Just a followup post, after reading this thread again.

Elliot, you pinned the whatever-the-expression-is perfectly there. It had what Batman lacked, but nothing else. Pity they couldn't put those two movies together somehow, and make one good movie. Superman did have a strong emotional value in the first act though. Cheap methods were used, but they worked, so what ev.

I rewrote the story in the 90 seconds it took me to get pizza afterwards, and (pardon my arrogance) I think I did better. The problem was, we KNOW superman is invincible, will solve any problem, and save anybody. We don't worry. We don't care. We get bored watching the action scenes, and waiting for him to fix everything.

Here's my rewrite. The first two acts revolve around his son (a bit older), who doubts his father is really his father, and suspects it was Superman afterall. Superman has vanished from the world, forever. His son keeps feeling the faintest signs of a special power, and eventually sets out to look for him. He finds him, entombed in a kryptonite prison, weakened to the point of near death, and together they battle evil.

I like that, I think that would've increased the pacing and emotional values ten fold.

TD, I'll help you shoot that if we can have Aliens and Predators in it.

Totally. I forgot to mention them. They guard the kryptonite lair, forming an uneasy alliance, which Superman and his son use to their advantage, by causing chaos and fighting amongst their pursuers as they escape.

quote:

Originally posted by Harris:
TD, I'll help you shoot that if we can have Aliens and Predators in it.

I'll help too if we can have a few of the Tremors "worms" in it. I can already see superman drilling through the ground to get one, drag it above ground (where not a smudge of dirt is stuck to him), and spinning it until it breaks in half and the blood and guts spatter all over a crowd of onlookers. Now that's cinema!

Did we mention that SUPER-INTELLIGENT APES HAVE TAKEN OVER THE EARTH and it's up to Superman and Superson to defeat them and reclaim the globe for mankind? An easy task, of course, if it weren't for THE GIANT DINOSAURS the apes ride around!

Just saw it. I was moderately entertained at points but nothing was exceptional except some of the effects work (the airplane sequence and Lex's island). The yacht breaking in half was also well done.

It's hard to come up with specifics about why it was disappointing - everything was competent but not much stood out, unlike Spider-man which had a great script and highly watchable actors, or Batman which obviously had extreme talent poured into every crevice.

I would say that Superman's script was better than spider-man and batman (second halves anyway) but had some conceptual issues. Maybe it was a bit of a strain to make Superman as dramatic and muted as it was. He is a pretty simple and flat character.

I thought the script was pretty weak... especially compared to Spider-man, which was so well-written that it came across as effortless. Superman was like a groaning, creaking ship.

I understand what Singer was trying to do with the franchise, but approaching 'majesty' by making the film long and tedious only makes the endeavor deflate. Batman was lean and exciting, and Spider-man did a much better job at incorporating humor.

Spiderman had great writing, by the far the best of the three. It really FELT the story.

Superman and Spiderman alike, the thing I really appreciated about the stories/scripts is that they present the crappy side to being a superhero: you don't get to have a normal life.

With Spiderman 2 and Superman 2, you have both of your main characters wishing they didn't have their powers or giving them up so that they could lead a normal life. And, even in the new Superman, I thought it was conveyed pretty well that Superman, as awesome as he is with the cool powers and all, might actually be a fairly lonely guy. The scene where is floating in space,listening to the world's problems, kinda comes to mind as really getting that across.

That's something you only get a little of in the X-Men movies (not to diss them...they are fun movies to watch and good in their own right); you don't get too many scenes with the characters saying "Man, this kinda sucks having this power...I just want to be a normal dude." Well, with the exception of Rogue.

i guess i felt that superman benefited from being a sequel in that it didn't feel segmented like batman and spidey 1, both of which felt like a perfect first half with a rather weak villain story attached.

spider-man 2 however is perfection. I view that as the best superhero movie