Was anyone else underwhelmed by the new Superman movie?
Everyone had expectations that were impossibly high. The movie opening with the swooshing credits made us all feel we were back at home with the original franchise. Routh channels Reeve better than we could have hoped for – and anyone try denying we revere Reeve, a great tragedy, a great hero who showed life can imitate art. Seeing Lex strutting bald and proud was familiar and put us back in the frame. The return to Kent Farm. Flashbacks of young Clark looking eerily like a young Dean Cain. The movie worked on all these emotional connections to the original and its descendants. Cute that when the crystal busted skyward in the cellar, Lex’s toy train set of Smallville station mimicked the key disasters from Superman I-IV – the oil refinery fire, the train bridge, busting dam, people falling in front of the train (“Artemus, come in…”). And these reverential throwbacks were also the movie’s biggest irritations because they robbed it of originality. Yes connect with the previous ones, bu
