And Now For Something Completely Different . . .

I try to stick to things I can speak about intelligently on here, but I'm going to make an exception today. My friend Tom and I were e-mailing recently and he asked me what I thought of Superman Returns. Here's what I had to say: As for Supes, I was definitely disappointed. Not as far as a Superman film goes -- since you know I'm not that much into him -- but more so as a fan of Bryan Singer's films. I think this was his worst one so far. There was no chemistry between Routh and Bosworth, and they certainly didn't have screen presences the way their predecessors did. And yes, I was even disappointed with Spacey. I wouldn't go so far as to say he mailed it in, but there just wasn't that much for him to do. And how do you keep Superman and Lex Luthor apart for about 90% of the movie? These are arguably the two greatest rivals in literary -- and cinema -- history, and yet they're on screen together for what, maybe 10 minutes? And please, don't even get me started on the science of the film or Luthor's "great" plot. Anyway . . . . I liked it a lot less than you did. Even with your 7 or 7.5 out of 10, I still would have gone lower than that. It's funny, I'm reading the novel "The Death and Life of Superman" now (it's the novelization of the graphic novels "Death of Superman," "World Without A Superman," and "The Return of Superman") and I keep thinking how this would have been the better story to make. It's already setup for a three story -- or should I say movie? -- arc and Warners already had the "Death" script (I believe, anyway) from Kevin Smith. I can only imagine what the costs would have been, though, since you would have had to pay for not only Superman, but the Justice League as well, along with figuring out a way to get Doomsday on-screen. I don't know. I just keep coming back to this being the story I would rather see. I have since finished reading the novel and would definitely have rather seen that story arc than what was made. Anyway, Tom asked me to flesh out my review a little more for use on his sight. So, please click on over to The Last Reel for my very first movie review. After that, stay a little while. If you like movies, Tom's site is the place to go.