I left the film with a very unpleasant taste in my mouth. No- not Cilit Bang (although that does taste pretty foul, even while mixed with Pimms, most delicious thing ever), but the bitter taste of DISAPPOINTMENT. And DISGUST. And, worst of all, DISAPPOINTMENT. For I felt let down by Supes. He wasn't the all-American rampaging hero of fortune that I had expected. No. He was a pointless boring selfish racist child-molester. Yes, you heard me. A BORING POINTLESS SELFISH RACIST CHILD-MOLESTER. HE KIDDY-FIDDLES!!! HE HATES THE BLACKS!!! RAAAAAACIST!!! I should write to someone to complain.
(By the way, this post contains spoilers about Superman Returns. Like the fact that Lex Luthor turns out to be Superman's mother. And Superman ends up with some ugly son who needs a super-haircut).
But surely Thomas, you are saying, Surely you are mistaken? Superman... he can't be a boring selfish racist child-molester! That makes no sense! No sense at all! He's the man of steel! He can do anything! He saves people from stuff! Surely he's a useful exciting selfless non-prejudiced child-SAVER! You have no proof! You must be wrong!
See, that's an interesting point of view, and I know that everyone is entitled to their own opinion, but I really have two main responses to it. The first is to bitch-slap you and say YOUR RONG. I am never mistaken - there are Ten A*s at GCSE backing me up on this point here. The second is that actually, yes I do have proof. Well, I say proof. I mean rhetoric. But they are both equally valid in a court of law. I will now argue my points:
Superman is pointless
This is a bit of a controversial point but I'm going to argue it anyway because I have nothing better to do. Now I know at first glance Superman would appear to be anything BUT pointless - after all, he flies about the world saving people from falling down buildings and shit. But when you really think about it, does he ever make a significant difference to anything? I mean, Superman's dad said that Superman would be a 'guiding light' and lead humanity to greater things. Superman don't do none of that shit, he basically just saves humanity from things falling on them. Woop, big leader, you prevented like ten or twelve people being crushed by a giant metal globe. I'M REALLY IMPRESSED. ZZZ. Now balance the budget if you want to impress me. Or secure world peace. Or cure cancer.
We never see you do any of those things because basically your entire job is to provide a big springy safety-net for careless people. You know what I think? If you're dumb enough to build a huge easily-toppled brass globe on the roof of your skyscraper then you DESERVE to be crushed when it fall off at the slightest provocation. All Superman does is provide a get-out clause for idiots. Guiding light for humanity my ass.
Superman is boring
The thing about Superman is that he's a really shit comic-book hero, just because he's so good. The guy can fly at supersonic speeds, hear anything, is bulletproof, has ice-breath and laser-vision, and is impervious to everything except kryptonite and, apparently, horses. None of his enemies even stand a chance. At least Batman can get beaten up by some skinny psychiatrist with a bag on his head. Spiderman gets bumraped by a train and gravity. Daredevil got his ass kicked by a fat black guy (although Daredevil is crap). But Superman can just fly off whenever he wants and melt his enemies' heads from afar. None of the bad-guys stand a chance, which thus reduces all the tension in the film down to 0. Oh look, he's going to shoot them oh no wait Superman saved the day. Oh christ the fire is about to burn down the oh look Superman saved the day. Jesus watch out he just fell off that balcon oh look Superman saved the zzzzzzzzzzzzzz. Although it sure is lucky that Superman returned, like, the day before every screw in the city simultaneously exploded and everything starting falling off high places. Cough the scriptwriter is a moron cough.
I mean, I would be slightly placated if it turned out that there was ever some real threat to Superman's dominence. It would be ok if Superman's arch enemy, Kevin Spacey, had some kind of awesome plan to destroy humanity that could theoretically work. But what is Spacey's plan? I'll tell you what: Spacey's plan is to use magic crystals to make some huge island right next to America, which he will then sell or something and make lots of money. Unfortunately, in doing so he will also destroy all of America. Ok. Good plan Spacey. A few problems though:
1: Your plan sucks.
2: There's an entire fecken Pacific ocean, why make your gay little island right next to America, where you'll kill loads of people and piss off the rest of the planet?
3: How the hell are you going to assert your leadership over your new continent? Are you just gonna be, like "Hey check it out I'm Kevin Spacey you have to pay me a million pounds to live on my island. And no girls allowed," to the police? Good luck loser.
