows there are always things out of their control. Clark being unable to rescue someone from a tornado because reasons = someone who thinks he could fix anything if he, I don't know, tries hard enough.
Wait, Clark went to the Fortress of Solitude instead of college? Why the heck did Perry White give him a job? I mean, there's nothing wrong with not going to college, but I would think a top newspaper in a major, heh, metropolis, would want a bit more evidence of skill besides, "Well, you sure seem earnest." And Perry was down with a portfolio of unpublished pieces? Did Jor-El give his kid a primer in forgery? (Also, tailoring? Did he make his costume himself?)
It is FORTY-EIGHT MINUTES before we get to Christopher Reeve and I'm kind of salty about it.
Everything stops making sense by the time Lex Luthor makes contact with Superman. Because he...is bored? He wants to make his "break California off the continent" plan more complicated I don't know, guys. Anyway, what's up with Tessmacher's wardrobe?
Don't even talk to me about Superman reversing the Earth and, hence, time.
Superman II, 15 May 2021, streamed via HBO Max
On one hand, it's nice to open the film with a group of terrorists that doesn't rely on racist stereotypes. On the other hand, I srsly cannot keep watching what passes for special effects, it hurrrrrts.
Wait. WAIT. Lois and Clark are posing as newlyweds? Is this...is this fanfiction? But for real, I am SO RELIEVED Lois figured things out after a single look at Clark without his glasses. (I mean. Let's all just pretend that's an effective disguise.) And then Clark, a complete jackass, lets her almost drown? And then despite that whole mess, Clark falls face first into an open fire and have I ever laughed that loudly before?
It's pretty funny that nobody gives a good goddamn about Lex Luthor.
These movies would be so much more interesting without any Big Bads. I mean, seeing the Kryptonians just, like, lounging in the Oval Office is amusing, but still. I cannot bring myself to care. But also: Ursa, QUEEN OF MY HEART.
The House of El is the worrrrrrst. "You must become like mortals," what absolutely bullshit. (Also, Clark, maybe you could fly Lois back home before you strand yourself without powers at the North Pole?)
OH NO this is the one where he wipes her memory with a kiss. I HATE THIS ONE. Seriously the, what, two minutes where Clark and Lois-in-the-know are awkward and yearning at work is perfect and I love it so much. Then, 1) Clark wipes specific memories from Lois's mind, even though 2) he does not actually have that power, and 3) Lois didn't ask him to do it. Give Lois her goddamn agency, guys, c'mon.
Superman III, 16 May 2021, streamed via HBO Max
We start with Clark pitching, "Can I really go back to Middle America after having become a Metropolis sophisticate," well. There are some problems inherent in the narrative. (Also, sophisticate? Clark?) That's the interesting part of the film, though. Then there's Clark Kent, moving in on his high school crush, Lana Lang.
And there's some villain stuff. Richard Pryor is involved. As a hacker? Or something? I don't even know, guys. And some extremely boring rich people, I guess. But it does, inexplicably, bring us this:
Not a total wash? Plus, we get to see drunk, dissolute Superman fight his Clark Kent self in a junkyard and then, uh, Clark Kent strangles Superman? It's supposed to be a positive thing and not, like, creepy as hell. (Also, uh, it is strongly implied the villain's girlfriend persuaded chaotic neutral Superman, uh, orally, in order to steal some oil tankers.) What even is this movie?
Superman IV: A Quest for Peace, 17 May 2021, streamed via HBO Max
This is the one with the whales, right? *rimshot*
Okay, so there is no evidence of Lana and the kid, plus Clark is trying to sell the farm, even though Ma Kent passed before the third movie happened. Time is a construct and Lois is walking around wearing a tie, Clark get your shit together.
Five minutes later, he yanks Lois off a balcony to take her flying. And then she suddenly has her memories from before restored? And then he mind-wipes her again? WHAT THE HELL.
Also, I'm all for halting nuclear proliferation, but I'm pretty sure folks wouldn't start cheering if Superman said he was putting his foot down and taking all the bombs. Also also, I legit stop paying attention whenever Lex Luthor scenes come up.
Wait, did they just make an Adam Warlock? Why is Clark in an aerobics class? Did Clark start dating Mariel Hemingway? Where am I?
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And then the personification of nuclear aggression uproots the Statue of Liberty and tries to drop it on the city. Then they were on the moon or something? I don't know.
Anyway, despite these movies getting progressively worse over time (though I prefer the second to the first), lordy that Reeve was a great Clark and a great Superman. (If we want to make the argument that they're essentially two different characters.)
