tag:www.awasteoffilm.com,2007://1 2007-01-25T23:13:32Z Movable Type 3.33 tag:www.awasteoffilm.com,2007://1.2 2007-01-22T04:33:34Z 2007-01-25T21:50:23Z

Ah, the 80’s, Reagen-nomics, Back to the Future, The Transformers, Real Genius, and Michael Jackson was the black king of pop instead of the WASP king of the pedophiles. Superman had started the first real Super-hero movie franchise, and Omar,...

shadow http://www.awasteoffilm.com Ah, the 80’s, Reagen-nomics, Back to the Future, The Transformers, Real Genius, and Michael Jackson was the black king of pop instead of the WASP king of the pedophiles. Superman had started the first real Super-hero movie franchise, and Omar, the little tyke, experienced his first of many funny sensations in his pants as he watched the first meeting between Superman and Lex Luthor. Omar’s mother, dismayed by this, then spent the next 30 minutes cleaning trying to clean him off in the restroom. Superman or not, you’re better off not going to a public theater with a particularly nasty case of diarrhea. Okay, kicking it with old school Superman intro. Space, the final frontier. The audience has a flashback to being bored to tears from watching the first Star Trek movie. Don’t worry guys! The best Star Trek movie ever is coming out next! Nice, relaxing John Williams score plays as galaxies, gas clouds, etc appear on screen. Finally, the camera sweeps across a snow-covered Krypton, ending in a close-up of the Epcott Center as the music reaches a crescendo A Snowtrooper is guarding a bunch of crystals with the Superman “S” symbol at the base. The Empire has been short of cash, what with waiting on the insurance to pay off on the first Death Star while they go ahead and build another, so many imperials are having to moonlight to make ends meet while they wait for their long-overdue paycheck. While he’s standing there, contemplating his dire financial states, a big, bearded Russian looking guy, easily camouflaging himself on a white planet, in a white room, on a planet where everyone else wears white, by dressing his 6’5” self in a black jumpsuit. He sneaks up behind the Snowtrooper and snaps his neck, but not before he sets off his pants alarm. Unfortunately, those type of stains show up pretty well on white pants. Not that I have any personal experience with that. An extremely suave, scary guy in a beard who looks like The Master, and a woman with short hair, also kicking it with black jumpsuits appear in frame. Suave guy picks up a large red ice crystal and snaps it. Unfortunately, he broke the Kryptonian equivalent of a surge protector and all the lights go off. Whoops! Suddenly, while they contemplate trying to sneak out of the fortress without having a flashlight, the Hoola-Hoop of Doom™ drops from above, trapping them. Normally, we’d get some reuse of footage showing suave bearded guy (General Zod) and his cronies bearded Russian guy (Non) and short-haired woman (Ursa) being put on trial by Jor-El, but due to trying to get out of paying Marlon Brando royalties, they excised all of his scenes from this movie. Of course, the Salkinds lost the ensuing court battle ANYWAY, meaning he got paid for not even making it to the final cut of the movie. As they stand in a cone-of-light, a scary voice from off-screen tells them they’ve been caught for their seditious act of treason. General Zod would have gotten away with it too, if it weren’t for those meddling Councilmen! The voice sums up the various personality traits for the viewers; er, the council putting them on trial. Several faces appear in the darkness, each declaring them “guilty.” As the faces disappear into the dark, the top half of the Epcott Center opens up, exposing them to the empty planet surface above. So… your punishment for trying to overthrow the government and murdering Imperial Stormtroopers is to be set free? Sweet! Oh, wait; instead of throwing the book at them, they throw a spinning piece of window pane at them. The screen twists around as their bodies, now as 2D as Smallville’s Lana Lang characterization, are trapped in their new prison. Wow, being trapped in a 2-d prison for all eternity? That’s a pane in the ass. As the window pane spins off into the depths of space, they all pound on the glass, alternately begging and threatening to be released. Zod screams that he will one day get revenge on Jor-El and his heirs. Even with 1980 technology, that’s still a pretty creepy effect. Credits. More kick-ass John Williams music. Scenes from the first movie showing Lara (Superman’s mom) carrying a baby Kal-El (a baby Superman). The only appearance of Brando is his arm, as he picks up the all important green crystal plot device. Lara cries as Kal-El is stuffed into his Christmas decoration spaceship. I had a decoration like that as a kid, it weighed about 10 pounds and had a built in light. Obviously, hanging it too low and smacking your head in it causes rather un-Christmassy thoughts. Krypton explodes as the Christmas decoration leaves. Superman logo appears, more credits. Shots of the pod landing on earth, baby Superman being picked up by the Kents, then picking up their car. Teenage Superman opens his barn, finds the green crystal rave stick hidden in the straw. Shot of Superman throwing the rave stick into the snow, big ice crystal fortress pops into existence. Shot of Metropolis, Clark meets Lois. Clark discovers the lack of telephone booths while a helicopter with Lois in it starts to fall off the roof. Superman shows that you can believe a man can fly. Superman causes unnecessary road damage by drilling through the ground. Shot of Luthor’s lair and the godsawful (yes, I meant the plural form) map of California. Nuclear explosion. Dam breaks. More explosions. Lois proves the stereotype that women can’t drive by ramming into a telephone pole. Superman saves a train. More traffic accidents. I hope the drivers at least saved a lot on their car insurance by going with Geico. Superman saves a school bus. Superman flies around. Establishing shot of Metropolis. Superman, in his full on Clark-is-a-doof mode, enters the Daily Planet newsroom. Trying to greet everyone, he gets rebuffed. Being Superman, as opposed to me, he in takes it in stride instead of snapping their necks like twigs and vaporizing their corpses with his heat vision. He does this cool toss-his-hat-behind-his shoulder-without-looking thing. I’d hate to have to be Chris Reeve there; “Okay, you missed it. AGAIN. Take 23!!” He also compliments Alice on her blouse. Not being in the 1990s, she ignores him instead of suing him, the Newspaper, and the maker of his business suit for sexual harassment and emotional distress. After getting blown off by another co-worker, Clark finally makes it to Perry White’s desk. Perry tells Clark to get as much info as he can about a terrorist group. Okay, I’ll get right on th- Wait, what?! After getting grilled about not watching television, Clark tells him that he finds TV to have too much violence. Besides, why watch violence when you can dish it out on purse-snatchers everyday? Jimmy pops up and tells Clark that terrorists have seized the Eiffel Tower, in Paris. Perry says he assumes Clark already knew that the Eiffel Tower is in Paris. If this were Smallville’s Clark Kent, he wouldn’t even know where he is. “Wow, the United States of America? Wait, that’s in Europe, right?” (Well, then again, Smallville-residents have to pay Canadian taxes, so go-figure). Clark, getting a bit into “Superman mode” asks Jimmy for details. The terrorists have already taken hostages, but Perry tells him the real juicy bit – they’ve got a hydrogen bomb, and they’re threatening to nuke the city. Oh, snap. Perry tells Clark to head to the morgue (intentional gallows humor?) and find out everything there is to know about terrorists. Not being in the 21st century, he doesn’t just write an article about George Bush’s administration. Perry also tells him that Lois is there as well, if Paris is going to explode, he wants his best reporter in the middle of it. In the event of being spontaneously converted into radioactive ash, they’ll just try to find her burnt notes clutched in her crispy-fried fingers. Perry tells him that he sent Lois because she’s a better reporter than him (ouch!) and that she’ll probably come back with an interview of both the terrorists and the H-Bomb: What Makes Me Tick. Well, in grade school, all the girl pieces of plutonium ignored me, and hung all over the radioactive isotopes with a longer half life than me After being treated like common Uranium by everyone I met, I knew, one day, I’d make them all pay. While Perry starts gleefully making up page one “Lois Lane goes kablooey! Lana Lang still A-okay!” Clark takes off. He runs into an alley and does the iconic “tearing his shirt open to show the S-shield thing.” Instead of taking off his clothes to porn music, he morphs his clothes into his Superman outfit. What?! Then why open his shirt in the first place? Oh, get used to it. It’s not like the last thing in this movie that doesn’t make any sense. Paris: Plucky Reporter Lois Lane, wearing a pink outfit, momentarily scares me, giving me a flashback to a nightmare I had about a pink rodent that spoke in a lithp, badgering me about keeping things from it and telling it non-truths, while attaching itself to the nearest man and devouring his soul for sustenance. Gaggle of reporters pile on an official, demanding info such as “Who are they” “What are their demands” “are the rumors true about France being a breeding ground for witches that know Kung Fu?” and “Do you think I have time to get a hotdog before I get vaporized into non-existence?” Lois shows off her press pass to get to the gaggle of reporters. When the representative mentions the H-bomb, Lois freaks out a bit. Dude, Perry knew about the H-bomb and didn’t tell her? I think when she gets back she already has her next byline “Plucky Reporter Axe-Murders Twisted, Corrupt Newspaper Editor”. Lois, figuring that she’s got better things than just standing around, waiting to die, decides to try to get the scoop on the bomb while waiting to die. She plays the “American who can’t speak English” card and distracts a French policeman by asking him to look up a phrase in her French-English translation book. Being a highly volatile situation involving a FRIGGING NUCLEAR WEAPON, they only have one cop policing the entrance to the Eiffel Tower. Lois sneak-sneak-sneaks up the tower on foot. Meanwhile, the terrorists decide to release all of the hostages. I mean, they’ve got an entire city hostage, so there’s no point in giving a bunch of strangers’ bathroom breaks and Stockholm Syndrome. Lois continues walking all the way up the tower while the terrorists dump the hostages on another elevator to get them to the ground. Lois takes the opportunity to plant herself on the bottom of the elevator by grabbing some bars. Solid Snake ain’t got nothing on Lois. Terrorists discuss how it doesn’t matter about the hostages anymore – once they have the bomb primed, they’re pretty much set. While the trigger-happy psychos are being calm and collected about their plot to nuke a city, a plucky, pink wearing reporter is freaking out and trying hard to spell “Nobel” prize. The terrorists discuss priming the bomb, and how if they screw up they have only 60 seconds before detonation. The police are watching everything, get ready to shoot them with snipers at first opportunity, while also rigging up the elevator to drop at a moments notice by cutting the wires. The plan is based on the idea that they haven’t seen the terrorists prime the bomb. Uh-oh. Fortunately, Superman is almost on the scene. The cops cut the cables, the elevator, with the primed bomb and plucky reporter, falls. The bomb getting separated from a remote by the terrorist’s accidentally sets it for automatic detonation. Fortunately, Superman is there to save the day and catches the elevator. Yay! Lois tells him about the bomb, but being badass superhero of the world, he’s already on it. Superman grabs the elevator and pushes it out into a very pretty space shot. The bomb goes boom, knocking Superman back and.. Wait, what’s this? The Zod Squad from the beginning of the movie show up, and after 30 years in a windowpane, they need a bathroom break! Fortunately, the nuclear detonation busts them out of jail and conveniently, a planet with working restrooms. Just make sure you wash your hands after you’re done. As Superman books it back to earth, the Zod Squad break out of the Phantom Zone (another very pretty shot) and find out that you can apparently survive in space without air. Enjoying not experiencing a sudden, yet painful, death due to asphyxiation and explosive decompression, the criminals instinctively use their solar-powered Kryptonian abilities to fly towards the moon. Metropolis. Clark, eager beaver that he is, sees Lois across the street and heads over to her. Being a bit TOO eager, he forgets to look both ways before crossing the street. Lois chastises him for almost being hit by a car. After he leaves, the cabbie sees the front of his car crumpled in like he hit a light pole. I hoped he saved a lot on his car insurance by using Geico. Lois continues to tell Clark to look both ways when crossing the street as they head to her office. Clark puts his hat on the hat rack normally; instead of that cool little behind-the-shoulder toss he did earlier. After a little back and forth about Clark needing glasses, with Lois teasing him about being jealous of Superman, Lois gets down to business of smoking a cigarette and cutting oranges. Lois does the unintentional-slam of telling Clark he’s got a lot going for him, while showing no interest in him whatsoever. She tells him to be more aggressive, go with his instinct, take what he wants, and submit to the dark side! Strike down Perry White where he stands, and then they can rule together as father and son! Sorry, getting my early 80’s films mixed up for a sec. Lois then tells Clark that she only says those things because she cares (awww), making him go all “aw shucks”, but then she follows up with “what are friends for.” If you look closely, you can see his soul shrivel up as she stomps on it then rubs dog poo off her shoe. Deep down, Clark wishes he had a kryptonite dagger, because getting stabbed in the heart literally would hurt less. She then gives him a glass with a smidgen of orange juice in it – great juicer if you get less than a thimbleful from several oranges, huh. Clark is fortunately distracted from the destruction of his heart and soul as he stares in puzzlement at the microt sized amount of juice in his glass. Smallville Medical Center – ha! I kid. Omar, no wait, come out from there – I was joking! Sorry, folks. Omar’s sobbing like a little girl and hiding in fear behind a coach. If the movie had HoYay! I might be able to lure him out, but unfortunately, no. I’ll throw him some chips and cookies… he’s going to be there for a while. As for my pain; I’m about to cover a portion of the movie I absolutely despise. If I weren’t a teetotaler, I would probably have to have a drink or 7. Erin can’t get through an episode of Alias without drinking copiously… and that’s including the good episodes. If I drank, I’d have to stick my head and a barrel of alcohol and would stay there for the duration of the recap, or at least until a combination of alcohol and oxygen deprivation cause enough brain damage to not care anymore… and I’d have to have every. Cell. Gone. To not feel the pain from the following. HACKMAN GOOFBALL LUTHOR. Prison – laundry room. Otis wanders through the laundry room and delivers some clothes to Luthor. Lex bemoans his