Superman II

To be honest, I don't hate this as much as I did when I was a kid. Because the TV version back then had Non killing a kid by throwing a siren at him long distance (which disturbed me) which was not present in this theatrical cut here. And I will admit my tastes as a kid were shitty on my best day. But that fucked me up righteously.

Do you know the MOST fucked up thing about that? Despite it not being in the theatrical version, that specific death was memorable enough to be parodied several times in other cartoons and comedy projects. And that's one of the things I hated about it.

But I was right to hate this, especially for the reasons I did. Most of the movie simply involves Zod and his friends walking around, killing innocent people, and that's the extent of the "nuance" of Zod. The thing with the siren and the kid back when I saw this on TV was so fucked up because it was entirely unnecessary. It's just horrible shit happening for the sake of horrible shit happening. There isn't even dramatic tension or a horror motif attached. I would have still hated it as a kid, but as an adult I would have appreciated some cinematic horror merit in hindsight. There is none whatsoever. It's an ineptly made piece of cinema.

I was wary of talking shit about the first film, not just because it had a ton of fans, but because it was so inoffensive and hard to hate. This piece of shit? I feel no need to be an apologist over.

Do you know what pisses me off the most about the horrific violence? The climax is fucking played for laughs and as if this is some sort of huge romp after all. Yeah, no. You don't get to kill off an entire group of astronauts (and in the TV version a kid) and then do a parody of Singin' In The Rain at the end. It's weird that you think you do.

Why is Lex Luthor even in the movie? He doesn't help (or even hinder) either the heroes of the villains even once. He's just completely ineffective at everything he attempts. Hackman getting top billing over Reeve AGAIN grates, as does the fact that Margot Kidder is so far down the supporting cast list instead of being billed as the second lead (which she actually is). And the truth about Lex is they COULD have done something interesting with him. When Superman reverses the power-sapping beam to effect people OUTSIDE of the chamber, a better project than this would have had that Lex's doing all along. It's shocks me it wasn't. God, superhero shit used to suck ass back in the day. How did fans stand this shit?

While I'm talking shit about the villains, isn't General Zod supposed to be some sort of military genius? His master strategy here involves "Give me the planet or I'll kill you." He doesn't even know the name of the planet or how it works. Why does he even want it? It's so fucking stupid.

We're supposed to believe Superman's "forgetting kiss" to Lois at the end is some kind of gift, but the reality is, it's a violation. Worse, because it happens, it feels like nothing those characters went through in the film actually mattered. Because it didn't.

Beside the forgetting kiss, the annoying thing about this iteration is it gives Superman and the Kryptonians powers they should not have. Family Guy has made fun of the cellophane S before, but when the fuck did Kryptonians learn to perform telekinesis with their fingers?

I don't think this film had a much smaller budget than the first film, but they tried to do a LOT more ambitious stuff, so their failings are more noticeable. We don't actually see the wires holding the characters up. But this time out it's easier to tell they're there.

That film just sucked on every level. As a kid I pretty much hated sucky things happening for the sake of sucky things happening. I see why I hated the film, and think I had its number as a little kid. 1 star.