A Dissenting Voice Heard From

Someone on a message board I frequent (hat tip: DWF)found a negative review... *egads!* Hey, kids! Let's go a-fisking! (No, Brian, that's not a typo.)

This a great movie for kids, real young kids. In fact, I'd go so far to say that, 11 year old kids will think this is possibly the best movie ever. It's also great for anyone who really loved the first two Superman films and thought they were perfect renditions of the Man of Steel. Everyone else will hate it.

Well, then, we're safe, because--generally speaking--people *loved* those movies, (myself included). They're rightly considered classics.

I could understand it when Richard Donner screwed up, he's not a comic guy.

Blasphemy! Kill! Burn the heretic!

But what's his real beef, this so-called critic?

Nope, as long as it's a good story that's faithful to itself and presents a logical story and is somewhat faithful to the character upon which it was based, I'm happy. If all that sounds like Smallville, it should. That's a show that generally ... gets it right.

Ah-ha! A disgruntled Smallville fan. To wit:

Geez, how about a Superman with some beef on his bones? For that matter, Tom Welling is a superior Superboy to Routh's Superman. ...

Instead of playing evil Lex Luthor, Spacey gives us Gene Hackman as Lex Luthor. ...Michael Rosenbaum as Luthor in Smallville is brilliant

Hm. Michael Rosenbaum or Kevin Spacey... Gee, I just don't know...

The movie opens with the explanation that at the end of Superman II Superman learned that astronomers located a chunk of a planet they believed to be Krypton.

"But how would they possibly be able to see that far into space and how would they know what it was," you might ask.

Um, first of all, it's a science fiction movie. Second: the discovery of extrasolar planets is one of the most exciting things going on in astronomy today, so the idea is hardly out of left field.

Bottom line, if you love the first two Superman movies and like the idea of a tribute to those movies with new actors, go see Superman Returns, you'll love it. Otherwise, Superman fans beware - put a DVD of the animated series in and wait for the fuss to pass.

See what he did there? If you loved the first two Sperman movies, you're not a (real) "Superman fan." Clever boy. Now, if he could just get rid of those blackheads, move out of his parents' basement, and get over his irrational fear of rectangles, he might find some local Gwyneth to pop that cherry, after all! He's so close!

The flaw in his logic is that he assumes there are many, many more Smallville and comic book fans than there are people who liked the first two movies--And he assumes that Smallville and comic book fans hate the Donner films as much as he does. Neither is remotely true, IMO, and--more to the point--the typical viewer just doesn't care about (or isn't even awre of) stuff like that. They just want to see a cool movie.