fate, and gives a speech exhuming so much ego, explaining how utterly wonderful and genius he is, I’m having flashbacks to every Rose and Doctor scene written by R. T. Davies. While Otis (unintentionally) rubs in Lex’s failure in the first film, Lex asks for his Liberace record back from another criminal. Wait, Liberace? Isn’t that relatively high brow for a common criminal? I mean, I know he was sort of a pop icon, but wouldn’t some schmo in the clink be more into, I don’t know, Slick Rick or whatever was on the Top 20 that week? Seriously. Liberace? Otis tells Lex not to blame himself for getting his ass kicked; Superman kicks ass, takes names, then takes off. Lex asks WHERE Superman always flies off to. North. He didn’t think things through last time and find out Superman’s weakness. I guess drowning him with a radioactive rock from his home world doesn’t count. His solution? A little black box that tracks Alpha Waves – Luthor wants to find out Superman’s secret, so he can finally crush him. NASA. Cliff from Cheers talks to another co-worker about some astronauts on the moon. Artemis II has been up there in a small pod for 45 days. 3 men. Alone. Nate even comes out and admits getting engaged to Kosmonaut Boris. HoYay! How I missed you. He quickly passes it off as a joke, but being up there for a month and a half in the long, lonely and cold nights of space? NASA says that saw his Rorschach tests and knew it was coming. During his talk with NASA, Nate notices a hot, yet scary, woman in black flying outside his window. Uh, oh. He identifies it as a UFO that’s a girl. Another astronaut is wandering the surface. Ursa demands to know what type of creature he is. Ah, that ability to speak and hear and space. One of the many new special abilities added to Kryptonians arsenal in this movie. After he tells her he’s a man, she tries to steal his NASA badge. Being smart, he runs away. Being mean, she flies on top of him and takes it anyway. As his suit explodes from explosive decompression, Ursa goes for the goal and punts him off the moon’s surface. Kosmonaut Boris is taking soil samples. Suddenly, someone pulls him by his breathing tube over to his lunar module. General Zod, looking bored, makes a comment that he looks like a rather fragile form of life, then throws him off the moon, and at the same time jerks Boris’ hose from his suit. Zod drives his new Pimpmobile module to the space pod. Nate sees everyone getting slaughtered (Boris! Noooo! The wedding was next month!), and decides to get the %^$% out of dodge. Before he can go, Non grabs the gold colored aluminum-foil lunar pod and crushes it like, well, aluminum foil. NASA realizes they lost contact, but decide that instead of “girl” Nate said “curl”, which is some type of old term for comet. Of course, if I didn’t know about 3 Kryptonians rampaging and killing everyone on the lunar surface, I would have assumed he meant “hurl.” You’re in a very small pod with 3 men for 45 days, no shower, no gravity, no cable TV, and nothing but crappy space-food. I’d expect someone to barf eventually. If they flushed it out the airlock? UFO. Well, once they notice the bits of frozen vomit with space-ice-cream in it, you could drop the “unidentified” portion of that designation. Ursa discusses with the others about her bizarre new abilities, like super strength. In the meantime, Non decides to start a collection of flags and steals the USSR and USA flags near the now-flattened pod. Zod, being quick, in addition to evil and badass, figures out that the yellow sun and their molecular density gives them unlimited power. It’s one of those lines that sound ridiculous, but it’s the same one they gave Brando in the last movie. But my man Stamp manages to sell it, because? Bad. Ass. Ursa tells Zod that she overheard them calling “Houston.” Zod decides that Earth, er, planet Houston, is getting some new rulers. I SO would not want to be working for INS when he goes for his greencard. “Name?” Zod. “Country of origin?” Planet Krypton. “That’s not a coun-“ *Gets vaporized by heat vision.* The Zod Squad, now sans flags, flies towards planet Houston. Prison – a guard is walking the halls, telling the prisoners to turn off their cell lights for the night. Luthor keeps his light on. As the guard opens the door, threatening to open some whoop-ass, Shawshank style, we notice Lex and Otis playing chess. Something’s up, Otis doesn’t have the intelligence to play checkers, much less Chess. As he approaches the two, they disappear. A holographic projector! Prison break! Lex and Otis are, badly, trying to sneak across the yard while lights shine on them. Dude? If a light in Metal Gear Solid hits you, you’ll get guards all over your ass pronto! When it comes to stealth, they’re not Solid Snake and Otacon. Lex tells Otis to get something. Not that he says what, just “something”. Suddenly, a rope ladder appears. Ms. Teschmacher – or Tes, since I don’t feel like typing that another 50 times urges them to get in the basket. Lex climbs up the ladder. Lex and Tes try to get Otis to climb up the ladder, but the writers, having the sophistication of AlMiles, go for a cheap fat joke by having him pull down the balloon. Lex, doing both he and us a favor, cuts the rope, leaving behind the dead weight of the Otis character from both the balloon and the movie. Bye, Otis! We won’t miss you. Niagra falls. Water. Sun. Water AND sun. Clark and Lois, being hard-hitting, investigative reporters, show up pretending to be a married couple “Mr. And Ms. Smith.” Neither, however, are secretly highly trained assassins.. Clark tries to carry Lois into the room, but she passes. The honeymoon sweet is… pink. Lana would love it. And by pink, I mean absolutely hideous. The room even has a Luthorian Fireplace of the Eternal Flame. Why use air-conditioning to stay cool, when you can have a fire going in the middle of summer? Lex would love this too. Lex and Lana, this is their dream room. I hope to Athena we don’t see this on Smallville. A pink, polyester bear rug, a pink, heart-shaped bathtub, pink couches, pink curtains, pink lamp shades… MAKE IT STOP!!! Please! The bellboy, er, geriatric bell-MAN basically demands a tip. Superman, being nicer than I am, gives a tip instead of using his freeze-breath to turn him to ice and then punch him into piece ala the T-1000. Lois bemoans Perry sending them both (but mostly her) on an assignment on honeymoon hotels for a Sunday magazine expose. She whines about how she won’t get a Pulitzer Prize writing about pink bears. But hey, if she wrote about pink squirrels they’d probably give her the Nobel, Pulitzer, and the Purple Heart. Clark desperately tries to get Lois’ attention by offering her the complimentary champagne ($300) and a complementary corsage ($80). Seeing someone’s face after they get the bill for the “complementary” amenities? Priceless. After telling her she looks pretty (and in this scene, Margot Kidder does, if you can ignore the hat), and she thanks him, he stammers while asking about the sleeping arrangements. Bow-chika-chicka-bow. Lois decides to boot him to the couch while she takes the comfy bed. The bed turns out to be alive when it starts vibrating as he tries sitting on it. “I am the wedding bed and I hunger! Feed me the souls of your unborn children!” Balloon. The North. Lex and Tes toss off some dead weight in the form of sandbags. I wish they would have tossed Lex and Tes off the side, being dead weight for the movie. Think on Zod. You can get through this. Zod’s coming up soon. YOU CAN DO THIS. Wait, wuh? I lost track a minute there. While Tes whines about leaving Otis behind, Lex smarmily brags about what else ballast is for (true). While whining some more about what they’re doing, Lex reminds her that they’re heading north… to where the Others lay, and the final battle between R’hllor and the Brotherhood of the Night’s Watch lies. Or, they’re following his little black box’s tracking device. Niagara Falls. Lois complains some more about not doing something more interesting. Like Superman. But that’s later. She… actually mentions missing Jimmy. Somebody misses Jimmy? Whoa, that’s a first! Clark, being sly pimp that he is, stammers that everyone else is holding hands, and that they should too. Lois, blatantly not giving a shit, does so. Lois comments that everyone’s afraid to let go. Letting go = divorce. Oh, come on… that’s what the poison in their morning coffee is for! Clark, being more optimistic, says they look happy. Lois, slamming his eyesight for the 2nd time this film, tells him he’s blind. She steals his glasses and cleans them for him. Superman, having lost his flimsy, yet at the same time so strong and comforting “armor” looks almost… scared. I haven’t seen Reeve’s work outside of his Superman and Smallville appearances, but he’s able to make subtle changes to his face and stance and notably portray a COMPLETELY different character. Damn, he’s good. Anyway, he manages to get his glasses back, but not before she gets a brief glance at his face. After a moment, she shrugs it off. On another, shallow note: a lot of people have made comments that Margot Kidder is unattractive or ugly in the Superman films. If you watch the Amittyville Horror (just a few minutes, the movie will bore you to sleep, or make you think rewatching Spell and Hypnotic back to back is a better use of you time), she’s quite a fox. It’s mostly the bangs, I think, and I think both her and Erica Durance have makeup people that hate them. Dude, she’s Lois Lane! Stop uglyfying her. The Animated version looks better than Bosworth, Kidder, and Durance, and that’s just wrong. Clark sees a kid playing around at jumping off the balcony into the water below. Do it kid, do it! I’ve got $5 saying you’ll jump. Don’t let me down! Instead of letting the kid do the gene pool a favor, Clark stops him from “Doing the ‘Dew” When Clark comes back, Lois, having been complaining about being on a crap assignment for the last 10 minutes, is taking hard-hitting, Pulitzer prize winning photos of… a hotdog stand. Not caring about the brat trying to kill himself, or even being at Niagara Falls on a beautiful summer day, she tells Clark to get her hot dogs. But play it cool, while she sneaks in the back and finds evidence that they’re also selling bootleg corndogs from South America. You can tell by the deficiency in all the major ingredients required by the FDA: pork cheeks and eyelids, beef pores… and the percentage of insect knees and lips is a tad high* (*give yourself a cookie if you know what that’s from). Lois tells Clark that compared to Superman, Niagra falls isn’t that impressive. True, dat. Seeing Clark crushed, she apologizes for bringing “him” up again. Competing with yourself sucks, don’t it? As he heads off for the hotdog stand, she reminds him to get OJ. OJ will protect you from the ravaging effects of smoking 30 packs of cigarettes a day Lois! At least, that what the Surgeon General doesn’t say! Meanwhile, the kid decides to help me win $5 by jumping. Score! Lois screams for help. Clark takes that as his cue to run behind the stand to change from Hotdog Man! to the less impressive Superman! Pretty rainbow on camera. Just sayin’. Though it doesn’t quite make up for the cheesy bluescreening of the kid falling off the dam. Everyone rushes to watch the kid die… not. Superman saves him (of course!). Superman drops the kid back on the ground. The kid demands another ride, but “One ride to a customer.” Seconds later, he takes that as his cue to jump off again. This time, Clark doesn’t care. Or, back in reality, the kid stays put while Superman flies off, ignoring Lois calling to him. We get a quick shot of the mother threatening to start a lifelong process in physically abusing her kid. Hey, it’s better to be a broken, shell of a person instead of dead, right? Right? As Lois knows how Clark feels when she blows him off (crushed, covered in dog poo) plucky reporter Lois Lane finally puts 2 and 2 together and realizes the rather odd coincidence of Clark and Superman not being around at the same time. Well obviously, since Clark got that restraining order against him for stalking Superman he can’t be within 100 feet of him. Witness’ seeing you trying to stab someone with a Kryptonite dagger while sobbing “Lois loves me! Me!” doesn’t score you brownie points with the judicial system. Besides, Superman bribed the judge. Superman flies behind the hotdog stand and turns back into Doofy Reporter Clark Kent. As he wanders back, he remembers to turn around and get the hotdogs. The vendor isn’t there, so I hope he had correct change. There’s also a giant pretzel on the side of the stand. Mmmm…. Pretzels. As Clark gives Lois the hotdogs, she playfully starts laying into him about disappearing and never being the same place as Superman. Like I said; restraining order. He truthfully, tells her he was scoring hotdogs (boy, that line would sound WAY different in the context of Smallville). He deflects her by making innocent, non-committal responses to her probes (dirty!) and mentions he forgot the OJ. Lois gets irritated. Dude, she’s as much of a junkie for oranges as nicotine. Get her her fix before she goes into withdrawal, stat! North – Lex and Tes head… North North North! Lex: “Look. It’s his home! It’s Superman’s home!” Tes’ response: “Good, more ice.” Hee. The snark is strong in this one. Since the Chris Reeve movies lack the Gay, I shall refer to his home as Fortress of Non Ice-Dildos (FoNID). Lex screams “Fantastic!” Dude, it’s lacking stairs, a bathroom, a bed, carpets, and a plasma tv. Fantastic isn’t the word I’d use. “Empty apartment”, “bachelors pad”. or “relatively clean rat hole” would be more appropriate. Lex goes on about how it’s architectural design goes beyond anything in human history (if you ignore natural phenomena called “caves” or “glaciers.”), beautiful, genius, etc. Tes repeats pretty much everything except when he gets to “everything”. It’s been 2 days… girl needs a bathroom. Superman’s a guy, even if they can find it, it’s probably filthy and out of toilet paper anyway. Lex goes up to the collection of ice crystals. He and Tes start playing around and realize it’s a computer console. None of them are marked. Okay, I’m guilty of the same thing, but at least I bought multi-colored floppies to give me an idea of what it’s for. (Yellow… that’s a driver disk. Red… that’s… that’s… something). Lex puts in a crystal in a random opening (dirty!) and hits pay dirt the first time. A mirror pops up. No, wait; it’s a hologram of a different bald guy from Krypton who recites some bad poetry about trees by Joyce Kilmer. Here’s a little factoid; originally that wasn’t in the script. After Donner got kicked off the film, Hackman refused to come do reshoots, so they had to use a body double and a voice duplicate for some scenes. They went ahead and used his footage here, but originally they used Jor-El, not Lara, for the movie. The “He’s a voice from the past” obviously referred to a man, so they had to add this bit so they could use that line. The rest of the dialog was non-gender specific, so they could use Lara with no problem for the rest of the scene. Lex pulls out (dirty!) the crystal and gets to the good stuff. Lara pops up and talks about the Zod Squad. She reveals that they have no death penalty, so instead they put them in a living, eternal hell of being in a spinning piece of glass wandering the galaxy for all time. That’s… nice. I guess. She goes on to say that a nuclear explosion could theoretically break them out of prison. Well, it’s a good thing we haven’t had those in a wh- Hey! They were uncontrollable on Krypton, and would have the same