Man of Steel

I'm not much for going to the movies. After I drop the 8 to 9 bucks per ticket, I sit in a not entirely comfortable theater while others talk on the phone and watch a movie that may or may not be worth my time and money. Personally, I'm more inclined to wait three or four months and rent the DVD of the movie so that I can watch it in the comfort of my own home and not feel so badly about wasting my time and money if the movie stinks.

Still, I went to the movies on Friday night with a friend of mine and saw Superman Returns. If you're not familiar with the premise of the movie, the basic idea is that Superman returns to earth after a 5 year hiatus, during which he went back to the remains of his home planet (or something like that). Lois Lane, who was emotionally abandoned by the man of steel for five years, has now taken up with another man and has a 5 year old (!) son. All of that is sort-of standard fare superhero movie stuff, I guess. But here's where it gets goofy:

1. Lois Lane has won the Pulitzer Prize for her editorial "Why the World Doesn't Need Superman", which she wrote after he left earth. Did she write it five years ago? Or did she just write it last week? Don't you get the Pulitzer within a year or so of the published article? Maybe I missed those details.

2. The actor playing Superman is, in real life, something like 27 years old and looks it. The woman playing Lois Lane is actually 23 and looks it. So I'm watching this movie - with the 23 year old Pulitzer winner - and can't get past the fact that the main characters would have last interacted as Superman and Lois Lane when they were 22 and 18, respectively. They just look like kids and keep telling us that there's all this history - history that goes back years - between them.

3. Kryptonite is, as everyone knows, Superman's undoing. He turns into a regular guy - or maybe is weaker than that? - when he's around it. But then, when it's not convenient to the story, he's apparently pretty strong around the stuff. Like, for instance, he can lift a giant mountain of it all of a sudden.

4. There are these crystals that do crazy things when they hit water, like mega pop rocks. The first one that hits the water just about destroys Metropolis. Then six more do at a later time and not quite so much seems to happen as a result because it is no longer convenient to the story to have them do so. Very confusing.

Don't get me wrong - I understand that the movie is about a guy who flies around in a cape and is from outer space and all that, so it doesn't pay to get too literal. But for crying out loud, there has to be some element of internal consistency. Like, for instance, if you refer to the Pulitzer Prize, then you should make sure that the Prize in the movie is something like the Prize in real life. Or, if your actors are supposed to be adults with a long history together, they need to not look like they just got out of high school. And if kryptonite is truly Superman's undoing, then can't it consistently be his undoing?

The good side of it all is that I had a good time hanging out with my friend because he's a cool guy and that was good. But Superman, like Sebastian Bach, is no longer a cool guy.