Superman: A Miserable Movie

Three minutes in I wanted to walk out. So did my daughter. This might be a spoiler.

Superman and Lois Lane — the way they used to be. From Tim Evanson, creative commons, Flicker

I started reading Superman comics in 1960, some 27 years after Jerry Siegal and Joe Shushter created him. Superman was constantly diving into telephone booths to change his costume, and up to now, the movies that have depicted him have looked, at least, something like the guy in the comics.

The opening scene of Superman 2025 depicted a weakened superman, apparently the first time he had ever been defeated, wounded, and unable to help himself — no kryptonite involved. This conflicts with the theme of the original creation as the comic strip was built on a man who couldn’t be weakened except through kryptonite.

I think I got the gist, though. According to Lex Luthor’s words, Superman had some 25,000 defence moves, and Luthor had them all recorded, and so he designed a program which could counter all those moves. To me, that didn’t make sense. Superman’s ‘moves’ weren’t designed to defend himself — they were designed to put the other guy down.

The story line was both unclear and too fast. It also constantly belittled people. The plot involved Eastern European countries, and the people in them were depicted as helpless peasants. Clearly, the writers had never been to an Eastern European…