The World let, alone the UK could do with a reality Superman. The 1978 Superman -the Movie film, introduced the former comic book character to a new generation with its trademark prolonged title sequence using the latest graphics and Marlon Brando as his father and Susannah York in his mother on the doomed planet Krypton in the opening sequence in which the main plot of the follow up film was also heralded as the Council banished three traitors into space where it appears they were able to escape from their imprisonment after the Krypton explodes.
Before the explosion Brando and his screen wife said loving goodbye to their son before placing him in a space craft intentionally directed to earth because of similar human physical characteristics and an environment in which he could thrive and do good.
It was fortunate that he landed meteor like in the days before the entire earth air space could be monitored and he landed close a an agricultural middle America just at the point that the kindly childless dirt farmer couple of Glenn Ford and Phyllis Thaxter who immediately take the child as their own and realising his superhuman powers, when he lifts their truck with one hand so the wheel can be changed, bring him up as normal as possible and keeping his strength secret.
At this point he has not learned to fly although when at High School he is thwarted in his normal interest in girls by a local yokel he runs faster than the a passing train to reach home before the rest of the carload pass by on the way to their respective homes at other farmstead. It is presumed that he has also hidden his knowledge and mental abilities his biological parents having provided the sum total of human and terrestrial knowledge over the journey which enabled him to grow from a baby into a young boy. Once source says three years later.
Following the death of his father he makes arrangements for his mother to be able to continue living at the farmstead and goes off to the artic with a green glowing crystal which creates a structure in which he can learn of his parental background via holographic images, develop his abilities and his destiny. This includes the trade mark costume and cape together with the ability to fly at speed across the planet, into space and back without the need for respiratory gear. He is also able to stand the most intense and fierce heat as well as hold or lift breathtaking loads.
Again from a source the period of his stay in the artic is twelve years after which for some unexplained reason he chooses to become a reporter on the Daily Planet the Metropolis (New York) newspaper on which he is immediately assigned to work with the ambitious Lois Lane (Margot Kidder) to regards him as a hack handed hack! Her first impression appears confirmed when the couple on leaving the office are accosted by a mugger with a gun who Lois takes on unaware that Clark (Superman) has saved her life by capturing a bullet in his hand.
Clark only commences to reveal his superhuman powers after a helicopter leaving the top of the building becomes entangle and crashes downwards from the skyscraper and this heralds the city and the world learning of this amazing individuals who prevents disasters and catches criminals while continuing to function as a not so good journalist.
Unlike batman and Robin who confront a series of villains Superman has only one adversary, the master genius intellectual criminal, Lex Luther played by Gene Hackman who lives in a super dwelling hidden beneath the subways and which primarily consists of huge luxury fitted library with an incompetent henchman and peroxide girlfriend played by Valerie Perrine. His first plan is to capture USA nuclear rockets and aim at the San Andreas fault tipping the Western seaboard into the ocean (people and buildings and all so that the large area of inland desert which he has acquired becomes the coast and the home of various new cities and towns making him a rich and powerful man. The plan is thwarted by superman who also prevents Lois being submerged as a dam breaks. Superman saves the Lois by spinning the earth back in time.
Before this event Superman has prevented Airforce One from crashing into a baseball stadium/may have been football and captured some bank robbers escaping by boat which he returns to the police station. Superman then delivers Luther and his male associate direct to a chain gang prison. His relationship as superman with Lois has developed when he takes her flying around the world from her penthouse with patio garden home where he alternates with Clark as her date for the evening.
Although the plot is full of holes the film has credibility because of the role of Christopher Reeve as Superman and the exceptional cast where in addition to Brando, Hackman and Ford there is Trevor Howard as the first Elder on Krypton and Terence Stamp as General Zod the banished leader of the plot by the trio of villains to take control of the Krypton before it explodes. The cinematic tricks including flying around the planet, stopping planes and trains and rockets were also firsts as the new era of science fiction got underway, before Star Wars, Batman, Spiderman and the rest. The film has been much written about as a consequence including reference to potential biblical themes with General Zod as the devil cast out from Paradise and Superman as Christ set down on earth to lead the way with his miracle working and selfless behaviour. However at the time it was great family entertaining ground breaking fun.