powers as Kal-El on earth. Oh, shit. Lex starts ranting about how cool it is that they’re violent, evil, kick puppies, drink the last cup of coffee without refilling the coffee pot (bastards)… just like him, and that it would be a great idea for a super-villian team-up. Unfortunately for him, he doesn’t understand the concept of “them not needing him” and “squashing him like an irritating bug.” And either fortunately or unfortunately, depending on your point of view, he hasn’t heard of the other type of “super-villain team-up” like in Arkham Asylum: Living Hell (Dan Slott, not Grant Morrison). South South South! Niagara Falls – er, somewhere else in Niagara Falls. Lois still keeps going on about realizing Superman and Clark is the same. I understand wanting to crow about figuring this out, but geez, Lois! You’re crossing into asshole category here! Whether he’s Clark or Superman (or both) he’s still a nice guy who doesn’t deserve getting ripped on like this non-stop, give the guy a break! It’s not like you found out he’s the guy who’s been peeing in your coffee at the Planet for the last 6 months. That’s Jimmy. Clark, having trouble dealing with her inquisitions, tries to book it. Lois, asks him “What’s the hurry, Superman.” Clark gets a big time “uh, oh” look on his face. If he was cruder (like me) or high on nicotine-kryptonite (nictonite?), it would be an “oh, shit” face. (it’s like Smallville’s red-k, for you younger crowd who have had the luck of not seeing Superman III. Then again, you should. It’s one of those horrible comic book movies you have to watch as a rite of passage as a comic book/science fiction fan. If you can survive Batman and Robin (barely), Superman III will be cake. Well, nasty, green, festering cake that’s been out in the sun 3 days and is home to a colony of green flies, but still) Lois admits to being fooled, even though she’s usually no-one’s fool. Lois tells him that she’s got the perfect way to test her theory; either he turns into Superman and saves her, or he’s got himself one hell of a story. “Plucky Reporter Lois Lane Dead: Survives Near-Nuclear Holocaust in Paris, Commits Suicide Over Love-Triangle with Superman and Clark Kent” Clark continues to freak and tries to bug out again. Lois decides this is the perfect time to THROW HERSELF INTO THE RIVER. White water rapids river, not barely moving water river. Dammit, if I knew she was suicidal, I could have won another $5! Clark runs down the boardwalk, trying to keep up with Lois. The way Reeve plays it here; there is NO Superman in his immediate freak out. He is nothing but his Clark Kent persona. For some reason, everyone likes watching a kid accidentally fall off a balcony, but nobody cares about a grownup committing suicide. People suck. Lois screams for Superman while Clark continues to freak out. Clark manages to get it together long enough to use his heat vision to cut off a tree branch near Lois to use as a flotation device. If it was Erica Durance, I couldn’t buy that at all. With her inflatable fun-bags, she has her own, built in flotation devices. Also, another Kryptonian power is to fire one’s heat vision through seeing-glasses without melting the glass. Lois grabs the branch and makes it to shore safely. Superman, keeping up his disguise as a complete tool while trying to help her out, manages to fall into the river himself. Wet and ready, bro. This manages to re-convince Lois that Clark really IS under a restraining order, instead of being Superman himself. See, he’s a paper showing a court date and everything! Zod Squad. They land in the middle of a swamp somewhere. Ursa and Non land on, well, land. Zod lands in the water, he makes a comment that implies that Krypton doesn’t have any rivers/lakes/oceans. He then (hee) walks on water. A fisherman nearby does that standard not-really-funny cliché of throwing his alcohol out of his cup. Of course, if he wasn’t an alcoholic, he might have remembered that Zod was actually walking on an incredibly easy to see stone easement under the water, like in that joke about the alcoholic and the priest who thinks the priest walked on water, and who then became a priest, but didn’t understand how he couldn’t walk on water but another alcoholic could (underwater stones, dummy!) Zod and crew walk through the woods. The actors do a decent job of a “stranger in a strange land” performance. Ursa, now sporting the NASA patch from earlier, is fascinated by a snake and picks it up. The snake, apparently not being into sexy women in black outfits, bites her. Ursa drops it, thinking, “Enough is enough! I have had it with this motherfuckin’ snake on this motherfuckin’ planet!” and vaporizes it with her heat vision. Ursa gets REALLY happy about all her cool new powers. Zod simply points out that they all have them (duh). Let me put it this way, Zod is to Non and Ursa as Non and Ursa are to Tes as Tes is to Lex as Lex is to Otis (barely). So, Ursa, even at henchmen level, is still smarter than Lex, so she comes off as merely “kid excited on Christmas Day” instead of Lex “Captain Obvious” Luthor. Non picks up the char grilled snake and unsuccessfully attempts to burn it himself. Unfortunately, this drops him from “scary” to merely “sort of goofy and not too bright”. He tosses the snake and we- Go back to the Pink Lair of Lana – Where all that is Good and Just go to die, crucified on complaints about “thecwets and wies”. No chestnuts are burning on the open fire, but one must provide burnt offering of the nut variety to the squirrel god! The squirrel god, unappeased will surely strike down Her unfaithful worshippers in Her wrath. Which makes more sense than the reason they give for what’s about to happen. Lois sits next to the fire, throwing a pity party about Superman not saving her. Clark tries to reassure her. Lois switches gears and asks Clark to get her her comb. Clark trips over the ugly pink bearskin rug and falls into the fire. Lois checks him for burns. Clark tries to pull away, but not before she sees he’s completely unharmed. She says in awe that he really is Superman. He walks away, but finally gives up the charade. There’s a nice little moment where he’s turned away from Lois, and Chris Reeve does a real subtle, yet noticeable change in his stance, you can see him almost “rising up” from his mortal, false persona of mild-mannered Clark Kent. Lois apologizes for finding out his secret. Superman, no longer “Clark Kent”, tells her she has nothing to be sorry about, and that he has no idea why he did that. Because there was an ugly, pink bearskin rug and you tripped over its massive head? Lois suggests that maybe he didn’t want to with his mind, but he did with his heart. I need some Lactaid for this scene, I’m lactose intolerant and that line had more cheese than an extra large cheese pizza with extra cheese on top. Superman decides that they need to talk, after Lois tells him she’s in love with him, he decides they REALLY need to talk. For some reason, he thinks they need to book from the hotel because Perry’ll be calling later to ask about what’s happening. Why? So he can hide the body and report Lois as missing, before she has a chance to call in her scoop that Doofy Reporter Clark Kent is actually Superman? Or, he could have a little faith and expect her not to say anything. It’s also not like Perry will show up in person, “Lois, is that column ready yet? Clark, why are you dressed as Superm-“ *Superman vaporizes him with his heat vision to keep his secret.* Superman decides to let her know everything, including his favorite tv show and why he put butter, but never ever jam, on his toast. The both decide to change their clothes before heading to his place. By the way, both actors have great romantic chemistry together. I can’t remember seeing any other actors having romantic chemistry this good. Seriously. Genius casting here. Somewhere in the South, incredibly stereotypical southern redneck cops are driving through the desert, having a riveting intellectual conversation about symbolism in Kafka’s “The Metamorphosis.” Actually, they’re going on about their lunch. Being a born and bred southerner, I just want to step in here and vent about how the South is ALWAYS presented as being backward rednecks with thick southern drawls who seem to live in filthy trailers. Sir Walter Raleigh? The Wright Brothers? Charlotte, NC, which is the second biggest financial capital in the country after New York? Get a clue, Hollywood! People are intelligent outside of Los Angeles and New York! Anyway, the cops pull to a halt as they see three complete badasses standing in the middle of the road, watching them. The cops turn on their lights and siren, yelling at them to get out of the way. Zod likes the flashing red globe, like their red Kryptonian sun, but hates the noise. Gives him flashbacks to all the speeding tickets he got on Krypton, the REAL reason he got banished to the Phantom Zone. He tells them to make way. The rookie cop gets his shotgun and goes out to chew bubblegum and kick ass… then he remembers “They Live” won’t be released for a few more years. Ursa, always looking to expand her collection of badges, steals his badge. Badges? You don’t need no sticking badges! Zod uses some sort of heat and telekinetic vision to turn the shotgun bright red and Jedis it to his hand. Being slightly curious, he plays with it a bit before shooting himself in the chest and declaring it a crude noisemaker before throwing it under the car. Non, wanting to get in on the fun of shooting yourself in the chest, picks up the vehicle to get the gun, then gets frustrated and throws it off. He grabs the police lights, offering it to Zod. Zod (and the audience) rolls his eyes at this crude attempt at humor. Non starts stroking it like a pet. What do you feed police lights anyway? Better hit the pet store. North North North! Superman and Lois fly to the FoNID. Lois is impressed that he lives there. He tells her he actually has an apartment in the city, but this is a very special place for him. Stereotypical Southern Town, including chickens and cows. A small child runs into Non, who’s practicing his heat vision on a truck with wood slates on the back. With great concentration, he manages to use the awesome power of his Kryptonian heat vision to burn a small hole in a piece of wood. He’d do more damage with shining light through a magnifying glass. Being special-ed am no fun! Meanwhile, Zod and Ursa head into a bar. I want milk. In a dirty glass. Southerners are arm wrestling on a table. While the bar goers drool over Ursa, she decides to get in on the arm wrestling action and smashes a guy through a table. Zod, understandably, rolls his eyes. Is he SURE he needs cronies? I mean, Terrance Stamp can inspire pants-wetting fear just standing there, and he’s saddled with the equivalent of Otis and Tes. The cops arrive in town and run into the kid from earlier. Unlike some OTHER Southern kids, I can speak with a english accent! Seriously, he’s British. I don’t know what’s sillier, this kid in a poor southern town with a British accent, or having Lauren, the daughter of a U.S. Senator on Alias having a British accent. One of the bar goers, pissed about getting his ass kicked by a girl, decides to be a gentlemen and knock her teeth down her throat. Zod, being irritated about someone literally trying to hit on his honey, casually throws the guy across the room, missing the window by half a foot. The guy flies through a wall and a truck outside. Being the Hollywood stereotype of a southerner, any brain damage he gets will have no noticeable effect on his personality or intelligence. Why, if he DOES get significant brain damage, he should be PERFECT to be on the Smallville writing staff! The Zod Squad walks out into the street; sans western showdown music. British Kids’ dad (Jody) decides to go all NRA on Zod. Zod, beginning to get irritated, gives him the finger, sending out a beam and throwing him in the sky. British kid begs for him to let his daddy down. Zod drops his ass. In a cut scene, the kid runs off on a dirt bike (I think) and Non vaporized him with his heat vision. Ah, ABC, how I love you for airing the really cool scenes that were cut from the theatrical release for some reason. FoNID. Superman shows off his crystal console to Lois. He tells her that after his earth-father died, he found the green rave-stick. It called to him. Lois, understandably, is slightly freaked out that Superman hears voices in his head and talks to green crystals. He tells her about how it built the FoNID. It took 6 months longer than it should have, and it constantly ducked his calls when he tried to find out why the workers were on their lunch-break 24-7. After it was built, he knew what he was and what he needed to do. Lois thinks the place rocks, except, being a guys place; it could use some fixing up. Someone call Home Makeovers, stat! Superman realizes they could use some dinner. Since they live to far away for Papa Johns to deliver, he heads out to get some grub. Somewhere around the equator – Superman goes to an island in a beautiful location and gets some sort of plant thing. Whoosh. He’s back at the Fortress with the plants and a bag of groceries. Let’s chow down! Lois, having been looking at the green rave-stick, drops it on the floor as she wanders off. Don’t you hate it when guests don’t clean up after themselves? Stereotypical Southern Town – A news reporter finally IDs the location - East Houston Idaho. He’s reporting, live, about the Zod squad. In the middle of his spiel, Non comes up to play with his equipment. Whoops! Didn’t expect to become part of the story, did ya’? Zod stops him from trashing the camera monitor. Zod asks who’s watching, and the reporter informs him that pretty much everyone is watching the show on the satellite link-up (not according to your nielsons, buddy) and that they’re on planet Earth, not Houston. Zod, after making sure they’re shooting his good side, tells him to continue. Ursa quickly gets bored, and wants them to show the earth something more interesting. Be careful, though. Not even super-powered Kryptonians can survive the wrath of the FCC unscathed. Conveniently, a small platoon of army personnel show up to take them down. The soldiers demand them to surrender, Ursa states that General Zod doesn’t take orders… he gives them . Damn straight, he is one bad mutha’. Non, finally getting the hang of the whole heat-vision thing (but not the telekinetic heat vision thing), takes out the engines of a couple of jeeps. One of the jeeps drives onto a ramp on one of those trucks used to transport lots of cars and runs through the second story of a store and out the other side, landing on some used cars for sale. I hope the army at least didn’t pay a lot for their car insurance by using Geico. Non grins, while Zod looks irritated again.. Next, to make up for the lack of HoYay! Some soldiers try to make Zod flaming with a flamethrower. Zod grins and uses his super-breath to blow the fire onto a nearby store instead. Zod and Ursa have a cute little moment where they brag to each other using only facial expressions. White House – the President watches TV, seeing the criminals, now described as having the same powers as Superman, trash the small town. They’re wondering where Superman is, instead of saving their bacon. Bow-chicka-chicka-bow, that’s where. The reporter voiceovers that the army’s ruled out a nuclear strike, since killing large numbers of their own citizens is looks bad around election time. Idaho – the army fruitless attacks using rocket launchers. Personally, I prefer the Ripper and I am VERY disappointed that they didn’t use it in Unreal