I don't think I'm ever going to see this movie.

--m4
mojo_iv | Email | 07.02.06 - 8:00 am | #

I will probably see this movie, but I dislike that they based it on the old seventies series, as I hated those movies, its portrayal of Krypton and Lex Luthor especially. A clue in how hideous they were is that John Byrne liked them...
Martin Wisse | Email | Homepage | 07.02.06 - 9:56 am | #

Great review, Mr. Sterling. Bang on.
I thought the more sombre tone of the movie was a response to the times of which it's being released in. These are sombre, mopey times. Superman goes missing and everybody mourns and then eventually forgets, or grows bitter, as people do. I'm betting the next one will be a lot more 'splodey and punchy.
Yeah, the Christ poses were a bit overdone, but they sure looked purty. Have you gone to see the 3D version?
c.
craig | Email | 07.02.06 - 10:00 am | #

I saw the film a second time yesterday, and I have to say that as you supose in your post, I enjoyed it more the second time after I knew what I was getting. (Although I really enjoyed it the first time.)

The film is slow paced enough that as a fan you do get time to try to "jump the gun" or "second guess" what is coming. With that out of my system after the first viewing, I actually found that the film seemed to go faster for me during the second viewing.

It's likely that I might catch a third showing of this at a matinee in a couple weeks.
Chris | Homepage | 07.02.06 - 10:01 am | #

I've heard the mopey, depressing criticisms/descriptions from a couple people now, and I honestly don't see it. If anything I found the film hopeful and inspiring. It's really the first superhero movie that I find it impossible to be cynical about. Just pushed the right buttons for me, I guess.

I do sometimes wish he'd had someone to punch, though.
David Cutler | Email | 07.02.06 - 11:14 am | #

David - I should have emphasized that my specific criticisms should be taken lightly...it was *mildly* mopey, *mildly* depressing. It was there, in my opinion, but not enough to keep me from enjoying the film.

Overall, I thought it was a very adult superhero film...which may be why it caught me off guard, since I certainly wasn't expecting that!
Mikester | Homepage | 07.02.06 - 11:29 am | #

Great observations Mike. I enjoyed the film, as did my 9 year old son who thought it was the "coolest thing ever". My wife surprised me by emphatically stating that she thought the film was excellent. This from a woman who doesn't read comics and basically humors me when going to see "comic book" films. That, to me, was high praise indeed.
Ray Van Buskirk | Email | 07.02.06 - 2:03 pm | #

The model train thing popped into my head immediately as well. Notice also the cameos by Noel Neill and Jack Larson and some of the reused dialogue from the original films (after he saves the jet and when he meets Lois on the roof).
Ostrakos | 07.02.06 - 2:05 pm | #

A few of the flying moments were surprisingly beautiful.

I would hazard a guess that the absence of punchable stuff was intentionally in keeping with the theme that, as the Action Philsophers tell us (in issue #2, I think), the potential of the superman is creative and redemptive, not destructive.

Hence the existence of the kid, and hence the magnanimity of Supes' final action w/r/t the kid.
Rasselas | 07.02.06 - 2:08 pm | #

I watched the first Superman movie again the other night to compare with the new one. Christopher Reeve is just so much more cheerful.

I aside from the super-stalker aspects of the movie, I didn't like the 'cuckolded husband' role for the Cyclops guy. I really want Superman in comic colours, not shades of grey.

Aspects of the story made no sense either. A confusing start and a weak threat from Lex's masterplan. For example, what exactly is running along the seabed into Metropolis which Superman stops by blowing through the sewer pipes.

I'm probably just too old for this movie.

- Andrew
Andrew | Email | Homepage | 07.02.06 - 6:20 pm | #

I'm really, really annoyed about the fanboy community's reaction to the movie, and I'm going to vent about it here.

I don't know why I'm annoyed at other people's reaction to a movie (people I don't even know, for that matter). It seems like an incredibly trivial thing, and it is. But come on. We've been given a brilliant, iconic, beautiful, exciting, suspenseful masterpiece starring one of our favourite characters (my personal favourite) and we're sitting around bitching about it.

Honestly. We deserved Abrams' film, or Burton's, if we were just going to bitch about perfection (or at least near-perfection) anyway.

Mike, I'm not talking about you specifically here... I liked that you at least pointed out a lot of things you liked about the movie. Nice work. I'm talking about the blogosphere in general, and I guess this review (not really negative, not really that positive) was kind of the last straw.

Singer satisfied as many of our complaints and fears and obsessions as he could in two and a half hours, in a movie designed to appeal to mainstream audiences. And we greet him with a collective "whatever", to put it generously.

What would you have liked to have seen instead? Which director do you think could have done a better job?
Do you just want to see Superman punching stuff? Brett Ratner could have directed that. Maybe that's what we should have gotten.

I wonder, how many casual fans have turned into 'lifelong fans' since Morrison's All-Star came out, and their main disappointment with the movie was really that it wasn't exactly like All-Star Superman?

Anyway, thanks for highlighting what you did like about the movie, Mike. Although I do like your new superpower... being able to guess an entire theatre's worth of people's lifelong reading habits, just by looking at them.
Rohan Williams | Homepage | 07.02.06 - 8:30 pm | #

Rohan - Statistically speaking, most people in the U.S. do not read comic books. I think I'm on safe ground with my assumption that most of the people in the theatre haven't read a Superman comic...or if they had, probably not for a long, long time. Sad, but almost certainly true.

My review was positive, by the way. My quibbles with the film were few, and, as I repeatedly noted, minor. I went into the film expecting one thing, got something else, and I needed to adjust my expectations to the tone of the film. And the longer I think about it, the more the film has grown on me. I think I need a second viewing to cement my opinion (though I'll probably wait for the DVD release). It's not perfect (no film is), but it's darn good.
Mikester | Homepage | 07.02.06 - 11:41 pm | #

I caught the Action Comics #1 homage, and had to show the cover (in a book, I don't own it), to my wife after the movie so she would know what I was talking about.

Two other little things I noticed:
1) The model train city was called "Smallville"
2) When Supes caught the Daily Planet planet, he struck the perfect Atlas "I've got the whole world on my shoulders" pose.
Scott | Email | Homepage | 07.03.06 - 10:51 am | #

And an addendum to Scott's comment 2) above -- Jimmy finally got his Iconic photo when Supes held the Planet statuary.
Randy | Email | 07.03.06 - 11:30 am | #

I liked it. I do think it's a fair criticism that the somber tone is better suited to Singer's X-Men work than the Superman property, but honestly. The man gets what's lyrical, what's beautiful about superheroes...what makes your heart sing with that sense of wonder and possibility and hope. And the technology is finally there to realize that vision instead of losing it in a sea of corniness. Despite the wretchedness of X3, I still think we're living in a golden era of comics films.
Sarah | Email | 07.03.06 - 6:37 pm | #