The sequel to Superman the Movie was eagerly awaited and was released two years later as Superman II thus signalling the commencement of a series. There are in fact two version of the film. The original released produced which included 75% created by the Director of the first film Richard Donner with the latter by the replacement director Richard Lestor who did not use some of he original produced film. To and a half decades later Donner released a second version which reinstated the cut footage under the title Superman II the Richard Donner Cut and which also retained some of the Lester footage.
Despite the gap the original actors were all available. Superman foils a terrorist plot which results in hurtling a nuclear rocket far into space where it explodes just as the imprisoned Krypton trio are passing thus freeing them to explore the universe and they encounter an earth planetary expedition and learn of their communication with Houston. They decide that Houston sounds like a place to conquer finding that as they move towards earth their strength and powers increase. They land and quickly terrorise the plant as none of the earth’s weapons has any effect. The dastardly trio storm into the Whitehouse and force the President on behalf of the rest of the world to yield to General Zod with everyone asking where Superman is. A good question.
Clark Kent and Lois Lane are doing a feature on Niagara Falls as a rip off tourist trap staying at a revolting “romantic” hotel. Lois finally works out that Clark is Superman and to test her theory throws herself into waters of the Falls and although Clark is effective in staving her he does so as Clark attempting to retain his cover. Back in the hotel Clark accidentally falls into the fire and Lois seeing that he is unharmed is able to persuade Clark to admit the truth. He takes her to the Fortress of Solitude at the North Pole where in order to be able to have a normal adult relationship he loses his special powers without understanding what the implications will be. He quickly finds out what this means when encountering a bully at a diner. The couple then find out what has happened and Clark realises he has no alternative but to return to the Fortress alone to reverse back.
Meanwhile Zod and his two companions are curious about who this Superman is. Lex Luther meanwhile has escaped from the chain gang and makes his way to the Fortress of Solitude. I am not sure if it is explained how he works this out but he learns the secrets of the man’s background and goes off to deal with General Zod who is delighted to hear that Superman is in fact the son of the man who had him banished. The price of the deal is Australia!
Superman has returned to his roots for the green crystal to enable the reversing processing and meanwhile the deadly trio had gone to the Planet and kidnapped Lois. When Superman retreats to the Fortress he is followed by the trio led by Luther and with Lois their prisoner. Luther explains that if they put Superman into the chamber his powers will leave him not realising that Superman has prepared for this and reversed the position so that those outside the chamber lose their powers.
The dastardly trio are defeated and the world is saved. There is however one negative and somewhat sad consequence as he is wipes the mind of Lois so that she has no knowledge that Clark Kent is also Superman. Superman II lived up to the expectations back n in 1980. Alas this cannot be said for Superman III which was released in 1983.
It was understandable that after defeating Lex Luther twice the decision was taken to create a new villain but Robert Vaughan as Ross Webster somehow fails even my comic book villain standards to convince that he is anything other than Robert Vaughan. He is assisted in his dastardly schemes by his sister played by Annie Ross the Mitcham Jazz singer and his woman Ambrosia Webster played by Pamela Stephenson, having fun.
The plot primarily involves Richard Pryor as bank employee who goes on a computer course and finds he is a genius manipulating codes in the days of the green screen basic programming. He finds that by siphoning the half pennies/cents which are rounded in the system he can achieve a fortune ($82000) over the first month of operating the system. However this shows up in the books and it easy to work out the culprit as he appears in a flashy car. His boss Vaughan instead of punishing up employs me to take control of Coffee industry by manipulating the weather conditions.
Meanwhile Clark has returned to Smallville to dispose of the farm following the death of his mother and to attend he High School reunion where he meets his former teenage love, now married with a husband who turned as the stereotype self centre mid American male a drunken bully. On his way he has to put out a dangerous far at a chemical plant. They have a picnic where her son runs off and falls asleep in a field being harvested so Superman saves him thus cementing the rekindling of their original relationship which never got off the ground. Superman returns to his role as saviour of the world this time preventing bad weather destroying the coffee crop.
Vaughan now remembers the article written by Lois Lane in which she discloses that Superman cannot cope with the mineral Kryptonite which is another way in which his powers are neutralised. Vaughan persuades Prior to use his computer skills to devise synthetic Kryptonite which they trick Clark to touch. This does not have the same immediate effect as the real stuff but gradually changes his approach, slows him up and makes him selfish. He straightens the Leaning Tower of Pizza, blows out the Olympic Flame and spills the contents of an oil tanker into the sea.
