29 June 2006

john williams should do my soundtrack.

Spoiler Warning: What follows is possibly a spoiler for the movie Superman Returns. I say possibly because even EW all but gave it away in their recent article. In any case, don't read it if you don't want to know.

Like many dark-haired, blue-eyed boys in the world, I have a special affinity for Superman. The sheer impossibility of his defeat (an impossibility that has tested my limits for suspending disbelief throughout the years) is attractive, his iconic status incredible and, at least for me, his strength of character standing through test after test in a world that completely doesn't understand him pull us toward the Man of Steel. Sure he's a little more hokey than say the dark brooding of Batman, the mixed-blessing conflict in Spiderman and the overt outsider plot encasing all of the X-(Wo)Men. But he's Superman. He's the standard. You can go to the jungles, find a native and show him a picture of Superman and he'll show you some thatched footie pajamas with the big diamond-and-S. I still feel today that the best illustration of this was at the end of the Batman: Dark Knight series when Miller hinted at the people regarding Superman as a religious savior. He has that level of power.

Even with all of that, the new flick interested me in a new way. To preface, my opinion of the movie is that it was good but could have been better; Bryan Singer did great but the script needed some work and, as a co-worker pointed out, for a criminal mastermind, Lex Luthor's evil plot was pretty lame (Land grab? Really?). I'm still planning on catching it again, though, this time in IMAX.

The way the new movie intrigued me (even though it was a deep perversion of the Superman mythos) is through the kid. We can only assume that Lois told her baby's daddy what's up by Supes' Jor-El-ish speech to Jason late in the movie. Why that is interesting to me? Let's look at the similarities: (1) My dad has always been told he looks just like the late Christopher Reeve and I am my father's son, (2) my dad has lived the life only a man that can be reborn in multiple ages as the same person can accomplish, (3) I'm asthmatic and was a sickly child, and (4) I had a similar haircut when I was five-ish.

If the Man of Tomorrow can have a child then, clearly, I'm the heir to a superhero throne.

I will rock that cape.

2 comments:

Johnny C. said...

I was walking out the movie last night wishing that my Dad was super as well. Not in the homosexual way though.

Anonymous said...

at LEAST 40 minutes cut (from any part of the movie) - marsden + pryor = superman returns that i wanted.

mee.