Did You Catch the License Plate On That Cape?

 

So, the Superman character is what?  A 150 or so years old.   It seems like every generation has one.  There were the Hollywood 2 reelers in the 30s and 40s.   You had the kitschy TV show in the 50s.   In the 70s, you had Superman and Lois Lane flying around on a date like it was some Hallmark movie.

And now you have Superman for this younger generation.   You know who they are?   Avoiding direct contact with people and living on social media, which has them all expecting the world to end tomorrow.  And that's the world doomsday problem that this new edition of Superman must deal with it.

As I read friends' comments on the movie via Facebook, I know the audience was aligning themselves on political sides.  Half of them were big fans of this film and they were all liberal voters.   This is likely due to the fact that the general premise  is that our government is evil.   And, oh, yeah, one villain is a metaphor for Trump.   The other side of viewers, largely conservative, are longing for the days of George Reeves and Christopher Reeve.

As for me, I liked it but didn't love it.   The perfect moderate response.   It is entertaining but stupid all at the same time.  The world is being challenged by Lex Luthor who looks suspiciously like Tom Cruise with a bald wig on.   The Daily Planet of Lois Lane, Jimmy Olsen, and Perry White (who is Black) are in the forefront of the coming war, despite the fact that most people stopped reading newspapers twenty years ago.

And there's the new generation's Superman.  Still good looking but with many flaws as you expect from the first "woke" super hero.   When we first meet him,  he just had gotten his ass kicked.   Oh, and he is not above using foul language. Superman is helped by his dog Crypto and no animals were harmed during this production because he was nothing but digitally produced.  To wit, I recommended none of the actors in the cast except for Lois Lane doing her best Mrs. Maisel impersonation.  And, naturally, it's set up at the end for the half dozen sequels still to come.

Now my side note is that I saw this film in a theater equipped with 4D.  Trust me.  That's not an apartment number.   Matched to the action on the screen, the audience is rocked and tossed and sprayed with water and cold air.  It was fun for a while, but ultimately the gimmick exhausted me.   It was something akin to what it would be like if I was an eighty-year-old Katharine Hepburn going to the movies.

Oh, well.  Such is life in current day Hollywood.

LEN'S RATING:  Three stars.   

Dinner last night:  General Tso's Chicken.