Vaughan now hatches his latest plot which is to take control of the entire ocean going oil tankers and hold, them in a spot in the Atlantic Ocean. Superman goes from bad to worse become drunk and has a nervous breakdown. He splits into two characters one good and one bad and they engage in battle and eventually overcomes his evil persona and becomes his original self.
Meanwhile Pryor has persuaded him to build a super world controlling computer which becomes self aware and seeking a life of its own as la Hal in 2001. The machine starts to defend itself draining electricity for the national grid. The evil influencing sister is drawn into the machine and becomes a Star Trek Cyborg an turns on brother and his woman.
It is left to Superman to turn to the chemical plant for the substance which he prevented from exploding and poisoning the atmosphere. This is used to destroy the computer with the sister returning to normal and she and her brother are left to the authorities. He requires Pryor to work in a coalmine and he reunites with his former love.
It was back to normal with Superman IV The Quest for Peace with Sydney J Furie the Director Les Luther and Lois Lane restored and Christopher Reeve contributing to the story team. The film was however a box office and critical disaster.
It is in this film not III that he returns to the dispose of the farmstead after the death of his mother. There is still the prolonged opening credit sequence and an early display of his powers while he saves a group of Russian cosmonauts on a space station after they have been hit by an off course satellite.
Returning to the Daily Planet he finds a new owner with idea akin to the Sun Newspaper and News of the World. This 1987 thirty years ago! The man puts his daughter in charge that takes a fancy to Clark and attempts to seduce. There is a scene in the film when he double dates as Clark with the daughter of the Media Mogul and as Superman with Lois who still unaware that she was once the wife of Superman helps the daughter to appeal to Clark while she continues her romance with Superman.
When there is deterioration in relations between Russia and the USA he is in dilemma what to do. He attends a meeting of the United Nations and announces her is going to unilaterally rid the world of nuclear rockets which he captures and then in large net in space hurtles into the sun.
Les Luther is broken out of prison by his nephew and seeing an exhibition in which a single strand of Superman hair is holding a gigantic weight he works out that the hair can be used to create superman stronger than the original by attaching the hair with a regeneration formula to a missile which superman hurtles into the sun. Superman and Nuclear Man fight and he is wounded from a scratch of the creature’s radio active finger nails. He loses his cape and the Daily Planet headlines Superman is dead. However he manages to get to the penthouse of Lois and she retrieves the green crystal which he found when he returned home but which can only be used once.
He recovers and goes off to battle “Nuclear Man” who has taken a shine to the Medial Mogul’s daughter. Superman appears to have been defeated again and is driven to moon. Here works out that temporarily pushing the moon into a eclipse of the sun he will diminish the powers of Nuclear Man who he then captures and deposits him into a nuclear power plant (big error here as putting him down the chimney of a coal fire plant) and then capturing Lex Luther back to prison and his nephew to Boy’s Town. The problem with this film as with III is that there is no development of Superman Character or technical surprises.
Two decades later Bryan Singer decided to direct a Superman Movie Superman Returns in 2006. Superman played by Brandon Routh with a similarity to the original had searched the universe for five years trying to find out the remains of his home plant after astronomers believed they had located its existence. There is a recap of his origins and as Clark Kent he returns to work for the Daily Planet, he discovers that Lois has become a celebrity and a Pulitzer Prize winner for an article Why the World does not need superman.
Lex Luther has been released from prison has successfully appealed because of failure to follow due process and has married a rich widow to inherit her wealth upon her death. He is played by the best Lex Luther of all Kevin Spacey. He steals Crystals from the Fortress of Solitude and starts playing with their power causing power failures which affect as passenger airline which has a space shuttle to be launched from a piggyback mounting which fails because of the power loss. This is in fact the sequence where the airliner loses its wings and Passenger compartment is stopped from crashing into a baseball field with assembled crowd by Superman.
In a plot reminiscent of an earlier film Lex Luther has the idea of creating a new land mass to replace that on the Eastern seaboard which he utilise for profit creating new cities. He believes he will do this by combining the crystals with a sample of real Kryptonite held in a museum. So far so good.