Tournament 2004. Non catches a rocket and rips it in half. The Zod Squad watch arrogantly as a helicopter fires rockets at them, failing to do any damage. Zod and Ursa find the concept of flying machines funny, so Ursa blows them out of the sky. Literally. The copter crashes in a very fake looking model of a farmhouse, creating a massive fireball. Zod, disappointed at his ease at victory, declares, “I win! I always win. Is there no one on this planet to even challenge me?!” Why yes, there is, but… Superman’s busy getting his poon-tang on, as he serves after dinner champagne at a table in the FoNID. I wish they had kept the scene where use uses his heat vision to make a soufflé. Lois asks if it’s hard pretending to be Clark Kent, and Superman admits it’s hard making a fool out of himself sometimes. But, if it weren’t for Clark, he would never have met Lois (awwww). Lois finds it a bit confusing for him to treat Clark as a separate person, but he says, and Reeve looks very handsome her, I might add, for the first time, everything’s clear to him. They touch hands (awww). Shut up, I’m allowed to be a big softie sometimes. Lois decides to change into something more comfortable. What, while he was getting groceries he got her entire wardrobe from the hotel? Or is it bow-chicka-chicka-bow speak? Idaho – Ursa (I’m not a ‘ho, YOU da ho) gleefully tells a general (little g, because he feels, or should feel, inadequate to General (HUGE G) Zod) to step forward. Zod speechifies: “I am General Zod. Your ruler. Yes, today begins a new order. Your lands, you possessions, your very lives… will gladly be given in tribute to me, General Zod! In return for your obedience you will enjoy me generous protection. In other words, you will be allowed to live.” As almost the entire town is on its knees, hands behind their head, the general stands ramrod straight as the General circles him like a shark. Zod rips off a bunch of stars from the 5 star general’s uniform, and throws it away. Hey! Ursa was going to use that! Think of your girlfriend, dude. He demands to know whom the general reports to. The President. Zod declares that the President will answer to him, or else other cities will wind up like this one. FoNID. Lois finds Superman is talking to a hologram of his mom about her. She confirms that she and he feel the same amount of love for each other. She tells him that to live with a mortal, he must become as a mortal. Guess she read Man of Steel: Woman of Kleenex as well, huh? A chamber rises from the ground as she tells him that it uses the red rays of Kryptons’ sun to remove his powers. If he does this… they’re gone. Forever. She warns him that he will live and die as a mortal, and he can be hurt like an ordinary man. In a spooky, yet cool move, her image leaves the crystal mirror and walks towards Superman. She asks him if he’s sure, as she reaches towards him. In the original version, it was Jor-El who got SUPER-pissed about the whole thing and he HATED Lois. Superman immediately walks towards the solar chamber without hesitation. It seals shut as some particularly nice music plays. As the chamber starts to turn red, Lara fades from view. Superman starts to flash red, and he hallucinates back to the first movie where he walked through Lex’s fire-chamber-deathtrap. Hey, while we’re flashbacking to the first movie, can we see the scene with the mugger in the alley where he catches the bullet? I love the scene in the alley where he catches the bullet. Superman’s skin gets stripped off, while a double image of him appears. The crystal control panel explodes, while Lois watches in fear as Superman’s appearance fade back and forth from a Non-Doofy Clark to Superman. As “Clark” solidifies, he leaves the chamber, leaving an afterimage of Superman to fade away. Noooo! Seriously, well done scene, but at the same time, you feel a sense of pain and loss as his Superman side goes away. Clarks wanders through the Fortress to Lois. Lois is amazed that he did that for her, and doesn’t know what to say. Clark asks her just to say that she loves him (but she doesn’t). The two walk together to a silver pimp bed. Sorry, I can’t snark on this scene. Mount Rushmore – the Zod Squad go on a world tour, they use magic eyebeams to make the Presidential faces look like themselves, except for Lincoln, who they destroy. Everyone hates that fucker. The President gives up watching Friends to see the news report showing them destroy the Monument. At this point, the Pres and his cabinet are crapping their pants and realize that if they resist, the Zod Squad will have no problem with destroying the world. In a horrible example of bluescreening, Zod and crew fly around the world. While sweet, with still huge amount of chemistry when the actors are pretending to sleep, I really really really didn’t want to see Clark and Plucked Reporter Lois Lane in bed. Again, can’t really snark here. White House – Zod Squad decide to crash the White House a bit too literally. They come down through the roof and start trashing the place, tossing around cops and soldiers like rag dolls. Bullets and rockets do nothing to stop them. Now, if they used the Redeemer, they’d have no problem taking them down. Unfortunately, this ain’t a video game. The crew, after kicking major ass easily, break down the doorway into the Oval Office. Everyone in that office must be wearing adult diapers, cause there is no other way they don’t have big, easily visible wet spots on the front. Zod quietly, and creepily, asks the man at the desk “You are the one they call President?” The man says yes. Zod looks down and sees the eagle symbol on the floor. “I see you are practiced in worshipping things that fly. Good.” He tells the man to rise and says the line we’ve waited the last 1 hour, 17 minutes to hear (1:17 EXACTLY) “Now, kneel before Zod.” The man kneels before Zod. Zod realizes that a major ruler wouldn’t kneel that quickly. The real President steps up and says that he’ll kneel if it’ll saves lives. Zod says it will… starting with his own. The President tells Zod that there is one man who will never kneel. Zod asks where this man is… The President wishes he knew. He kneels. “God.” Zod corrects him “Zod.” The mountains – somewhere snow-free. Clark and Lois are driving down the road. So… I guess Clark has a garage full of cars at the Fortress, or did they really wander through the frozen tundra in insufficient clothing until they reached civilization after several hours or days? Clark asks Lois why she’s so quiet. She says she can’t believe what he gave up for her. He tells her that he did it for both of them. Suddenly, it goes from day to night. They pull up to a restaurant with a hot dog picture on front. Lois says she knew there was a hot dog place somewhere. Hot dogs, orange juice (freshly squeezed), and nicotine. Is there anything she ISN’T addicted to? Clark, good-humouredly says it takes longer when you can’t fly. Lois, with all her other addictions, doesn’t tell him that she flies all the time with the crystal meth in her purse. Clark and Lois enter the restaurant. Lois, after demanding hot dogs in the car decides to satisfy herself by ordering a… cheeseburger? Clark decides to hit the can while she orders. A sleazy trucker takes Clark’s seat and makes a bad pass at Lois and refuses to leave Clark’s seat. Lois ain’t happy about it. Clark shows up. He also ain’t happy about it. Clark decides to ask the guy to go outside to mix it up. Jackass trucker sucker punches him from behind as he walks towards the door. Clark crashes through a glass pane placed in the middle of the floor (wait, what?). He’s… bleeding. Clark tells her that she needs a bodyguard from now on. She doesn’t want a bodyguard, she wants the man she fell in love with. Clark tells her that he wishes he were here. This scene was painful to watch. I mean, seeing Superman getting beat up and bleeding. That’s just… just wrong. Clark, furious, gets up and approaches the trucker. The trucker sucker punches him again, while Lois jumps on the guys back and attacks him. The waiter pulls her off while the trucker leaves in irritation. They waitress attempts to try to distract everyone from the previous nastiness by turning on the TV. We get a light-hearted, feel-good news report in the form of the President broadcasting to the world that in conjunction with the other world leaders, they have turned over all authority and control of planet Housto- I mean, Earth, to General Zod. Clark, looking absolutely horrified, glues his eyes to the screen. The President suddenly begs for Superman to save them. Zod pulls the camera to himself, asking to know who Superman is, daring him to face him, telling him come - come kneel before Zod! The waiter turns the TV off as Zod begins to start foaming at the mouth. Clark asks the waiter when it happened. “Where have you been? On a desert island.” Booty call, actually. He tells Lois he has to go back. She tells him there isn’t a way back. Clark has to try. She tells him not to blame himself, that he didn’t know it would happen. He tells her he now realizes his parents tried to tell him, he just didn’t listen. A beautiful shot of Clark walking in the snow, trying to get a truck ride as he heads back North instead of using the car he and Lois drove. No gas money, I guess. The music is haunting as he walks back alone through the frozen tundra. It’s a beautiful, but very emotionally painful scene to watch. Clark arrives at the Fortress, the interior now dark and with a faint green glow. He walks over to the destroyed crystal console. He calls out to his parents; he tries to speak with them, hoping they can somehow hear him. He says he failed, he cries for his father. As the Krypton theme plays, he finds the glowing green rave stick/plot device Lois dropped. Well, if you can’t get your powers back, you can grab the stick, hit a rave, take some ex and some acid. Sure, you won’t have your powers back, but you’ll THINK you do. The ringing in your ears while the walls melt and you become interested in how your hands move might be a bit distracting though. Anyway, thanks to Lois being a slovenly houseguest, the rave stick wasn’t nuked when the rest of the crystals in their slots went boom. FYI: originally, the reason Clark got his powers back is because the Jor-El hologram re-activates and tells him he knew it would happen – in fulfillment in the “son becomes the father, the father the son” prophesy, he uses the last of his energies to fuse with Clark, restoring his powers and destroying the Jor-El construct forever. That would have made a sad sequence of scenes even sadder, I think. White House: a.k.a Zod’s Pimp Crib. Non and Ursa play with desk toys while Zod is really really bored. Conquering? Fun. Having no one to conquer? Not so fun. Zod and Ursa seem almost sad as she reminds Zod he is master of all he surveys. "So I was yesterday. And the day before" *Sigh* A hand waves a white flag from the doorway. Oh, no. “Lex Luthor. Lex Lu-thor.” Lex starts desperately sucking up as Non and Ursa are about to do me a massive favor of stuffing his soon-to-be corpse in a trashcan. Lex offers to give Zod anything he desires. Zod points out he already owns everything on the planet without Luthor. “You cannot bargain with what you don’t have.” Uh, oh. Lex offers his trump card, the one thing Zod doesn’t have. The son of Jor-El. Suddenly, Zod stops being bored. Even bigger uh, oh. Zod has a new purpose – to kill Superman! Lex points out that even though he has the same powers, but they are 3, well, 4, counting Non. As they get ready to leave, Lex tells them he knows where he lives, they don’t. Zod, looking very pissed, asks him what he wants. Australia. Oh, that crazy Luthor and his extremely stupid quick-rich land schemes! Kill him for me Zod. Please. Daily Planet. Lois chain-smokes as Perry freaks out about a missing Superman. Maybe put a “Lost” picture on the side of a milk carton? Jimmy believes Superman will show up, Lois, looking and acting stressed, knowing the truth, almost-hysterically says that if it’s at all possible, he’ll be here. Suddenly, the earth starts shaking, and it’s not because of the two interns in the coat closet. Boom! Non breaks down the door. Dude, did you at least try knocking first? Non breaks more stuff as Zod and Ursa casually stroll in after him. Look, I’m annoyed about Lucas replacing the Wookies with Ewoks in Return of the Jedi too, but chill bro! Bravely, yet stupidly, Perry, throws a metal pot at Non’s head. Non, stupidly, but easily, breaks his desk and slams Perry’s head through the ceiling. Lois valiantly tries to break Ursa’s nose, instead, she almost breaks her hand. Lex, looking almost dapper in a 3-piece, strolls in the Perry’s office. Zod wants Superman. NOW. Lex pushes for Lois being the next best thing, since she’s practically Superman’s P.R. agent. Ursa takes the opportunity to slam Superman’s taste in women. Oooooh, burn!. Zod, annoyed, tells Ursa to let Lois live. For now. But kill the rest. Starting with Lex. Whoops. Lex starts to (badly) beg for his life. Outside. Superman music kicks in. Superman appears in the window outside Perry’s office. “General, would you care to step outside?” Hell. Yes. Lois, and particularly Lex, are overjoyed to see him. He flies off. “Come to me, son of Jor-El! Kneel before Zod!” The Zod Squad takes off through the window. By today’s standard, this doesn’t look that good, but this is STILL my favorite action sequence of all time, and kicks the crap out of the Spider-man/Doctor Octopus fights in Spider-man 2. Superman flies with the Zod Squad in hot pursuit. Citizens in the street below watch. Zod starts talking smack to Superman, then he uses his heat vision to cut a cable holding up a piece of wall being used at a construction site. He throws it at Superman, who uses his new “explosion vision” to, you guessed it, make it blow up. Rubble falls on the street as people stop to rubberneck instead of, I don’t know, RUNNING FOR THEIR LIVES. Then again, the gene pool could always use some chlorine. Zod orders his cronies to attack Superman. Non chases Superman through the city, finally punching him into a building. Lois watches in fear, as Superman drop kicks Non in the air. Non grabs Superman from behind while Ursa tries to whack him with a pole. Superman ducks, and she accidentally knocks Non into a radio tower on a skyscraper. Superman grabs it before it hits ground and puts it back in place, welding it back in position with his heatvision, trapping Non. Zod watches in vague interest as Superman put the tower back. He realizes that his weakness is he cares about Earth people. Ursa ask if he cares for them like pets? That’s Zod’s best guess. “Sentimental idiot.” Zod uses his heat vision to blow up cars all over the street. Pleased, he follows it up by heating up the gas tank on an oil rig. Uh, crap. Superman uses the trucks side mirror to reflect Zod’s heat beams back to him. Zod screams and collapses in pain. Nice detail is that the billboard behind him is charred black, except for a silhouette where Zod was standing. Superman, hand on hips, uses his freeze-breath to cool down the gas tank on the oil rig before it explodes. Non drops on top of Superman and slams them both into the ground. The ground shakes and noises are heard as they fight underground. Several sewer covers get blown off too If the Clark/Zod fight in Vessel had been like this, an exterior shot of the barn while you hear grunting and moaning, while things break with the ground moves, viewers would have liked it more.. Non suddenly gets launched through the street and through the Daily Planet. Superman climbs up out of the ground. Ursa, grabs