Two more movie reviews

Superman Returns is simply a painful movie to watch. I have mad it clear that I’m not a big fan of Superman, but I was hoping for a better story, more action, and a great Lex Luthor, but I got none of it. The movie takes place after the first two Superman movies (throw out the shitty ones) and has Superman returning after five years. He makes it known that he went to his home planet to see if it was still there or not. Superman comes back and things are pretty much the same as they were, except now Ms. Lane is engaged (to Cyclops!!) and has a child that is a little two sickly. There are a few action sequences, Superman saves a crashing plane and foils a bank robbery, but little in the way of action in the first two hours. Lex Luthor himself switches between vanilla evil bad guy to someone who hates Superman because he doesn’t share technology. In the end there is another land sale based plot that is weak and doesn’t give Lex Luthor justice. The last half hour is when the shit hits the fan, but it really doesn’t. The fictional city of New York, I mean Metropolis, is hit with some natural disasters but they are ultimately weak to what they should be. Superman fight Kumar, that was pretty cool. In the end Superman wins because he’s Superman which is stupid.

My main beefs with this movie is that this isn’t so much a sequel as it is an homage to the original two movies. There are a lot of parallel scenes that are just different enough. The plot is essentially the same as the first movie. Also there is an attempt to make this a deeper movie, but the characters are just too shallow. Superman is good, Lex Luthor is bad, Clark Kent is a dweeb and Lois Lane is a career minded professional. Finally Lois’s son wasn’t needed and takes away from the movie. No one is fooled about this character and it simply wasn’t needed. What was good about this movie was Kumar beating up Superman and that Superman does not rip off his super symbol and fling it at the enemy like in Superman 2. I do not recommend watching this movie unless you wish to satisfy a curiosity about a movie that took something like 15 years to make.

The Devil Wears Prada is not an action movie at all but involves a fashion inept Andy Sachs (Anne Hathaway who isn’t ever topless) working for a stuck up bitch of a boss who is the number one fashion magazine editor Miranda Priestly (Meryl Streep). Both performances are top notch especially Meryl Streep whose performance alone makes it worth seeing. We get to see Andy dive into her work because it could be an opportunity of a lifetime and even become successful at it. Andy overtakes the other assistant Emily (Emily Blunt) who first hates her because how fashion deficient Andy is, then hates her because Andy does her job better. As Andy starts putting in all sorts of hours, and gainig fashion her personally life with her boyfriend begin to slip, and persistent freelance writer, Christian Thompson tries to move in. At first I did not like this aspect of the plot but it turns up really good and answers some strange plot questions that you may have.

In the end Andy needs to make some choices and the ones she makes fits with the movie and not with what should be expected. She learns from each of her choices and from each of her failures and it is fascinating to watch her character morph. There are certainly several scenes that are classic. One where Miranda proves that fashion is important and how Andy wearing something unfashionable is linked to the world of fashion. One of the primary characters getting hit by a car is certainly classic. Well there are many more but I don’t want to spoil the movie, watch it for even a a person that thinks fashion is silly (like me) loved this movie. I have no doubt that it will be one of the best movies that I will see this year.