Lois Lane is married with a son who appears to be a sickly weakling but in fact appears to be the son of Superman who reluctantly begins to show powers. The husband of Lois appears devoted to her and the boy and through the films there is the sense of God sons of God, Lois as Virgin Mary and her husband as Joseph!
The new land mass which is to replace the Eastern Seaboard begins to take place but fortunately is not the promised land but a dark and unattractive series of rocks which resembles the Krypton home planet and which without the protective creation of the super beings once again debilitates Superman. The good trio of Lois, her husband and the boy become trapped on Luther’s expensive yacht and are nearly killed until rescued by Superman so when Lois senses he has a problem she persuades her husband to return to the new land mass where they are able to free Superman and have a hair raising flight to safety.
It is not Superman who saves the world by Luther’s woman who tosses the remaining crystals away so they cannot be used to continue the land mass creation. Superman has used all his strength to gather the existing landmass at hurtle into far space but the effort drains him and weakened the proximity to the Kryptonite sends him into a coma. Lois visits whispers in Superman’s ear the information that he has a son. Superman visits the boy when he is sleeping and kisses him reciting his father’s last words to the boy and then flies off back to his old self. Lois writes a new article on why the World needs Superman. Thus the film ends with the implication that it is to be the first of a new series.
The film cost over $200 million to make whereas the originals started around $50 million making £300 million until the low budget financial flop of the 4th with Christopher Reeve. The actual costs are open to question with at one point talk of some $400 million taking account of marketing so with box office said to amount to £400 million even with the tax breaks which created a good profit it appears the latest recreation did not achieve the required sums for a series.
Despite 25 years between the first and second reincarnations the basic was problem is that Christopher Reeve had become an iconic hero in real life having become paralysed in a riding accident he had struggled to communicate and then to play a role in the world Reeve had only recently died and Brandon Routh met with the approval of the widow for his physical resemblance to her husband. I thought the film was made by Kevin Spacey who although as with the excellent Gene Hackman filled out the stereotype crazy villain Kevin brought a more serious and nasty edge to the character. Despite plans for sequel which should have hit the screens two years ago it was never made and with the momentum lost one can only speculate that it is back to the drawing for some 3D latest technical wizardry sometime in the future. My own view is that they ought to go back to the original planet of Krypton for a prequel
The only reason why I have tackled the five film sequence before other priorities is that the films were shown back to back over one 24 hours period and I recorded and then needed the space.
Before the explosion Brando and his screen wife said loving goodbye to their son before placing him in a space craft intentionally directed to earth because of similar human physical characteristics and an environment in which he could thrive and do good.
It was fortunate that he landed meteor like in the days before the entire earth air space could be monitored and he landed close a an agricultural middle America just at the point that the kindly childless dirt farmer couple of Glenn Ford and Phyllis Thaxter who immediately take the child as their own and realising his superhuman powers, when he lifts their truck with one hand so the wheel can be changed, bring him up as normal as possible and keeping his strength secret.
At this point he has not learned to fly although when at High School he is thwarted in his normal interest in girls by a local yokel he runs faster than the a passing train to reach home before the rest of the carload pass by on the way to their respective homes at other farmstead. It is presumed that he has also hidden his knowledge and mental abilities his biological parents having provided the sum total of human and terrestrial knowledge over the journey which enabled him to grow from a baby into a young boy. Once source says three years later.
Following the death of his father he makes arrangements for his mother to be able to continue living at the farmstead and goes off to the artic with a green glowing crystal which creates a structure in which he can learn of his parental background via holographic images, develop his abilities and his destiny. This includes the trade mark costume and cape together with the ability to fly at speed across the planet, into space and back without the need for respiratory gear. He is also able to stand the most intense and fierce heat as well as hold or lift breathtaking loads.
Again from a source the period of his stay in the artic is twelve years after which for some unexplained reason he chooses to become a reporter on the Daily Planet the Metropolis (New York) newspaper on which he is immediately assigned to work with the ambitious Lois Lane (Margot Kidder) to regards him as a hack handed hack! Her first impression appears confirmed when the couple on leaving the office are accosted by a mugger with a gun who Lois takes on unaware that Clark (Superman) has saved her life by capturing a bullet in his hand.
Clark only commences to reveal his superhuman powers after a helicopter leaving the top of the building becomes entangle and crashes downwards from the skyscraper and this heralds the city and the world learning of this amazing individuals who prevents disasters and catches criminals while continuing to function as a not so good journalist.