a sewer grate cover and throws it at Superman, knocking him into the windshield of an occupied car. The owner whines about who’s going to pay for the windshield (seriously. It’s not in the subtitles, but she says it). Zod lands on top of the car, and after a brief struggle throws Superman into a Marlboro truck (product placement!). Superman grabs Zod, spins around in circles, then pitches his ass into a gigantic lit-up Coke billboard (more product placement!), which explodes in a shower of sparks (“Enjoy Coca-Cola.” Not in Zod’s case). Homerun! Superman II, Zod Squad 0. Non and Ursa go for the dirty play, they grab a city bus full of people and throw it at Superman. Superman tries to stop it with his bare hands and gets slammed into the Marlboro truck, then finally, into a wall. Looks like the director doesn’t like Marlboro, huh? People on the street can’t find Superman, and think he’s dead. They charge at the Zid Squad. “Let’s go get them.” As you can see, this was done muuuuuch earlier, and muuuuuch better than the crap Sam Raimi did in the Spider-man movies 20 years later. The actors look tired here, must have been a tough job of shooting this action sequence in Metropolis, plus, there was a LOT of wire-work, and I understand that’s some of the most uncomfortable stunt work you can do. Not the most dangerous, just that the actors hate it. Regardless, the three of them, standing in formation, go all Big Bad Wolf on the rioters. They huff, and they puff, and they blow them down the street. Ice cream gets blown off cones, a guy doesn’t get to stay on his phone call, a man loses his toupee, and firemen lose control of their giant spraying hoses (in a PG movie!). Anyway, chaos, lots of paper, some cheesiness, more cars getting wrecked and literally FLYING through the air (insert Geico reference here), misc. property damage, etc. No tumbleweeds? Looks fairly cool. Superman, still alive, climbs on top of the wreckage of the bus. Seeing the destruction from the Zod Squad literally destroying the city, he books it. Zod and crew gloat. Zod declares that Superman is a coward after all. Everyone on the street expresses a combination of dismay, anger, disappointment, despair, and guilt that he abandoned them. I thank the gods that Lana isn’t there. Because she doesn’t have any issues with abandonment or anything, so she would be unable to relate to people getting killed by being crushed by things. Zod and crew fly back into the Daily Planet. He declares that their victory is complete… the son of Jor-El has run away sobbing like a little girl. A little girl in a pink dress with pig-tails on! Jimmy and Perry don’t believe it. Lex pops up and bitches about Zod ranting about “the next time” they meet Superman. He gives them Superman, they didn’t kill him, and he had to listen about “bow, yield, kneel.” Zod responds with another classic quote: “Why do you say this to me when you know I will kill you for it?” Instead of mentioning that Zod tried to kill him ANYWAY, despite giving him Lois Lane and bragging about knowing Superman’s home address, Lex has another R. T. Davies moment and extols his own virtues. Again. For the 20th time over two movies. He reminds them that, hey! I know Superman’s address, remember? So knock it off with the death threats and get me a bagel. Zod thinks knocking on, or knocking down, if Non has his way, Superman’s front door and killing him is a splendid idea. Ursa gets Lois in a headlock and suggests taking her with them. Increase his handicap by taking one of the earth creatures he cares for so much, particularly his favorite. That’s smart, though dirty pool. I like her. North North North! The Zod Squad fly toward the FoNID. Being minions, Zod uses Non and Ursa as pack mules, giving piggy-back rides to Lois and Lex respectively. For Lex’s sake, I hope he’s reaaaaaaaaaal carefully about where he puts his hands. FoNID. Zod Squad, with passengers fly into the Fortress, now better lit, and more white than green. Ursa takes the first opportunity to dump Lex. What, not even the standard “Let’s just be friends” speech? Then again, with the Hackman Luthor, who wants to be his friend in the first place? Tes appears to have dumped him earlier in the film as implied by her absence. She probably traded up by dating an alcoholic bagman. Zod lands near the shattered crystal console, looking unimpressed. “Scruffy. So morbid. A sentimental replica of a planet long since vanished. No style at all.” I really, really wish he was a real person and posted on TwoP. He would SO fit in. Superman, miffed about Zod slamming his house decoration skills, calls him out on his bad manners. Non immediately attacks. Superman rips off a cellophane S-Shield from his chest, which traps Non for a moment before fading away. Look, this gets bashed a lot, but the whole hologram/teleporting stuff that’s about to happen (well, Superman’s end, not the Zod Squad) and the S-Shield? Dude, their in his house, a replica of an alien civilization with technology thousands of years ahead of our own, designed by one of Kryptons’ greatest scientists. Even at the age of 4, I assumed that Superman had weapons and other technology to use against intruders. He arrived before Zod and crew did, so he had enough time to get a couple of things ready, anyway. Does it excuse telekinesis and memory-wiping kisses? No. But this stuff? Mostly okay. Seeing Non get wrapped for freshness, Zod declares that they must combine their strength. Unfortunately, they can’t form Voltron without another two people. Zod, Non, and Ursa all give Superman the finger, by which I mean using the telekinetic thingy they used in Stereotypical Southern Town earlier in the movie. Superman holds his hand out to stop the beam. Turning red and under great strain, he manages to push back the beam and knock them all down. Ownage! Lois takes the opportunity to kick Ursa over the side. Trash my looks, will you! Zod, for the first time the entire movie, completely loses his shit;. “Fools! Take him!” The Zod Squad start… teleporting (what?!) to Superman. Superman, not wanting his ass kicked, teleports away from them. Suddenly, 4 Supermen pop into existence all over the room. Ursa attacks Superman with a spin-kick, and falls down when her leg passes through him. Non attacks another Superman image, and it disappears as he crashes through it into a wall. Superman tells Lois that he used to play this type of game at school all the time, but he was never very good at it. Lois tries to hug him, but passes right through. Another hologram. Zod watching this sticks his hand out to the side, expecting the Superman next to him to be a hologram. A hologram that grabs him from behind and gets him in a headlock! Ursa, being Zod’s #1 fan doesn’t care for this. She and Non grab Lois and threaten to tear her apart if he doesn’t let Zod go. Shoot the hostage, Clark. Shoot the hostage! Despite Lois telling him not to do it, he lets go of Zod. Ursa, however, keeps Lois in hand. Zod asks Superman if he really thought they would give up their advantage and casually states that “the son of Jor-El will be my slave. Forever” Otherwise, he’ll slaughter every human on the planet. Um, Zod? Until you pulled the Lois card and started destroying Metropolis while he was unconscious under that truck, he was beating you all. Don’t push it. As Zod is gloating over the idea of enslaving the son of his jailor, Lex pops up to bring the fresh stench of poo to interrupt the incrediblt minty coolness of Terrance Stamp’s performance. Zod, wisely, orders Non to kill him. YES! Instead of pasting him into goo, he lets Lex go have a private chat with Superman. Er, maybe he hopes Superman will kill him for him? Anyway, Luthor backpedals over his earlier actions and starts sucking up to Superman more than the force of 20 black holes. Superman, speaking out the side of his mouth, tells Lex that if he can get the Zod Squad into the molecule chamber, they can strip them of their powers and turn them into normal human beings. As Zod comes by to interrupt, Lex immediately tries to weasel his way into Zod’s good graces, not remembering that the Zod ordered his death for the second time two seconds ago. He tells Zod that it’s a trap and about the molecule chamber’s ability to strip Kryptonians of their powers. “It makes people like you into people like me.” So what, it’ll take the suave, awesome Zod, make him lose his hair and turn him into an irritating smug pratt who praises himself constantly and has bad theme music? (Sorry, John Williams, but it’s true) No! Superman is a WEE bit pissed. Lex tells Zod how to activate the chamber (but… he didn’t see how to do that! Oh, forget it. It’s almost over.) Zod, real happy about not being stripped of his powers, orders him “Lex Luthor, ruler of Australia. Activate the machine!” Lex, Lex, Lex. Has the last 2 times he’s used you then tried to kill you taught you nothing? Oh, well, hopefully this time Zod will actually get around to use his finger powers to telekinetically make Lex’s head explode. Non flies Luthor to the console. Lex sticks the green rave stick plot-device into the slot (hmm… the green plot device crystal? Want to bet the machine is going to do something weird in a second? Then again, the movie’s almost over and I don’t think the next movie will be called Normalman.) Superman, after seeing Zod nod in the chambers direction, heads into the chamber. No flashbacks or hallucinations this time. The Fortress turns red while the crystal chamber turns white. Superman, still in his Superman outfit, steps out, looking tired and defeated. Zod gestures towards Superman. “And now… finally.” Superman kneels before Zod. “Take my hand… and swear eternal loyalty to Zod.” Zod sticks out his hand. Superman grasps it… AND CRUSHES IT LIKE AN EGGSHELL. Zod, looking horrified, screams in pain. Ursa and Non look on in pants wetting fear. Superman picks up Zod in one hand and throws him across the room, where he then falls into a pit. Non tries to attack Superman, but falls into a pit when he tries to fly. Lex, master of the obvious, realizes that Superman switched the device so the red rays where on the outside, while he was safe in the crystal chamber. Superman then does this cute “gotcha” look and gives a little salute. Lois, realizing that Ursa is no longer invulnerable, calls her a pain in the neck and decks her. Hee. She falls and joins her comrades below. Lois runs to embrace Superman. He tells Lex he knew he was a double-crossing, lying weasel, and that he knew he would betray him. Well, he’s still more trustworthy and honest than Starscream at least. Lex goes into major suck up mode again, but Superman ain’t buying it. Lex tries to proposition Superman (seriously), and asks for a fresh start, wipe the slate clean. Say hi to Otis for us, Luthor! We won’t miss you. Superman and Lois fly around Metropolis. Lois says she expects to never fly with Superman again. What? Why? She promises to never tell anyone who Superman really is. Superman says he knows. He flies her to the balcony of her apartment and leaves. The camera pulls back from the apartment in a long shot, which makes you feel her loneliness as he abandons her. No Lana jokes, please. Daily Planet. Superman shows up as the office workers are trying to repair the damage to the building. He’s dressed as Clark, but Reeve conveys that he’s still in Superman mode – a tired, worried Superman. He puts his hat on the rack (again, no shoulder toss?!) and enter Lois’ office. Lois, visibly depressed, and wearing a truly hideous shirt, doodles on a piece of paper. Superman asks Lois how she slept last night. No bow-chick-chick-bow this time. She tells him she didn’t sleep at all; it’s hard listening to the sound of birds singing in the morning after crying all night. She compares him to a doctor who has to take off in the middle of the night, and that it tears her up that she has to share him with the rest of the world. The real subtext, however, is that by becoming Superman again, he belongs solely to the world, not her. She could have Clark Kent, but she can’t have Superman. Superman tries to reassure her, but she tells him not to tell her she’ll meet someone else; he’s a tough act to follow. True. She tells him not to worry, but he tells her he likes worrying about her. This scene is really hearbreaking to watch. Lester gets slammed a lot. Unfairly, because it’s mostly because he isn’t Donner. No one’s seen most of the Donner footage, but 50% of Superman I was good, the other 50% (everything Lex Luthor) was crap. Superman II had less cheese than the first one. Anyway. Lois starts completely losing it – she can’t love him, she can’t speak to him in the office, she can’t say that she knows who he is… she doesn’t even know what to call him. Call him… Mr. Underhill. Superman doesn’t know what to say. Lois echoes his words from earlier… “Say that you love me.” Superman takes off his glasses, and kisses Lois, looking both hopeful and miserable at the same time. I have to say that A) there’s some particularly nice John Williams music here B) Margot Kidder is doing a GREAT job playing a hysterical, miserable Lois C) Chris Reeve again looks very handsome here, and does a wonderful, subtle job in his facial expressions in playing a particularly different character despite wearing the “Clark” costume/clothes and D) again, Kidder and Reeve are one of the very very few on-screen actors with good romantic chemistry. Yowza. What a kiss. Shut up, guys can like good romance too. Besides, 99% of the time Hollywood does a crap job and recycles Moonlighting for the 90th time anyway. Lois, spellbound, doesn’t notice Superman put his glasses back on and become Doofy Reporter Clark Kent again. She falls down to her desk, confused and dizzy, another woman sees this and comes in to help, while Clark bumbles around and gets her some water. She blames her little spell on not getting orange juice. Are you sure it’s not withdrawal from smoking, hot dogs, and crystal meth? I bet it’s hot dog withdrawal. Clark continues to be super-dorky as he tells her to breath. Lois, in response to the woman’s inquiry, says she forgot what she was thinking before she collapsed. Her co-worker tells her it was probably Superman. Clark moans “Him again?” Lois, fully restored her normal Plucky Reporter Lois Lane self, tells him to stop feeling threatened every time he’s mentioned. (Of course, in a way, he IS threatened by himself after their relationship collapsed 30 seconds ago since she couldn’t handle it). She tells him that no one expects him to be anything but what he is (more irony) and that she appreciates him for what he is. He shyly asks, “You do?” Now somewhat chipper, with her tongue sticking out cutely as she starts banging on her typewriter (as opposed to Superman. Bow-chicka-chicka-bow) “Especially if you get me a hamburger.” At 9AM, With everything on it. Somewhat wierded out, he heads out the door. Oh, and OJ. Freshly squeezed. Shaken, not stirred. Make sure you remember to get a pink umbrella with it. As Clark walks out, he throws her a quick, sad look while she plays with her typewriter (dirty). After he leaves, Lois asks the other woman what’s going on in the world. She rolls her eyes at Lois and leaves. A lot got made here about comparing Superman wiping Lois’ memory to date rape. Okay, it was a stupid added power, but the complaints about him slipping her a roofie? Not valid. She knew who and what he was when they had sex. She was calm, collected and awake. Both of them had a little champagne, but nowhere near enough to get tipsy. Lois was in pain here, and it’s pretty clear that she’s probably not going to get over it any time