Is he really all that "super"?

Up up and get away from my TV!

It's Friday night, so of course I'm sitting at home flipping channels, when I run across Superman II on the family channel. I'm thinking "Hey, Superman II! Well this will kill a couple of hours, after which I can start drinking." Now, as a child, I distinctly remember liking the first two Superman movies(and ONLY the first two.) To my child mind, the first was the "darker" movie, since many Kryptonians(?) died at the very beginning, along with Superman's mom and Marlon Brando, and a bunch of humans died as well, including Superman's love interest Lois Lane, only not really cause Superman altered the rotation of the Earth to make time go backwards so that they came back to life, or more accurately, never died in the first place. But then Superman doesn't get the girl, which also makes it kinda sad. And I always thought of Superman II as the "fun" one, cause it's really just a two-hour long excuse for super people to battle it out with each other, demonstrating their various super powers and generally making a mess of Gotham, er I mean Metropolis. And that all seemed pretty cool to me at the ripe old age of 9. So I'm watching it again tonight and...well, I think Superman II is beginning to lose it's luster. First of all, there are the atrocious special effects. Okay the part where that trans-dimensional crystal mirror prison thing explodes...that's clearly animation. I mean, weren't they making the Star Trek and Star Wars movies about this time? Couldn't they have seriously done something with computers or something, which I believe existed in 1983?? Secondly, while the overall storyline isn't ridiculous...it's just chock full of inconsistencies, incoherancies and cliches. Example: When the bad guys come floating down on the moon, we see two astronauts wandering around outside doing various "experiments". The first astronaut looks pretty much like a regular astronaut in a regular suit. But the second astronaut is wearing a completely incongruous suit made entirely of what appears to be aluminum foil. Why is he wearing a completely different suit? Was it too expensive to get TWO replica astronaut suits at the costume shop?? Well after killing off the poor astronauts our villains land in Texas, which I guess isn't that bad cause it is a pretty big state so the odds of them landing their randomly are pretty good. But why on Earth do the two policemen they run into have to be the world's biggest country bumpkins? And after that, how is it they end up in what appears to the most isolated town in Texas, where kids still run around in overalls with dirt on their faces? Frankly, as a Texan, I'm insulted by these cheap stereo-types, as everyone KNOWS that all Texans are actually oil tycoons with blonde, big-haired wives. And why on Earth would they begin their conquest of Earth by starting with the smallest, most bumpkin-ist town in Texas? I must say however that it appears to be only about a few hours into the conflict between General Zod and Podunk, TX, that the National Guard shows up to reinforce the local police. I must say that this is a fairly heroic response, compared to what we've just witnessed after Katrina. Had Zod landed in Lousiana and proceeded to attack New Orleans, I'm not sure the response would've been as timely. Anyway, I've only re-watched the first hour, that's pretty much all I have to say right now, though as this goes I imagine there will only be more.

Well, you can see where I'm going here. Superman II just ain't what it used to be. Now, if I happen to watch the "classic" Superman III anytime soon and find that it improves with age, I'll be sure to report back on that.