Unlike batman and Robin who confront a series of villains Superman has only one adversary, the master genius intellectual criminal, Lex Luther played by Gene Hackman who lives in a super dwelling hidden beneath the subways and which primarily consists of huge luxury fitted library with an incompetent henchman and peroxide girlfriend played by Valerie Perrine. His first plan is to capture USA nuclear rockets and aim at the San Andreas fault tipping the Western seaboard into the ocean (people and buildings and all so that the large area of inland desert which he has acquired becomes the coast and the home of various new cities and towns making him a rich and powerful man. The plan is thwarted by superman who also prevents Lois being submerged as a dam breaks. Superman saves the Lois by spinning the earth back in time.
Before this event Superman has prevented Airforce One from crashing into a baseball stadium/may have been football and captured some bank robbers escaping by boat which he returns to the police station. Superman then delivers Luther and his male associate direct to a chain gang prison. His relationship as superman with Lois has developed when he takes her flying around the world from her penthouse with patio garden home where he alternates with Clark as her date for the evening.
Although the plot is full of holes the film has credibility because of the role of Christopher Reeve as Superman and the exceptional cast where in addition to Brando, Hackman and Ford there is Trevor Howard as the first Elder on Krypton and Terence Stamp as General Zod the banished leader of the plot by the trio of villains to take control of the Krypton before it explodes. The cinematic tricks including flying around the planet, stopping planes and trains and rockets were also firsts as the new era of science fiction got underway, before Star Wars, Batman, Spiderman and the rest. The film has been much written about as a consequence including reference to potential biblical themes with General Zod as the devil cast out from Paradise and Superman as Christ set down on earth to lead the way with his miracle working and selfless behaviour. However at the time it was great family entertaining ground breaking fun.
The sequel to Superman the Movie was eagerly awaited and was released two years later as Superman II thus signalling the commencement of a series. There are in fact two version of the film. The original released produced which included 75% created by the Director of the first film Richard Donner with the latter by the replacement director Richard Lestor who did not use some of he original produced film. To and a half decades later Donner released a second version which reinstated the cut footage under the title Superman II the Richard Donner Cut and which also retained some of the Lester footage.
Despite the gap the original actors were all available. Superman foils a terrorist plot which results in hurtling a nuclear rocket far into space where it explodes just as the imprisoned Krypton trio are passing thus freeing them to explore the universe and they encounter an earth planetary expedition and learn of their communication with Houston. They decide that Houston sounds like a place to conquer finding that as they move towards earth their strength and powers increase. They land and quickly terrorise the plant as none of the earth’s weapons has any effect. The dastardly trio storm into the Whitehouse and force the President on behalf of the rest of the world to yield to General Zod with everyone asking where Superman is. A good question.
Clark Kent and Lois Lane are doing a feature on Niagara Falls as a rip off tourist trap staying at a revolting “romantic” hotel. Lois finally works out that Clark is Superman and to test her theory throws herself into waters of the Falls and although Clark is effective in staving her he does so as Clark attempting to retain his cover. Back in the hotel Clark accidentally falls into the fire and Lois seeing that he is unharmed is able to persuade Clark to admit the truth. He takes her to the Fortress of Solitude at the North Pole where in order to be able to have a normal adult relationship he loses his special powers without understanding what the implications will be. He quickly finds out what this means when encountering a bully at a diner. The couple then find out what has happened and Clark realises he has no alternative but to return to the Fortress alone to reverse back.
Meanwhile Zod and his two companions are curious about who this Superman is. Lex Luther meanwhile has escaped from the chain gang and makes his way to the Fortress of Solitude. I am not sure if it is explained how he works this out but he learns the secrets of the man’s background and goes off to deal with General Zod who is delighted to hear that Superman is in fact the son of the man who had him banished. The price of the deal is Australia!
Superman has returned to his roots for the green crystal to enable the reversing processing and meanwhile the deadly trio had gone to the Planet and kidnapped Lois. When Superman retreats to the Fortress he is followed by the trio led by Luther and with Lois their prisoner. Luther explains that if they put Superman into the chamber his powers will leave him not realising that Superman has prepared for this and reversed the position so that those outside the chamber lose their powers.
