At last...peace, I mean war...
Hmmm, something happened between the third and the fourth Superman movies: the writers got dumber. Gone is Lana Lang. Gone is the sense of humor. Gone is the meta-narrative sense of silly. Back is Lois Lame:"Oh, Superman" (say this in a husky-man voice), "Let's write the truth in this newspaper and win awards for it." Superman, "Miss Lame, I never lie. You are the greatest reporter ever."
In "The Quest for Peace" the man of steel makes some bold political statements against the arms race and governmental promotion of terror and war for the purposes of maintaining power and making a profit. Bold statements, relevant today; however, they are poorly made, and the story is in need of real development and conflict. Once again, the characters are flat. The bad guys are characters like Lex Luthor who see themselves as bad guys doing bad things to get rich and count their money instead of bad guys who see themselves as good guys taking money and power away from people they don't think should be making decisions for themselves. In fact, Superman himself might be one of these type guys who uses his power to make decisions for people using his power rather than his wisdom or compassion. The movie never makes it clear as to whether the governments of the world give up their nuclear weapons to him or if he just takes those weapons away because he can. In the end he apologizes to the world at a press conference for taking about the world's nuclear weapons. "I thought that you were ready for peace," he says. Why does he apologize? Unclear. Maybe it's because while the world's governments were nuclear-weaponless, Lex Luthor made a nuclear-Superman-clone who threatened world peace by beating up Superman. This threat to Superman's health brought about a new fear for human safety and the governments of the world went to black-market nuclear arms dealers who used to be employed by these governments. These arms dealers were controlled by Lex Luthor. And even though Superman beats Lex without war among the nations, he's sorry that he tried to create peace. So, where the movie could have been an interesting critique of war profiteering, cold war fear-mongering, and the arms race, it ended saying that war was ok until humans could all see the world as Superman does--united, peaceful, beautiful.
The super-villian deserves some comment. Cloned from Superman's hair, manipulated in Lex Luthor's kitchen, birthed in a nuclear bomb impact on the sun's surface, born fully-clothed, this super-villian is as scary as the avon lady. In fact, I think that the silver press-on fingernails he uses to scratch Superman's neck and put him into a feverous delierium were a purchase he made with the Avon lady while she was reccommending perm-solution shampoo for the upkeep of his beautiful blond curls. Nuclear-man bristles with studio-painted, cartoon waves of electricity and speaks with the eloquence of a wrestle-mania star: "Me fight Superman," and he does, on the moon, on the great wall of china, at the statue of liberty, all those great icons of human something-or-other that we can't live without. Lucky for us all, Superman defeats this clod and our symbols of freedom, the statue, the wall, the moon, are safe once again.
Can someone tell me what made Superman popular? Why was Chris Reeve considered a good actor? Will terrorists try to take out the moon next?
8 comments:
You failed to mention the "best" part of the interesting movie... That when Nuclear-man destroyed the Great wall of China, Superman used lasers shot from his eyes to lift all the blocks back into place. A new, never seen before power! Nuclear-mans nails were weird, the would grow when he was angry. And Superman once again erased Lois's memory with a kiss! just like movie 2. I think Superman III was the best one out of the group.
I like superheros as much as the next but I couldn't watch anymore beyond the all too pivital line in the Spiderman movie where she says, "oh, you're spiderman..." and he responds "yeah."
Superhero movies just aren't what they used to be...I say back to the days of cartoons, Thundercats, He-Man (and She-Ra) and X-Men...oh and Carebears, that Care Bear stare is pretty powerful.
This may explain why I grew tired of Superman movies and didn't even have the slightest interest in seeing the one put out this year.
Ditto.
I'm with Em.
Mike,
Have you ever considered writing a newspaper coulmn? Ala Dave Barry?
I hope the new spiderman is better than the last one, which was disapointing.
Don't even get me started on the Spiderman movies. I didn't like any of them. I only saw the second one by accident when they played it on the movie channel up in Fairbanks. Ian had fallen asleep in my arms and the remote was out of reach. I swear! There was nothing I could do.
I am going to give the new Superman movie a chance. New writers, director, actors. Nothing, in fact to connect it with the old. This is why I do love the super hero characters. They don't belong to any one generation in particular. They can be rewritten again and again to meet the dreams of each successive generation. My friend here at school is doing an interpretation of comicbook heroes as folklore stories.
The new Supermand Movie is almost exactly the same plot as the first movie, just juiced up a bit and with some extra twists.
I enjoyed it enough. Superman looked too computerish for me though, even when he was Clark Kent.
I liked the first Spiderman, the second was disappointing. My favorite Superhero movies have been the X-Men. I haven't seen X3 yet, I hear it was a let down. Oh well.
Word of advice...never rent Fantastic 4. Probably ranks up there with Superman 4.
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