We broke down and saw Superman Returns last night. That's an hour and some change we'll never get back.
This movie was slow, the acting was marginal at best, and the 'symbolism' bordered on ridiculous. Were they trying to make Superman the archetype of Jesus? Was Lois Lane supposed to be Mary or Mary Magdalene? Call me a conspiracy theorist, but this film was rife with "we need a savior" angst, albeit, Hollywood's version of a savior.
I feel sorry for any kid who was anxiously awaiting a great super-hero action flick. What Jr. got instead was a Superman who spent the entire movie as a love-sick puppy pining over Lois Lane, who, by the way, was living with her boyfriend, Richard.
Oh, and did I mention that Lois has a son out of wedlock? But is it Richard's or Superman's? Is her little offspring a normal tyke or a budding super hero? And just how did Lois end up with her darling little boy? As far as I can remember, Lois and Superman never 'consummated' their relationship. Why, the child must have been super-heroly conceived!
Hollywood's moral compass continues to point in its usual twisted direction.
Now, to his credit, or to Lois's credit, I'm not sure which, Superman does save the day. But not before he is humiliatingly beaten in Passion of the Christ style, stabbed with kryptonite, and plunged to the depths of the ocean. Mary, I mean, Lois dives into the churning water (in evening gown) and gets him to the nearest hospital where the doctors are powerless to help the flat-lining superhero. Superman lays in the hospital for, oh, I don't know, maybe three days...(with crowds, complete with nuns, outside the hospital comparable to what Pope John Paul had outside the Vatican before his death). And after his, oh, I don't know, three days...suddenly, he's gone! Vanished...leaving only his rumpled hospital covers on the bed.
You can guess the rest. He disses Lois for his higher calling and checks in on his illegitimate offspring by flying to the tyke's bedroom window at night. Oh, and, like the above photo illustrates, he ascends into the heavens to watch over the inhabitants of earth.
And that, my friends, is the gospel according to Hollywood.