The dastardly trio are defeated and the world is saved. There is however one negative and somewhat sad consequence as he is wipes the mind of Lois so that she has no knowledge that Clark Kent is also Superman. Superman II lived up to the expectations back n in 1980. Alas this cannot be said for Superman III which was released in 1983.
It was understandable that after defeating Lex Luther twice the decision was taken to create a new villain but Robert Vaughan as Ross Webster somehow fails even my comic book villain standards to convince that he is anything other than Robert Vaughan. He is assisted in his dastardly schemes by his sister played by Annie Ross the Mitcham Jazz singer and his woman Ambrosia Webster played by Pamela Stephenson, having fun.
The plot primarily involves Richard Pryor as bank employee who goes on a computer course and finds he is a genius manipulating codes in the days of the green screen basic programming. He finds that by siphoning the half pennies/cents which are rounded in the system he can achieve a fortune ($82000) over the first month of operating the system. However this shows up in the books and it easy to work out the culprit as he appears in a flashy car. His boss Vaughan instead of punishing up employs me to take control of Coffee industry by manipulating the weather conditions.
Meanwhile Clark has returned to Smallville to dispose of the farm following the death of his mother and to attend he High School reunion where he meets his former teenage love, now married with a husband who turned as the stereotype self centre mid American male a drunken bully. On his way he has to put out a dangerous far at a chemical plant. They have a picnic where her son runs off and falls asleep in a field being harvested so Superman saves him thus cementing the rekindling of their original relationship which never got off the ground. Superman returns to his role as saviour of the world this time preventing bad weather destroying the coffee crop.
Vaughan now remembers the article written by Lois Lane in which she discloses that Superman cannot cope with the mineral Kryptonite which is another way in which his powers are neutralised. Vaughan persuades Prior to use his computer skills to devise synthetic Kryptonite which they trick Clark to touch. This does not have the same immediate effect as the real stuff but gradually changes his approach, slows him up and makes him selfish. He straightens the Leaning Tower of Pizza, blows out the Olympic Flame and spills the contents of an oil tanker into the sea.
Vaughan now hatches his latest plot which is to take control of the entire ocean going oil tankers and hold, them in a spot in the Atlantic Ocean. Superman goes from bad to worse become drunk and has a nervous breakdown. He splits into two characters one good and one bad and they engage in battle and eventually overcomes his evil persona and becomes his original self.
Meanwhile Pryor has persuaded him to build a super world controlling computer which becomes self aware and seeking a life of its own as la Hal in 2001. The machine starts to defend itself draining electricity for the national grid. The evil influencing sister is drawn into the machine and becomes a Star Trek Cyborg an turns on brother and his woman.
It is left to Superman to turn to the chemical plant for the substance which he prevented from exploding and poisoning the atmosphere. This is used to destroy the computer with the sister returning to normal and she and her brother are left to the authorities. He requires Pryor to work in a coalmine and he reunites with his former love.
It was back to normal with Superman IV The Quest for Peace with Sydney J Furie the Director Les Luther and Lois Lane restored and Christopher Reeve contributing to the story team. The film was however a box office and critical disaster.
It is in this film not III that he returns to the dispose of the farmstead after the death of his mother. There is still the prolonged opening credit sequence and an early display of his powers while he saves a group of Russian cosmonauts on a space station after they have been hit by an off course satellite.
Returning to the Daily Planet he finds a new owner with idea akin to the Sun Newspaper and News of the World. This 1987 thirty years ago! The man puts his daughter in charge that takes a fancy to Clark and attempts to seduce. There is a scene in the film when he double dates as Clark with the daughter of the Media Mogul and as Superman with Lois who still unaware that she was once the wife of Superman helps the daughter to appeal to Clark while she continues her romance with Superman.
When there is deterioration in relations between Russia and the USA he is in dilemma what to do. He attends a meeting of the United Nations and announces her is going to unilaterally rid the world of nuclear rockets which he captures and then in large net in space hurtles into the sun.
Les Luther is broken out of prison by his nephew and seeing an exhibition in which a single strand of Superman hair is holding a gigantic weight he works out that the hair can be used to create superman stronger than the original by attaching the hair with a regeneration formula to a missile which superman hurtles into the sun. Superman and Nuclear Man fight and he is wounded from a scratch of the creature’s radio active finger nails. He loses his cape and the Daily Planet headlines Superman is dead. However he manages to get to the penthouse of Lois and she retrieves the green crystal which he found when he returned home but which can only be used once.