soon, if ever. She can’t have the man she loves, and it’s not likely she can find someone anywhere near Superman’s caliber… and that’s just HIM, the man, not the superpowered guy in a spandex suit. It’s questionable about the morality of wiping her memory without her consent, though he meant well to keep the woman he loved from suffering. But in no way, shape or form should this be compared to date rape, as was flying around on message boards pretty heavily when Superman Returns came out. Diner o’ jackass truck drivers. Jackass is cramming food in his face, as Superman walks in, wearing the tan jacket from earlier. Jackass demands more helpings of this “garbage” he’s eating. Superman, looking like a really hard-core version of the “Clark” that was in the diner earlier, talks smack to Jackass, saying he’s never seen garbage eat garbage before. Jackass doesn’t care for being called a cannibal. He’s not even chowing down on flava beans and a nice chianti! Acting a bit nerdy, he tells Jackass that he thinks he’s sitting in his favorite seat. Jackass tells him to come and get it, four-eyes. Superman, nervously pushing his glasses up, slowly walks the length of the diner to Jackass. The Waiter begs Jackass to not get in another fight – he just blew a pile on getting the place fixed after the last time. Superman and Jackass, giving each other the stare o’ death, get ready to throw down. Jackass, in his love of cheap shots, throws a sucker punch to Clark’s, or should I Superman’s, gut. He gasps in pain as he breaks his hand. Superman puts him on a stool and spins it around at super-speed/speed-supreme. He then grabs Jackass, puts him on top of his plate of food, and tells the waiter “This order’s to go.” He pushes the guy hard enough to slide down the counter and land into a nearby pinball machine, breaking the glass and knocking his ass out cold. Superman apologizes for the damage and hands the waiter a wad of cash. He tells them he’s been working out, and takes his leave. Everyone in the resteraunt is grinning and happy about Superman/Clark putting the guy in a coma. Lester threw this in at the last minute, and while revenge can be sweet, this left a very nasty taste in my mouth. Revenge isn’t Superman’s thing. Still, could be worse, he could have an aversion to guns due to a childhood trauma, yet have machine guns built into his Pimpmobile, or blow up a factory with people inside, or slap a bomb on a scary clown that blows up seconds later (okay, that’s redundant since all clowns are scary), or brag to his old mentor figure that he won’t kill him, but he’ll out-of-characteristically passively aggressively kill him by letting him die in an explosion in a train, instead of saving more lives by, I don’t know, turning him over to the police and interrogating him about the League of Shadows’ operations to save more lives in the future, the same organization that’s been wiping out cities and countries for years? Somewhere not over the rainbow. Superman is flying through the air, carrying a gigantic American flag connected to a pole on a dome while the Superman theme plays. He lands on top of Whitehouse, next to the gigantic hole the Zod Squad left in the roof. It’s a replacement for the American flag they destroyed both literally and figuratively when they took over America earlier. Superman apologizes to the President for being away so long and promises he won’t let him down again. Well, unless he leaves the planet in an attempt to see if Krypton has any survivors, but hey! How likely is that to happen? Superman does a nice banking shot as he circles the planet and flies towards the sun. He smiles at the camera as we go to credits. So… AlMiles says they were inspired by the Superman movies when they made Smallville. So… why are Lex and Superman ambiguously gay, Clark a mopey, whiney pratt I can’t see making a hero sandwich, much less making himself the world’s foremost hero, Lois an irritating, muffin-peddling drop-out that I wish would die, Lex’s understanding of “security” is to leave his doors unlocked, Zod a bodiless spirit, banished to the Phantom Zone instead of just executed, who goes all Batman with his leather coat, and a pink squirrel the main character in a show about a supposedly future Superman? In Superman II, Superman actually acts like Superman, Lex, while incredibly irritating and not very bright, knows enough about security to break out of prison and break into both a fortress protected by advanced alien technology and a White House occupied by 3 super-criminals, a Lois that I actually LIKE whom is actually very very career-oriented and goal-driven, and, gasp! Superman is the main character in his own movie/show. Are they sure they based Smallville on the movies? And why is it that after 25 years, despite a recent glut of Superhero movies non-of them come near the quality of Superman II? I guess special effects and whiney characters, whipped by their love interest replaced things like plot and characterization. See: Spider-man I and II, Hellboy, Batman Begins, etc. Also, Superman II had a nice flow in the development of chracters an action. With modern movies, it's the same. Setup. Early action sequance. Whining with a love interest. Maybe another sequance if you're lucky. Bad guy kidnaps love interest. Final action sequance. Except for the last scene with Doctor Octopus in Spider-man 2, where jack all happens. Seriously, when you look at current movies in the overall structure, they're pretty interchangable. Very disappointing. And a big thank you to Terrance Stamp for making Zod such an iconic bad-ass, and to Chris Reeve for making Superman the #2 heroic figure of the 80's behind Optimus Prime. tag:www.awasteoffilm.com,2007://1.3 2007-01-22T04:35:46Z 2007-01-25T21:55:10Z

Before I get into the recap, I just want to say you all REALLY need to see the Superman III trailer; it's a gem. You know how trailers show ALL of the best parts of the movie? This does the...

shadow http://www.awasteoffilm.com Before I get into the recap, I just want to say you all REALLY need to see the Superman III trailer; it's a gem. You know how trailers show ALL of the best parts of the movie? This does the same thing, except it shows all of the WORST parts of the movie. It also pimps Richard Pryor to the exclusion of everyone else, especially Superman. The announcer keeps calling him “Richard Pryor” by name; it's pretty obvious that he was the golden boy for this movie; going by this trailer, you'd think Superman just has a couple of cameos in the movie called “Superman III.” It also lies that there's a plot that Gus is an evil mastermind instead of a complete tool (both as a cretin and as a henchmen). The movie itself lacks a real beginning, middle, and end. Oh, and did I forget to mention it SHOWS THE ENDING where the machine blows up, he rescues Gus, and flies off with him? Most 80's trailers were bad, but this one takes the cake. Well, first something nice; the DVD transfer looks pretty good. That's probably the only nice thing I'll have to say about this movie for the duration of the recap. Anyway, in an unemployment office, a lady at the window calls out “next”. We see Richard Pryor, having a lost-puppy, “oh my god, why did I sign on for this movie?” look on his face. He tells her his name's Gus Gorman. In a wide-shot, we see this lady, who's hair is waaaaaay bigger than she is (well, it's the 80's, so that's pretty common for everyone back then). Getting his file, she asks him if he's looked for work this week. Gus, ashamed, says “yes” while standing at a line on the floor, about 20 feet from the window. Who doesn't feel bad about the idea of working for your cash instead of stealing it? As we find out later, he is all about petty thievery. He's also playing with a yo-yo, which will be an important plot point later on, believe it or not. What type of work did he look for? “Kitchen Technician.” She sagely says “Dishwasher. Any luck?” “No.” See, they have these... these THINGS now which WASH THE DISHES FOR YOU! It's amazing. I have one in my kitchen. No, really! He walks up to the window. Big hair Lady tells him that according to his records, he's been unemployed for 36 weeks. He says 35. She agrees... but only not including THIS week. She continues; he was employed as a messenger in June and was discharged after losing – He interrupts, and whines that they SAID he lost it, but it was stolen by a pickpocket. She asks incredulously, a TV set? He says it was a super-tiny Japanese TV set. Um, you still lost an expensive piece of electronic equipment though. Not caring, she continues reading; his other employment was a fast food restaurant which lasted 28 minutes. He starts rattling about how they expect you to learn everything in one day, and he blah blahs about different ways to make a sandwich. Dude, when you freak out from learning this “difficult process” and wind up dropping your pants, punching your manager in the face, and jumping out a window, don't expect to stay employed. Fortunately, she cuts him off; the city of Metropolis is generous to a fault, but he's been living off them for 36 weeks of unemployment. What does that make him? A worthless comedian in a horribly unfunny movie? He cuts her off, whining that he's not a bum. She continues – She was going to say that he's No. Longer. Eligible. Next! Still being whiny, he wanders from the desk. While giving her the fishy eye, he asks a guy in line for a light. The guy gives him a book of matches. As he starts to light one, he reads the ad on the back. “Earn big money! Become a computer programmer!” He gives a dull look to the camera. Wow, he's really... not excited about this. Still, it's a good idea for a career change; if making sandwiches requires a degree, you can slum and do something much simpler like programming to pay the bills, right? Metropolis streets – a blond haired lady walks down some stairs; we’ll find out later that she’s named Lorelei Ambrosia. Some really lame “humor” music plays while the camera follows her around. A guy who’s too busy staring at her walks into a poll, then falls back onto a card-table where a guy’s selling mechanical penguins. As he hits the pole, we hear a loud “clank” noise. So... does he have a steel plate in his skull? Or is he one of John Conner's reprogrammed terminators who wants to “Explore” humanity (and Lori?) A girl on roller skates barely jumps over this mess, but accidentally runs into a hot dog cart and pushes it into a row of telephone booths, knocking them all over and breaking a table with a bunch of flowers on it. One of the people at the flower stand has a dog which runs off. Jimmy Olsen and Hotdog stand guy watch this, while in the background the Penguin guy tries to pickup all of his mechanical bird, who are all wandering off in a March of the Penguins. In the middle of the street, there’s a bunch of road work stuff, including what looks like a bunch of black balls with fire on top. A penguin runs into one and catches on fire. The dog from earlier runs by a blind man with his seeing-eye dog. The dog takes off after the other dog; a lady walking on the sidewalk carrying groceries gets knocked down. Uh, shouldn't a service dog be trained to be more behaved than that? It's the only way some blind people can get around, plus they have to be able to go into public buildings without causing havoc. A guy using one of those street yellow-line machines runs of to help her. The blind guy staggers around until he grabs the handle for the machines, then walks forward with it in hand. He would call for help, but I guess he's mute as well. In the meantime, Clark finds the burning penguin. Looking extremely shifty, he picks it up and blows it out with his freeze breath. After putting it down, he puts some coins in a newspaper machine and grabs a paper at the front, but accidentally rips out a page instead. Not caring that much, he puts it under his arm and walks down the street. Despite BEING ON FIRE, the penguin still works and wander off. Blind guy is walking around in circles with the machine. A guy walking down the street sees a penguin about to fall into a big manhole pit thing, so he runs over and grabs it. Blind guy accidentally knocks him in the hole, then staggers around after letting go of the machine, and steps on the head of the guy who's trying to get out of the hole in the ground. Blind guy walks into a wall, saying “Excuse me.” while the guy in the hole looks resigned to being in a horrible movie. So, if he's not mute WHY ISN'T HE CALLING FOR HELP? I know it gets frustrating being handicapped and wanting to be able to function without help non-stop, but you lost your dog, dude, and got turned around so much there's NO WAY he knows exactly where he is anymore. Bank. A guy in a ski-mask tears out of the Century Bank, with security guards shooting guns at him. He slides down a marble banister and runs into traffic. Guess his mom forget to tell him to look both ways before crossing the street. That, or it only applies when people aren't shooting guns at you. A security guy accidentally shoots a passing car in the front tire, which careens off the road and onto a fire hydrant. While cops runs down the street after the robber, the guy in the car is stuck and can't get out as it starts filling up with water (wha-?). The driver seems strangely unconcerned about drowning, and maybe 5 people seem to care about this, but none of the doors open. Maybe he figures the trade-off of dying for a free cleaning of his filthy car is worth it. You know, it's a pity there isn't a hardware store or, say, a road crew with heavy construction tools 30 feet away in direct line-of sight. Clark, seeing this, heads into one of those photo-booths on the street. A kid and his mother are next to it. She gives the brat some money that he sticks in the machine. A bunch of lights go off. Superman steps out, shocking the pair. He stops and grabs the photos. Each one shows him changing from Clark to Superman. He tears off the last one and gives it to the boy. See, it's okay to steal if you only take MOST of someone else's property He flies across the street to the car. The Superman theme plays, though it loses its power because it's not by John Williams, and this is a rather boring and mundane rescue. The screen is kind of blurry here for no reason. He gets on the roof of the car and tears it open in front of the small crowd on the street. He pulls out the apparently drowned driver half-way out, who now seems fine. They shake hands while we get a close-up of Jimmy saying “Way to go, Superman!” As Supes leaves, some painters on a scaffolding turn to wave. One of the painters accidentally knocks over a bucket. A bit of paint lands on the front of an old guys jacket. Not looking at it, he touches it and thinks it's rain and puts up his umbrella. Noticing the lack of rain, he puts it back down only to have some paint, followed by the bucket, land on his head. He staggers into a gum ball machine and breaks in it. He falls down and a mime and another by passer pretend to step on the gum balls and fall. Umbrella guy still makes no effort to take the bucket off in the background; I guess he's turning it into a fashion statement. While the Mime keeps flopping around like a dying fish instead of just standing up, Blind guy continues to stagger around and walks through a really really big painting some people are moving. By coincidence, he finds his dog. A guy from a catering truck and Clark, walking around the painting, walk towards Lorelei. In a REALLY confusing bit of choreography, I guess the caterer slips? as she almost runs into him. Uh, wait, he stepped on a gum ball. Regardless, it looks