The Clan Phillips ventured forth to the IMAX at Miramar in Taipei to see Superman Returns and the twenty minutes of 3D footage. The film doth kicketh asseth. Wow. This is an amazing Superman and the casting choice to fill the blue tights and red undies was right on the money . . . he’s very good looking and very much real in his role . . . he reminds us of Christopher Reeve (the end of film dedication was nice) but somehow he is better looking. Lex Luthor is scary . . . this has to be the greatest portrayal of Lex Luthor ever. Lois Lane was antsy but so much prettier than Margot Kidder in the same role. I did feel Clark and Lois felt a bit young for the story but all in all nicely done. The 3D . . . every sequence looked wonderful except for the last which was a bit off . . . there was a lot of ghosting and the stereoscopic effect was difficult to get what with the only object with depth on the screen was Supes flying around with majestic vistas in the background that had no depth cues. The other 3D sequences worked really well, although Lorraine felt that some of the zip cuts and action bits were too head spinning for stereoscopic cinema . . . a bit of an attempt at creating motion sickness so to speak. One probelm with the 3D sequences is that they seem randomly chosen. I had hoped that the 3D sequences would somehow have a common thread or context . . . such as entering the game world in Spy Kids 3D or entering Tron or the Matrix or flashbacks to Krypton . . . instead they just seemed to be randomly chosen or completed action bits for the most part and not all of the action bits are 3D so the rationale is lost on me. Heck, in the first 3D sequence, part of the stereoscopic bit is Clark Kent watching 2D television. However, the scenes do demonstrate that the live action 2D to 3D conversion process does work and that more films NEED to be in 3D . . . really, they NEED to be in full-on stereoscopic quality display . . . really. Just that filmmakers need to consider doing the FULL FILM and not just bits. Loved the movie . . . I am a BIG Superman fan, always have been . . . have loved the caped wonder since I was a little kid . . . like him a LOT more than Mr. Moody Batman . . . but . . . there is one nit I’d like to pick . . . well, not so much nitpicking but something that struck me as a bit of a fundamental flaw in the storytelling . . . SPOILER TIME SO STOP READING IF YOU DON’T WANT THE PLOTPOINT . . . in the entire disaster ridden film only two people are seen to die (the old lady on her death bed with Lexie boy getting her to sign the Will) and Mr. Piano Man . . . the lady seems to have died of "natural" causes . . . but Mr. Piano Man dies by piano . . . he is killed . . . definately killed by another person . . . the problem is that the person who kills him is a five year old child . . . usually Superman stories avoid death . . . and here we have Supes Junior killing a man, not stopping him from harming Mommy but crushing him through a wall with a grand piano . . . he does feel bad about it later and does say "I’m sorry, Mommy" and the guy really was a bad guy and really was intending to inflict mortal bodily damage to Mommy . . . but . . . it’s a Superman movie . . . couldn’t we have done it a bit differently than having a five year old kill a man?
In any case, great movie . . . go see it. Tell the filmmakers they need to make more . . . and more in 3D . . . good stuff, Maynard.
– Brian