He recovers and goes off to battle “Nuclear Man” who has taken a shine to the Medial Mogul’s daughter. Superman appears to have been defeated again and is driven to moon. Here works out that temporarily pushing the moon into a eclipse of the sun he will diminish the powers of Nuclear Man who he then captures and deposits him into a nuclear power plant (big error here as putting him down the chimney of a coal fire plant) and then capturing Lex Luther back to prison and his nephew to Boy’s Town. The problem with this film as with III is that there is no development of Superman Character or technical surprises.
Two decades later Bryan Singer decided to direct a Superman Movie Superman Returns in 2006. Superman played by Brandon Routh with a similarity to the original had searched the universe for five years trying to find out the remains of his home plant after astronomers believed they had located its existence. There is a recap of his origins and as Clark Kent he returns to work for the Daily Planet, he discovers that Lois has become a celebrity and a Pulitzer Prize winner for an article Why the World does not need superman.
Lex Luther has been released from prison has successfully appealed because of failure to follow due process and has married a rich widow to inherit her wealth upon her death. He is played by the best Lex Luther of all Kevin Spacey. He steals Crystals from the Fortress of Solitude and starts playing with their power causing power failures which affect as passenger airline which has a space shuttle to be launched from a piggyback mounting which fails because of the power loss. This is in fact the sequence where the airliner loses its wings and Passenger compartment is stopped from crashing into a baseball field with assembled crowd by Superman.
In a plot reminiscent of an earlier film Lex Luther has the idea of creating a new land mass to replace that on the Eastern seaboard which he utilise for profit creating new cities. He believes he will do this by combining the crystals with a sample of real Kryptonite held in a museum. So far so good.
Lois Lane is married with a son who appears to be a sickly weakling but in fact appears to be the son of Superman who reluctantly begins to show powers. The husband of Lois appears devoted to her and the boy and through the films there is the sense of God sons of God, Lois as Virgin Mary and her husband as Joseph!
The new land mass which is to replace the Eastern Seaboard begins to take place but fortunately is not the promised land but a dark and unattractive series of rocks which resembles the Krypton home planet and which without the protective creation of the super beings once again debilitates Superman. The good trio of Lois, her husband and the boy become trapped on Luther’s expensive yacht and are nearly killed until rescued by Superman so when Lois senses he has a problem she persuades her husband to return to the new land mass where they are able to free Superman and have a hair raising flight to safety.
It is not Superman who saves the world by Luther’s woman who tosses the remaining crystals away so they cannot be used to continue the land mass creation. Superman has used all his strength to gather the existing landmass at hurtle into far space but the effort drains him and weakened the proximity to the Kryptonite sends him into a coma. Lois visits whispers in Superman’s ear the information that he has a son. Superman visits the boy when he is sleeping and kisses him reciting his father’s last words to the boy and then flies off back to his old self. Lois writes a new article on why the World needs Superman. Thus the film ends with the implication that it is to be the first of a new series.
The film cost over $200 million to make whereas the originals started around $50 million making £300 million until the low budget financial flop of the 4th with Christopher Reeve. The actual costs are open to question with at one point talk of some $400 million taking account of marketing so with box office said to amount to £400 million even with the tax breaks which created a good profit it appears the latest recreation did not achieve the required sums for a series.
Despite 25 years between the first and second reincarnations the basic was problem is that Christopher Reeve had become an iconic hero in real life having become paralysed in a riding accident he had struggled to communicate and then to play a role in the world Reeve had only recently died and Brandon Routh met with the approval of the widow for his physical resemblance to her husband. I thought the film was made by Kevin Spacey who although as with the excellent Gene Hackman filled out the stereotype crazy villain Kevin brought a more serious and nasty edge to the character. Despite plans for sequel which should have hit the screens two years ago it was never made and with the momentum lost one can only speculate that it is back to the drawing for some 3D latest technical wizardry sometime in the future. My own view is that they ought to go back to the original planet of Krypton for a prequel
The only reason why I have tackled the five film sequence before other priorities is that the films were shown back to back over one 24 hours period and I recorded and then needed the space.
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