really fake. As the guy falls down, Clark grabs a pie that almost hits Lori in the face and turns around to watch her go, neatly hitting another guy in the face with the pie. Clark, looking slightly embarrassed, pushes his glasses up his nose and leaves instead of apologizing to the guy who's face he just slapped a pie into... and he was on a diet too! Oh, and the pie-d guy is the one who got stepped on by the Blind Guy earlier, though he seems to have manifested a hat from nowhere. Archibald School of Data Processing. Some people are looking out the window, several floors off the street, watching the whole mess. An instructor is at a small chalkboard, while we hear a computer voice say “Your drink is on its way”. It better be QUICK if you want a good tip, buddy. A woman calls for help, asking what to do if you want to program two bilateral coordinates at once. He says, nope. She says if you can't- Um, no, impossible, even with super-cool computers. Or you can, but it's one of those schools where they hire any schmo off the street, even if they don't know anything about what they're teaching, just like that Nigerian guy I had for four classes back in community college. She says well, if you say they can't do it that way, what happens when they – Gus calls for attention; he did it. How'd he do that? Dunno, just did. Uh, yeah, sure. If you don't know EXACTLY what you're doing, your program either won't work, will crash, or turn into something malicious and screw up the computer. If the C++ compiler had a personality, it would laugh at you. DP. We see a closeup of a black and white photo of a tux-sportin' Lex Luthor wannabe Ross Webster. Jimmy tells Perry and Lois that he just won the humanitarian award for the year, while Lois drools over him and calls him good-looking. He is, but only if your perceptions are warped due to being high on hot dogs and orange juice, like Lois. Perry whines that Lois wrote the story about how he got he award, while Jimmy took only one picture of him and 15 pictures of the blonde womab from earlier. Who is she? Lois cuts in – “She's just Webster's. Let's just leave it at that.” Or you could just call her his girlfriend, but relations between men and women are a dirty concept. It's only okay if you're in an arranged marriage and don't see each other until the day of the wedding, then you have to sleep in separate beds except when you try to have children, then you have to feel horrible and try not to cry during the process. We see a close-up picture of another, more plain looking woman who looks like her eyeballs are about to pop out. Perry asks who she is; Vera Webster, his sister. Why does the picture look fuzzy? Jimmy's all, what? Lois steps in; looking somewhat disheartened, she tells him the picture's fine, she looks like that in real life. After seeing this movie about 12 times over the last 20 years (gods I feel old) I THINK this is implying she's got the whole bearded lady thing going on, but one, a fuzzy photograph would make ALL of her look messed up, and two, the actress doesn't look like she has even a tiny amount of facial hair. In fact, while not beautiful, she is still attractive looking. Tyra Banks, on the other hand, has had closeups showing her to have a mustache. Jimmy goes on; she's VP of Webscoe. Perry cuts him off; he complains that he sent Jimmy to a boring banquet and that he got 3,000 boring pictures, yet Superman saves a guy from drowning earlier and Jimmy stood there and didn't bring a single picture. So... he DIDN'T want pictures of the banquet he sent Jimmy to? As to the Superman thing, it's so minor I doubt anyone cares, it's not like the time he kept Lex from nuking California or overthrew an alien dictator and his cronies. Jimmy whines that he didn't have his camera with him. Perry rants that a good photographer sleeps and eats with his camera. I doubt even Jimmy's desperate enough to sleep with his camera. Well, except for that one time when his Blow-up Wanda was in the shop for repairs. Lois steps between them and says she's glad she's a writer. Lois must have her brains REALLY fried from her addictions if she thinks that was clever. A lady wheels in a really big “Jingo” machine and says it's time for Perry to pick this month's winner. This month the prize is a trip to South America. Clark enters the room and tells everyone hello. He tells Jimmy about some mustard on his lapel and then tries to talk to Perry. Perry cuts him off; he's busy getting the piece of paper out of the Jingo machine. Lois says that they're never going to replace the printing press (whu-?). Perry tells the Jingo lady the number is 53. She open the door and yells the number to the office workers and tells Perry he needs to pull another three numbers. Seeing as how Perry complained this was being pushed by Circulation, shouldn't that be a contest for their readers? Company employees are usually banned from entering those type of contests. Clark continues; he says he told some people he would call them back today, and he wants to know what Perry thinks. Perry isn't sure. Clark thinks it would make a terrific story! Lois perks up. “What's a terrific story?” Perry tells her Clark's been invited to his high school reunion. Lois is all, saaaaay. How awesome it is to be crammed in a gym with people you haven't seen in years, so you can feel awful that they're more successful than you or make fun of the losers! Jingo lady wants the next number. Clark says it's practically an American institution ,right Jimmy? The captions call it an “American ritual” though. Jimmy doesn't know, most of the people he knew in high school are still in high school. So, either he's a rather old-looking high-school dropout or he comes from a town of inbred hillbillies, where the average age for graduating is thirty-two. Perry pulls out the next number; 33. Clark continues his pitch; it'll be about how a typical small town has changed over the last 15 years. Clark says “Take me for example. Can I go back to middle America now as a Metropolis sophisticate?” Can he do without hot dog vendors on every corner, and shifty guys constantly trying to sell him watches from an overcoat? Once again, the subtitles don't match the dialog. Is it really THAT hard to transcribe from a copy of the script? Clark thinks this rocks; he even went through his closet last night and found his old sweater. He holds a red school sweater with a big yellow S to his chest. Lois gets a calculating look on her face. Clark looks down. Uh, Smallville, dude. Actually, it stands for “stupid”, just like this script. Clark asks if he can go ahead and make a travel plan. Lois says she wants to ask the same thing. She knows the movie's going to blow and wants to blow out of there, if possible. Perry okay's it; call the people and tell them that the prodigal son and his photographer are coming home. Prodigal usually means reckless or a ridiculous spendthrift. Glad to know that the Editor of a major newspaper has a poor vo- vocab- vocib- uh, he doesn't know the meaning or proper use of words. Clark's happy and waves at Jimmy, who gives him a thumbs up. Perry goes and pulls out another Jingo ball. Perry says it's tough to lose one of his best reporters. Clark says it's okay. Perry continues; but Lois deserves the vacation. Actually, Margot Kidder was very vocal about her disapproval of how the Salkinds booted Richard Donner off Superman II, so they only had her appear for two scenes at the beginning and end of the movie. Given how bad this movie is, this was a blessing in disguise. While not great, her wardrobe is far better than the last two movies, which is ironic since she's barely in the movie. Clark looks pissed. He asks Lois if she has to go somewhere. She tells him that some people get to go all the way to Smallville, and there are others who have to go to – she whips out a red bikini top- Bermuda. I REALLY could have done without seeing that. Clark's all “Golly.” She tells everyone bye, leaving the office. Jingo lady asks for the last number. Clark says he better get going as well, somewhat forlorn that no-one in the room seems to care. He repeats this and seems to be pissed about this. I'm getting the idea that Reeve was REALLY unhappy about this movie from this scene. Perry has been struggling to open one of those plastic balls with the number inside, and finally just bellows if they just can't get a computer to do this instead. Well, they could hire trained monkeys instead, seeing as how this movie seemed to be written by one, and the whole theme is “technology is bad.” Close up on a computer screen with a bunch of text on it. We see a wide shot of a room with a bunch of guys working at computers, with the sign “Webscoe Industries Data Processing Center” over a door. For some reason, a bunch of them are wearing ear-protection muffs. Well, old-school keyboards were pretty loud, particularly when a dozen people at once are banging away in a small space. Our old pal Gus is playing on a computer as an old guy goes by and drops mail at his desk. He opens it “What is this?!”. A letter asking Richard Pryor to never ever make another “comedy” again. Another guy tells him it's his first pay check. Uh, it was supposed to be $225 a week, it's $143.80. How's he supposed to live off that? Better question, why did he take a job where the recruiter would tell him he's not going to be paid squat anyway? Better yet, I don't think it's been more than a couple of days since he was in class, so how'd he get hired as a programmer that quick? He rattles off states tax, federal tax, social security tax. Guy tells him that's so he'll still get some money when he's 65. Twenty-years later, that makes it the most unintentionally hilarious line in the movie. Gus wants his now, so he can envoy it while he's young so get can get up and get down, boogie. If you call acting like a complete spazz and sitting in the corner of a bar where no one will talk to you because you're a blatantly dorky-freak, “getting down.” He and the guy walk down a hallway towards the cafeteria. Guy tells him that it's more like $143.80 and a half cent. The corporations always round down any fractions. Gus is all, what's he supposed to do with half-a-cent, buy a thoroughbred mouse? (Huh?) Gus wants to know if everyone gets screwed over like that. Guy tells him it's not like they can collect that from the paycheck either. Or, they could rig up the automated program to give you that cent every other pay-day so they're not technically underpaying you. So where are those half-cents? Dunno, floating around somewhere where only the computer knows where. The Phantom Zone? Guy asks how many sugars Gus wants. We get a cheesy mini-closeup and tinkerbell music. “One and a half!” He grins. Later, everyone's leaving the computer room for the day. They're changing out of sneakers into their regular shoes. What? I'm not super familiar with “clean rooms” but if they needed a CR, it's usually for making stuff like CPUs and hard drives. They're working in the Data Processing department. If they WERE working in a clean room for some reason, they'd all be wearing moon suits like in the Intel commercials. Well, that and we'd get to see some amusing dancing which is better than what's in the rest of the movie. Guy reminds Gus it's quitting time, but Gus says he's going to stay for a bit and finish some stuff up. That's code speak for “I'm going to use my computer to download bad porn.” Guy's all, working overtime, huh? Looking for a raise? Uh, yeah. Going by one of my old professors, working unauthorized over-time at IBM gets you fired (seriously, he ALMOST got fired for doing this when a server went down and his co-workers needed his help to get it back up IMMEDIATELY). He types in the account code from his check. He hacks into the payroll system and literally types “override all security.” I could only buy that if they were running the Master-Control program as the O/S, but then again, we would be watching Tron and it'd suck Gus into the computer so he can fight in some gladiatorial games. Of course, we'd get some “wacky antics,” ruining another movie I actually liked. Numbers and letters appear in random spots all over the screen while he giggles. The main menu for the payroll system pops up. He uses a stylus to slide across “amend expenses account details.” Amendment Function Selected. Give instructions for amendment. He types in “Channel half cents from all Webscoe salaries into above expense account.” He's all, “You bet.” And when the accounting department gets this e-mail, they're going to laugh at the idea that some low-level schmuck thinks he can sucker them into give him a bunch of money without any authorization from a superior or receipts. On a bus in the middle of nowhere. Clark, wearing a hideous powder-blue suit, is next to a guy who's rambling about how his uncle Al on his father's side won't eat her stuffing. This movie is a bad comedy, but it's also lacking an intelligent script, so they probably didn't intend that double entendre. He says it should be on the outside of the turkey but she says it should be on the inside. Either way works, dude, though I find it easier and less disgusting to get the delicious stuffing if I don't have to pull it out like poo from the rectum of a dead bird. He rambles some more, with Clark visibly annoyed and trapped, but Clark cuts him off when he sees a factory on fire on the side of the road. A cop waves them down, telling them that they can either turn back or pull onto the side of the road until it's all over. Seeing as how there's a SECOND ROAD just past the gate twenty feet away, this road block exists just to keep the “plot” moving. How long will it be? Dunno, the fire is spreading like... wildfire. Clark gets up and exits the bus. Even without super-powers, it's better walking 200 miles than spending another second with Turkey Guy. Driver is all, it's just a building. Cop is all, Uh, chemical plant dude. If it gets on fire, things will get pretty hairy. Going by the silver-age Lex Luthor, it'll make you really UN-hairy, but whatever. Jimmy gets off the bus. He's wearing an actually spiffy outfit like a real photo-journalist. The one (and only) thing this movie has over I and II is that the wardrobe department was MUCH better. Jimmy and Clark squat behind a cop car. Jimmy wants Clark to distract the cops from what they're doing. He's all, bwuh? Jimmy is all, Perry says a photographer always goes after a story. No, he said you should use your camera to eat with instead of utensils, as well as have sex with it. Clark points out it could be dangerous. Jimmy, trying to be suave, tells him that danger is all part of the territory. Reeve looks kind of disgusted and not really doing his “Clark” act. The cop who was literally 2 feet away from them in direct line of sight didn't notice this. Jimmy runs behind a yellow firetruck entering the plant property. The same cop, FOLLOWING HIM WITH HIS HEAD watches his go and doesn't seem to care. Clark gets into the backseat of the cop car, closes the door, and comes out the next side as Superman. It actually looks like he changed instantaneously, so it's pretty cool. The cop in the front is slightly confused. We see a bunch of firefighters, well, fighting fires. There's a lot of flaming and firemen spraying water everywhere, even getting wet themselves. Everything else in the movie is heterosexual here on out. The open a door and have a guy come running out who's on fire and screaming for help. Ow. In one of the most awkward piece of wire work I have ever seen, Superman lands behind the fire chief, who's just shrugging into a jacket, and asks how he can help. Chief is all, get