Superman Returns, 18 May 2021, streamed via HBO Max
While I am thrilled not to have to go through another origin story, WTF is happening when this starts? Our boy goes galaxy-traversing to see if, like, there's shards of Krypton hanging around? I do like that they sort of fix this so we could pretend it's still in the Reeve timeline. "I Spent the Night with Superman," indeed. (They do echo the land stealing plot from the first Reeve movie, though.)
Oh, good god, I forgot Spacey was in this. I guess my streak of ignoring Luthor scenes shall continue.
Routh is definitely doing his best to do a Reeve impression, except he's made the persona one that might actually exist in reality. Meaning, awkward, not slapstick. Introspective, not brooding. (It also helps that the special effects aren't trash.) I think I like this better?
I am meh about Bosworth's Lois. She's...nice? Friendly? That doesn't seem very Lois Lane. And Richard (I dig Marsden a lot) doesn't seem like a partner that'd push her to mellow out. And, like, Clark-Superman-Lois is already a love triangle. Why introduce Richard? The entire thing just makes Lois look like an asshole.
The bullet scene remains superior to all other bullet scenes, even though a bullet bouncing off our boy's eye still squicks me out.
On one hand, it's kind of neat that the kid is actually Superman's. On the other hand, Clark, DUDE, you STILL didn't tell her your secret identity? But also: I would totally have dug a continuing series where these kids get all commune on us. Heteronormativity is a cage! Be free!
Just like all Star Wars movies are about economics, all Superman movies are about infrastructure. I'm down with it.
Man of Steel, 19 May 2021, streamed via HBO Max
I feel like I keep watching DCEU movies, hoping that this time, this time they'll be better than they are. Their casting is amazing! But having a phenomenal cast just can't fully overcome an overabundance of narrative ambivalence.
ANYWAY. That Cavill sure is handsome. Ye gods. It's ALMOST enough to direct me away from my requisite complaint of WE DON'T NEED ANOTHER ORIGIN STORY, but here we are. We don't need another origin story.
But also, guys, Krypton has frickin' dragons and I gotta dwell with that for a while.
It's twenty minutes before we get any Cavill and I'm kind of salty about it. (Uh, Clark jumped ship to save those workers on the oil rig, so...his fishing team thinks he's just, like, dead now?) Also, someone's written the fanfic in which Anonymous Clark meets up with Aquaman, right?
And is this Faora-Ul an acceptable replacement for Ursa? First of all, she arm wrestles nobody. Second of all, she actually says the words, "The fact that you possess a sense of morality and we do not gives us an evolutionary advantage." Those are all words, but they do not make any sense put together. Is she saying that Kryptonians don't have morality? Because she got sent to prison and all. Or is she saying her group specifically has no morals? Is fascism, instead, a system of ethics?
It's interesting that the flashbacks in the other movies were all Kid Clark reveling in being able to run really fast and jump really high. In the first flashback here? Kid Clark sees all his classmates as skeletons and hides in a closet to avoid a sensory overload. I mean, both things can be true, BUT it's a pretty good indicator of how things are going to go.
I'm never going to stop being angry about the tornado thing, guys. (Costner's Pa Kent goes pretty hard on the "let everybody die" side of things, geez.)
Amy Adams's Lois is better than Bosworth's--she's pretty good at throwing down verbally and she takes risks, but not stupid ones. Margot Kidder, however, remains the superior Lois, forever and ever. This Lois, however, is believably an acclaimed investigative journalist, which pleases me. Like, she straight-up tracks Clark down to his father's grave, dang. Lois doesn't need to be fooled because she never didn't know.
Clark smiles so much before he takes on the Superman persona! Goddamnit, Zack Snyder.
The scene at the church is so hammer-over-the-head with its symbolism (seriously, stop it with that stained glass window and hey, he's 33 years old, as any proper messianic figure should), but I like how they have that one little piano line playing slowly in the background. It's pretty sweet.
And then a bunch of people die. Don't even talk to me about Clark holding billions of DNA profiles because WTF.
Okay, so I like all three versions of Superman/Clark--they all seem to be the character they're playing, just with decreasing levels of goofiness as time passes. Margot Kidder, as I said, is the best Lois. Frank Langella is the best Perry. (No disrespect to Morpheus, though.) Jimmy Olsen made no impression on me in any of the three versions, and there is actually no version of Lex Luthor that's acceptable. (I know Luthor doesn't show up until BvS, but I hold true to my beliefs.)
Anyway, that's six movies where I spent most of the time bemoaning, "Oh, buddy, no," at the protagonist.
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