MOVIES: Superman Takes Off On IMAX

This Wednesday IMAX will be featuring another Big Summer Blockbuster, Superman, but it's going to be a little different than usual. This is the first time a Hollywood live-action movie has been converted into IMAX 3-D. With some new high falootin' technology IMAX is able to convert 2D into 3D for about twenty minutes of the film. Those twenty minutes I hear are going to be of the spectacular aerial shots of Superman speeding through the sky. I'm pretty much a fan boy when it comes to this kind of stuff so I am obviously excited. There have been some early reviews mostly positive but I was hoping to hear more words like Amazing and visually fantastic. So far Entertainment Weekly said it was just ok, but everybody from Variety to the New York Post has enjoyed it immensely.

Superman has been pretty terrible since Richard Pryor and the Nuclear Man and that was 1987. Over the years many writers, directors and actors have come and gone on Warner Brother's payroll to make the Man of Steel fly again. Sometimes I forget that at one time they cast Nicholas Cage as Superman, which had to be the worst bit of casting I have ever heard of. That's like casting Jack Black as the Green Lantern or Danny DeVito as Wolverine. I mean Nick Cage looks like a cross between an insurance salesman and a crack addict; it's those sunken eyes of his. I think if you wanted to make the movie with Nick Cage as Superman worse, you couldn't do any better than Tim Burton as the director. Now before anyone goes off on me about the greatness of Tim Burton, I just want to say that I think he's great. I enjoyed both Batman and Batman Returns but Tim Burton is too creepy to take on Superman. You need the Fourth of July, apple pie, good ole' American Boy Scout look to it, something that is completely foreign to Burton. The next writer director team slashed from the list, my favorite writer J.J. Abrams of Alias, Lost and the new Mission Impossible III. He also took a stab at writing two drafts for the new Superman movie, but alas he pissed off everyone including myself when he tried to rewrite Supes' history by claiming that Krypton didn't blow up. Now we come to the MTV director McG---The same McG of Charlie's Angels fame--Charlie's Angels? I've seen both and other than the fact that the women in that film are hot, these movies suck beyond anything made by the Olson Twins or Hillary "Make me want to puke" Duff. It boggles my mind that Warner Brothers would ever relinquish the directing reigns to a pole smoker like McG.--His name is friggin' McG people, that's your first clue.

So what makes this team of director Bryan Singer and writers Michael Dougherty and Dan Harris any better than the previous group? I think that Bryan Singer, who is not necessarily a comic book fan, directs comic book movies very well. I think he understands the audience but he also is capable of creating a realistic environment for his super hero characters to exist in. Dan Harris and Michael Dougherty both co-wrote X-Men 2 which has always been my favorite of the X trilogy and one of the best so far of the comic adaptations. With the addition of Kevin Spacey as Lex Luthor this movie continues to look better and better.
So remember to go and see Superman Returns on Wednesday or this weekend and make sure you see it in IMAX, don't be a cheapskate, I'm still out of work and I'm gonna fork over my fifteen bucks, it'll be worth it---trust me.