I’ve found a new blog that belongs to Tom Richmond, an artist for MAD magazine. Like most young boys, I used to be infatuated with slapstick, grossness, and the general disrespect of one’s elders, so naturally I mis-spent a lot of my youth reading that silly rag; not surprisingly the movie parodies were always my favorite “articles,” and I find I can still remember punchlines from many of them.
Anyhow, Tom worked on MAD‘s parody of Superman Returns, so I found his thoughts on the actual movie interesting. He raises a point I hadn’t considered about Brandon Routh’s physicality versus what Superman is “supposed” to look like, and he ultimately ends up agreeing with me:
Singer brought down the few original ideas and promising new concepts in this film with the heavy handed nodding to the ‘78 movie. As a friend of mine pointed out to me in a discussion of the film, this is more of a “love letter to the Richard Donner film” than it is a movie in it’s own right.
Sounds like I hated it, but as I said I actually did enjoy the film. I loved the ‘78 film, so while I was disappointed and distracted by the 154 minute ‘homage’ I still got a kick out of seeing Superman on the big screen again, with 21st century effects. I hope the sequels do a little better in advancing the Superman saga rather than flying though skies we’ve all flown before.
Yeah, Tom, that’s about where I’ve ended up a week after seeing the movie. I liked it, I didn’t love it, and I’m hoping the next one (because you know there will be) finds its own voice…
Having not seen the flim yet (and only lately coming back to your blog) the one thing that I do know about the movie gripes me. Probably irrationally so, but it is the same reason “Lois and Clark” got too much for me. Woman of Kleenex people, woman of Klennex.
Actually, the development to which you refer works just fine if you view SR as a sequel to Reeve’s Superman II. Remember the magic Kryptonian molecule chamber that stripped Kal-El of his powers and made him into plain ol’ boring (but very human) Clark? There’s your “avoid ripping LL to shreds and get out of the Phantom Zone free” card…
NONONONONO.
He was human. Human genes, human baby, no powers in humen baby.
Anime type scream bursting veins in my forehead.
Giggle.
By the way, Puff and I are heading out on Wednesday to Idaho Falls for a while. Can you and your other come over a little tonite or tomorrow?
Ah, I see what you’re getting at. Yes, you make a good point… however, given that the nature of the magic de-superizing chamber remains unclear, you could maybe make an argument that Kal-El’s Kryptonian genes remained intact even though his powers were removed. If you wanted to argue this, that is… It’s not like there’s any actual science behind this particular character anyhow… 🙂
Tonight is most likely out – danged job – but tomorrow is a good possibility. I’ll give you a jangle on that telecommunications doohickey…