4: Your new 'continent' is like half a metre wide. It's not gonna be knocking down America any time soon. And then Superman can just lift it up and throw it into space. GREAT PLAN.
5:Your island looks like shit. Nobody's gonna wanna live in a huge black crystallised pit in the middle of some rubbish sea.
So in conclusion: Superman is boring and his enemy is rubbish.
Superman is selfish
Superman is a selfish cunt.
You know in Spiderman when they go, like "With great power comes great responsibility", yeah? That means that you always have you use your powers to help people. And if you're Superman AKA strongest man alive AKA man who never gets tired AKA man who needs to rest AKA man who can go around forever, saving people 24/7, that's exactly what you should do: Devote ALL your time to helping people. You don't save people for like two hours a day, then fuck off and go to work in some office, pretending to be some bumbling crap guy called Clark Kent. That isn't acceptable. You are Superman; you have literally no reason to have an alter-ego. You don't need the money. You never even do any work you lazy shit. The only reason that Superman goes to work is to hang about with Lois Lane.
Let's compare superheroes. Spiderman is poor, he's failing university, he can't get a girlfriend, he's a loser, but HE STILL GOES OUT TO SAVE PEOPLE AS MUCH AS HE CAN. Now imagine all the hundreds of people who are crushed by falling objects while Superman is poncing about ogling Lois Lane in secret. You know why those people died? BECAUSE SUPERMAN WANTED TO GET LAID. Selfish bastard.
Superman is a racist
In this film, they try to give Superman a more wide-ranging and worldy range of skills. So you see him saving Germans and French people from falling objects and there are news reports from across the globe about his skillz. But you know what you never see? That's right. Superman saving Africans. There are no shots of him drop-kicking man-eating tigers across the Serengheti, or throwing machete-weilding drug-traffickers down the Victoria Falls, or doing any of the awesome stuff that he could do in Africa. And actually, thinking about it, if he's so fucking good why doesn't he try to solve all the environmental problems that the Africans have? Just off the top of my head, I say he could use ice-breath on the sea, create a huge block of ice, then use his super strength to lift said ice into the fields of the farmers. Or he could use his fire-eyes to melt everyone who has AIDS. He's Superman. He can do that. But does he? Does he FUCK. (I don't think we see a single black person being rescued in Superman Returns. In fact, I don't think we see a single black person at all FULL STOP. It's like the whitest film ever.) No African kids get to eat anything, but Lois Lane does get rescued like fifteen times. What would you rather have, Lois Lane, or the entire country of Ethiopia? Thanks to you Superman, you racist gringo, millions of cute black kids are dying. Bastard.
Superman is a Child Molester
Near the end of the film, Superman is in some random coma (?). Lois Lane and her son come and visit him. Now Lois - who is admittedly not bad looking for a whitegirl - bends over him, shows some cleavage, gives him a bit of a smooch, and what does he do? Naff all. He just lies there like a super-vegetable. But the moment after her cute little son (with a nice pink arse and no hair on his balls) runs up and gives him a kiss, well LOOK AT THAT he's straight out of bed and reporting for duty, the dirty bush-badger. And what does he do the moment after recovering from hospital? Does he go save some people? Does he catch Lex Luthor? Does he FUCK he flies right into the bedroom of said sleeping little boy and perves over him. Then he zooms off just as the boy awakens. Well I don't know about you but that screams PAEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEDOPHILIAL SONFUCKER to me.
Thinking about it, Superman would be a really good child molester. Mothers would willingly leave him with their children, then he could just fly off with them and bugger them on top of Mount Rushmore or something. He'd be like Ian Huntley but with powers. That'd be a well good film actually. About a superpowered child-molester and the heros who have to stop him. I think we should get perverted-justice.net involved. They're the only ones with the suffient skillz to put superperve in his place. Hmm.
* * *
So yeah, we can conclude that the character of Superman is total rubbish. But that's not to say that the entire film was unimpressive, the pacing was off, the romantic subplot felt forced, there was a total lack of suspense, mystery or tension, the plot was boring, the characters were stilted, one dimensional and unappealing, and Superman had no personality and just acted as a cypher. All those points are also true.
So in conclusion: Superman Returns is shit. Don't go and see it. I certainly won't watch the sequel. Unless, of course, they do a film version of this lesser-known plotline from one of the classic comic books:
I think I speak for all of us when I say I'd pay good money to see that.
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