this man a helmet, looks at him, and just says “Oh, it's you.” This is Superman, he just confused him with his favorite guy at the local strip club. “How bad is it?” Oh, every thing's either explosive, or flammable, or worse (worse?). By worse they mean they have the script for Superman IV in there. Noooooooooo! We see a bunch of workers trapped on a walkway. He wants a ladder up to rescue them, but another guy tells them it won't reach. “My god, they're trapped!” Superman flies off. Chief looks slightly surprised. Guy wonders what's he going to do, fly them one down at a time? Superman lands on the roof, again extremely awkwardly. It's looking like Reeve either put on some weight or there's some problem with the rig they're using that makes the front of the costume look deformed. He pulls a really large pipe off the roof and lies it down so they can use it as a slide to the ground. Weeeeee! They slide down, a second later there's an explosion along the slide. Jimmy sneaks up the side of the firetruck and climbs to the top of the ladder to get an aerial view for his photos. He's got lots of practice for climbing things when he was a peeping Tom in high school. Last week, too. Superman opens the door to an office. A scientist is walking around and tells him to look after everyone else; he can't leave. He seems... awfully unconcerned about burning to death. He tells Superman he has to stay to look after some containers of Beltric acid. Yeah, staring at the acid will make it stay frosty, instead of just getting some splashed in your face when the building collapses. If it heats up over 180 degrees there will be a crisis that makes the fire look like a picnic. So, Yogi Bear is behind the fire? Guess they didn't take his threat seriously about burning down the factory if they didn't give into his demands for a picnic basket. If Smokey the Bear shows up and they throw down, this movie would get an automatic “A”, even if the rest of it gives me a “clawing my own eyes own while screaming in horror” reaction. We see through a window into a large room filled with vats. Supes asks what it does. As long as it's stable, it's just a normal acid (could you be a LITTLE more vague? HOW ACIDIC?). If it heats it, it'll turns volatile and turn into a cloud that will eat through anything. Odd... it's almost like this rather boring factory-fire sequence was setup solely to create a plot-device to be used later in the movie. Nah, what are the chances of that? Chris has a really disgusted look on his face. He continues; “Steel, concrete, anything.” So.... it won't just eat through anything, it'll also eat through anything? Fascinating. Or redundant. Well, just redundant. More shots of the fire from outside, with more flaming, spraying, wet firefighter action For some reason, the workers left a truck with a trailer full of fuel right next to one of the biggest fires. I'm sure this obvious gaff has nothing to do with the company going under and just happening to have taken a major insurance policy out last week. Firefighters FINALLY notice the dorky guy on top of their truck and tell him to get off of there. Hopefully, just literally since there aren't any girls for him to look at this time. Jimmy yells that he just wants a couple of more shots. At that moment, another explosion shoots out, causing a piece of metal to hit the bottom of the ladder, breaking it in half and dropping Jimmy on the roof. Jimmy collapses in pain. In the chemical room, a wall gets blown in and fire starts approaching the vats. Superman takes off while the scientist tells him to tell the firefighters to bring their hoses back there. The HoYay! just writes itself. We get a closeup of the room thermometer showing the temperature rising. In a really bad blue screen, we see Jimmy moaning for help behind some fire as Superman is nearby. Superman casually strolls through the fire. Why not just use your super-breath? Well, this movie blows enough as it is. Jimmy moans about his leg. In more awful wire-work, we see Superman fly with Jimmy in his arms. He lands next to the fire chief, and calls for medics He puts Jimmy on a gurney. Jimmy asks about his camera. Uh, it's on your neck, homeboy. Supes uses his X-Ray vision on Jimmy's left leg. We see a red bone special effect. He says it's a clean break across the fibula. Jimmy continues moaning about his camera Superman tells him sorry and that he'll be okay. Jimmy, I'm sure you'll find another camera you're comfortable sticking your lense into, as well as being useful for taking pictures. Superman runs to the Chief and tells him that if they can't get the fire out there'll be a cloud of acid all over the Eastern seaboard. Yeah, I'm sure that they're not already motivated about stopping the fire at a chemical plant and don't know what they\re doing. Maybe Superman should call some professionals to handle it, like the fire department. Suddenly there's an explosion; firefighters call out that the pump house is gone as their hoses stop shooting water. We get a closeup of a fire fighter's waist, where he's holding his hose as it stops shooting water. Do I really need to say anything here? In a really, really cheesy bit, the Chief drama-queens that they have to have water! Another firefighter tells him that Lake Comooga's five miles away, they'd need a five mile hose. Superman asks them where the lake is. “That way!” He takes off. In the meantime a firefighter gives up with the truck after playing with some switches (again, a close-up at waist level); “Tell them it's hopeless.” The Chief starts talking into his radio, telling someone to tell them that they were told they had an adequate water supply, how was he supposed to-? This has never happened before, I swear! Superman finds the lake. He lands next to it and in some REALLY bad special effects freezes over the whole lake with his freeze breath. He then grabs the edge of the ice and lifts the thin layer covering the lake. Back in the lab, the scientist is bugging out as the room turns orange from the flames. Superman flies over the countryside with the ice. He then drops the whole thing on the factory. It melts just fast enough so it “rains” on the factory instead of crushing it. Firefighters cry out “Water!” while they dance and do group se- I mean, group hugs. In the lab, the room turns back from red to green while the scientists lets out his breath in relief. As Superman flies away, the Chief says “I tell you, that mans a miracle!” No, we don't get the anvils of a Jesus Christ parallel until Superman Returns. Night. Outside a building we see a sign announcing it's the High School reunion for the class of 1965 as a bunch of dressed up people walk in. Inside – it's a gym and everyone is boogieing down. I get a flashback to Carrie, even though I've only seen the last ten minutes. I did read the whole book, but I was unimpressed, just like with King's other works. Lots of people who look like they're in their 20's dance. Plastic surgery just for a school reunion? Whatever, dude. We see a bunch of Smallville S hats on sale for $3. Considering how ugly they are, even $3 is asking too much. We see a closeup of a large black and white poster of a pouty looking football player “Brad Wilson – All state 64”. In front of it, we see the modern, mustached Brad who's completely hammered and reminiscing about a game with someone else. We get a close-up under a table of a teenage DJ's crotch as he dances. Seriously. What is it with crotch shots in this movie? Meanwhile, an old lady is telling Clark that he's really grown. Oh, you better believe it. Clark, sporting a VERY cool white tux, tells her she looks very well. Once more, Reeve gives off this vibe of not wanting to be there. While she's rambling about her health, his face lights up as he ignores her as he sees his mom, who looks younger than in the first movie. Wait, that's Martha from the Smallville TV show, not the first movie. We have the ever-lovin' gorgeous Annette O'Tool playing.... Lana Lang! Nooooo, come back! You'll like this version of Lana, honest! Despite being butter-cup yellow, a color I'm not particularly fond of, her dress looks pretty cool. They catch sight of each other and look pleasantly shocked, as they mouth each others names in wonderment. We also get a brief closeup of a black and white poster of a young Lana, and she looks like a young AoT. Actually, she looks like a mix of AoT and Kristen Kreuk, so it's pretty weird. We get a closeup of a black and white yearbook photo of Clark as well. Clark excuses himself; he saw someone he'd really like to have sex with then mind wipe at the end of the movie, I mean, say hello to. Going all googly-eyed, they give each other a quick smack on the lips as the complement each other. Clark tries to help out with some stuff she's carrying while grabbing her bowl of sauce, but she says she's fine. He tries to keep up with her as she walks to the front. She mentions it's the first time he's been back since his mom died. Dude, we got cheated out of a death scene, there. We SHOULD have seen it as it's like the last step in growing up (or becoming Superman) when your parents are gone, and you're truly on your own. Martha deserved some screen-time, not an off-screen death. Lana gives some paper plates to the DJ, who is understandably confused. Clark mentions he heard that she and Donald had broken up, while she wonders if he's eaten yet. Clark finally catches up as she grabs a ladle of food to put on the records; which she realizes isn't right. Lana comes off as a bit scatter-brained and not the brightest, but in an endearing way. She tells him he's right about Donald, and she'll be back in a sec. In the meantime, someone says hello to Clark, and blows him off when he tries to talk. Lana, after switching the records for the paper plates, makes it back. Brad spots her as she gets back to Clark and calls out her name. Brad walks over and pats Lana on the shoulder “Remember when you were prom queen? All these guys were waiting in line for a dance with you? There's only one guy on your dance card now. Good old-” Clark interrupts “-Brad Wilson.” Clark, while cold, says hello and holds out his hand. Brad says hello back, but doesn't try to shake,.never having managed to pass Obedience School, like his dog. Brad, you're supposed scratch on the door if you need to go out, not pee on the floor, just FYI. “Long time, no see!” He points at his glasses “You know, see, see, see?” Brad wants Lana to dance, but she smoothly lies that she can't; Clark already asked her. She grabs his arm. “I did.” “Yeah.” Even if Brad wasn't a total tool, she showed enough lust earlier that she'd dance with him first anyway. As we'll see later, she takes him on a picnic so he can eat her pate'. No, that's not a euphemism. They go to dance. I'd care more about this “romantic rival” if it was Lana's ex-husband, not some random guy we never see evidence that she even dated. Clark does a dance that makes the guys from Revenge of the Nerds look cool; uh, his public Clark persona is a nerd, but he's not pathetic. This is even worse than Sam Raimi's Peter Parker. Lana is amused by these antics. The song changes to “Earth Angel” and they slow dance. Due to the lack of a live band, I'm disappointed that I can't make a Back to the Future joke. She looks really happy. Annette's pretty good here, but she doesn't quite have the chemistry Kidder did with Reeve. Webscoe Payroll Department. Gus is at his computer as the mail guy drops off his check for the week. Gus is all, uh, isn't there another check? I had some... expenses. Mail Guy checks; “Oh, yeah, here you go”. For the trivia oriented, the check was for the week ending 03/04/83. Oh, and the amount is for $85, 879.90 They even SIGNED OFF on the check. Shouldn't the accounting department be a LITTLE curious about a new expense account, much less one for over $85,000? Then again, maybe they're used to big checks for the execs who go to Vegas for the weekend and write off their spending on gambling, blow, and hookers as business expenses. Gus is all happy about it. I think he is. Richard Pryor does the most miserable expression of joy I've ever seen. He leans back and moans in ecstasy. Ew. Smallville High gymnasium. Lana and Clark are cleaning up the mess from the night before. For the concerned at TWoP, she's wearing a pink sweater, but unlike with Kristen Kreuk, it works well with her coloring and her white pants. Yeah, I care about fashion. I'd care more about male fashion if I could get my hands on more Indonesian shirts, plus my favorite shorts they don't make anymore, and if men weren't stuck with ugly generic t-shirts and 3-piece suits. I'd like some variety. Uh, wait, what am I supposed to be doing? Recap. Right. She thanks him for helping out. He says a lot of guys would like to be where he is right now. She tells him that he'd be surprised at the number of offers she didn't get. Not one? Usually you can guilt-trip at least one or two people into helping. What about everyone who helped setup this shindig in the first place? She says even Brad didn't stay. Well, he had a date with a booze bottle and looking at his old football photos, while crying about how his life peaked in high school. She tells him it really isn't easy. He thinks she's talking about the streamers he's pulling down. She means everything. For some reason, she feels like she can talk to Clark. He's the only one who stayed, and not even her imaginary friends will listen to her anymore, so it's not much of a compliment. He tells her he always wished that should would; even back in high school, like when she was Prom Queen. Unlike with Smallville, the TV series, this comes less as “obsession” and more as “shyness,” which is good. She tells him “Three years after the royal wedding, the king abdicated.” She's probably referring to a tabloid story about Queen Elizabeth secretly getting married. After finding him cheating on her with the butler, he didn't so much “abdicate” as get “locked in an iron mask and stuck in a dungeon forever.” We see her looking at a gigantic poster of her and Brad from high school. AoT looks FABULOUS in that picture. “Isn't that terrible?” As Clark starts to agree, she rushes off – she was talking about the huge amount of leftover potato salad. I hate potato salad, so it's perfectly understandable. The whole thing with mothers guilt-tripping you into eating horrible food because children in other countries are starving doesn't quite work in the long run. She asks Clark if he knows what the problem was. “Too much mayonnaise?” She asks “Donald loved mayonnaise. Why would that be the problem?” Because while he said he liked it, he didn't meant it in the “food” sense. Didn't she ever wonder why he moved in with his buddy Phil after the divorce? Before he can respond, she tells him the problem is why does she stay in Smallville? Probably because of that freaky kid who sticks people in the cornfield if they try to leave or play music. She tells him he's lucky to live in “the big apricot” Apparently part of the problem is Ricky. Ricky? Her kid, dude. Clark's sincerely all, that's cool. Lana goes on; at least in Smallville she has a house and a job as a secretary. True, moving can be tough, but if she sells the house she can get an apartment for a bit until she gets a job, but that's too obvious a solution I guess. Last winter was a problem with fuel bills shooting up, so she had to pawn her diamond ring, as well as her other kid. Good thing those sweat shops are always looking for more cheap labor. At this point, things get a bit AWK-ward. The ring was an artifact of a failed marriage, do you really want that type of reminder with yo