The Superman movies

Trying to honestly and accurately assess and review these movies is very difficult and frustrating, because they take your mind into a completely different direction than they almost violently show your emotions towards.

Emotionally, these movies are 'extremely charming'. They have that late seventies and early eighties 'atmospheric energy' that's always impossible to explain, and yet you can sometimes even identify the exact year purely by feeling it (happened to me more than once, I didn't know the year of some TV show or movie, but I determined it by what it felt like, and always hit the correct year - you can't do this with modern movies, because they don't have such 'atmosphere-energy', however you want to word it).

Of course, in addition to the pure atmosphere-energy-feeling (whatever you want to call it), these movies also have so many other 'charm points', such as the absolutely magnificent score soundtracks, Jon Williams is called a genius for a reason.

The other, pretty obvious points are the actors and their on-screen charisma and ability to grab you and make you like them quite a gosh-darned lot. Who could watch these movies and not absolutely love Christopher Reeve's depictions as Clark and Kal-El?

Now, I don't personally like the female characters or actors, but I don't think anyone can question their talent and performances. The villains are great, I have a soft spot for Otis, and everyone's energy works so well in harmony together (yes, I don't use the word 'chemistry', because it's idiotic and nihilistic materialism that worships this clumsy rock's so-called, limited, spiritual side-hating 'science' that would just be called childish in a better world, plus, that word already means something very specific, why try to warp meanings of words just because you can't tell the truth about energy in this world without getting a backlasth from apes that don't like you mocking their 'eating-ticks-from-your-hair' techniques that you are not very good at?)

There's a lot of 'heart' and 'emotion' in these movies, but when you take a step back from being mesmerized by all the emotional energy, and start really focusing on the story, everything falls apart.

1) Too much 'romance' crap that Superman comics kept to a minimum (Superman dreaming about kissing Wonder Woman was done tastefully by Byrne, I didn't mind that one, but these movies are SYRUPY)

2) The stories are not very interesting (your generic 'villain comes and tries to take over the world, superman defeats villain' stuff isn't very imaginative here - my favorite Superman comic story at least involves ancient civilizations and mirrors what actually happened in Atlantis, teaches us about spiritual abilities that can open too soon creating havoc and megalomanic greed that can take over if you are not trained to handle such powers - well, the comic didn't go that far in it, but real life did).

3) Almost nothing makes any sense (well.. what did you expect me to say?)

4) The stories don't really go anywhere, do anything, resolve anything in a satisfactory way, and use too much goofy silliness that increases with each movie.

5) Superman never does anything too 'super', just your run-of-the-mill stuff, compared to all the amazing things (somethings purely intellectually) he does in the comics.

6) There's supposed to be a 'cosmic scale' in the stories, but they feel like they happen in a very tiny place, there's no proper scope allowed (in comics, Superman even goes to other planets and has adventures in the last Kryptonian city he keeps in the Fortress of Solitude), not just say 'bad vibrations' to some common thugs.

There's so much potential here, but it's pretty much wasted. Even as a kid, you have to wonder why there's so much build-up with so little climactic resolution.

I wish movies could actually take you to places, the way books and computer/video games used to be able to. The way your own imagination can. The way your dreams (when your body sleeps) can. But nope, they're just 'here's a spectacle that makes no sense, so buy some overpriced popcorn and go home'.

Sigh.

They COULD be so much more...