A Review of "Scooby-Doo on Zombie Island"

Good God. Was this movie even made for kids? It's marketed as a kid's movie, it looks like a kid's movie, but... is it REALLY a kid's movie? What even is Scooby-Doo on Zombie Island? For those of you living under a rock, Scooby-Doo needs no introduction. Yes that's right, even for you you close-minded buffoon. Scooby-Doo involves a group of hippies and their talking dog going around solving mysteries, and not even being recognized by the towns they solve mysteries for. You'd think Mystery Inc. would get some kind of recognition for that. At least that's the part the movie got right. The cameo by Pamela Anderson, not so much. Anyway, I'm getting off-track here. Scooby-Doo on Zombie Island was Scooby's very first foray into animated motion pictures. By then, he'd only have about five different television series' with four more on the way, so he was alive and well, needless to say. So in a never-ending onslaught of Scooby-Dooness, what makes Scooby-Doo on Zombie Island stand out amongst the rest? Well quite simply put: It's horrifying!

As a kid, Scooby-Doo on Zombie Island is a twisted flick. It's got zombies, sure, but not like cartoony animated zombies like Scooby-Doo is used to, but horrific, groaning, creepy looking zombies. Their groans and movements haunt children's nightmares and I'm certain, with how needlessly PC America has become today, that parents will ban this movie from the Television airwaves should it ever come on again. Aside from the zombies, in case that horror wasn't traumatizing enough for your youngsters, there are Satanic cat people who eat people in there too! Crazy, am I right?! Who would've thought putting this in a fucking Scooby-Doo movie would de-terrify it. Simply put, it doesn't!

The film opens with the Mystery, Inc. gang solving the case of the Moat Monster. Becoming bored with solving mysteries, the gang goes their separate ways. You know, like visiting exotic locations and unmasking crooks would ever seem boring. Daphne Blake and Fred Jones start running a successful television series called Coast to Coast with Daphne Blake. What happens on this "successful" television series is beyond me. Velma Dinkley becomes the proprietor of a mystery bookstore (*cough* Ghostbusters II *cough*). Shaggy Rogers and his dog Scooby-Doo are fired from their job at an airport after eating all of the confiscated foods. Shouldn't both Shaggy and Scooby be diabetics by this point? D'ah shit, who cares. For Daphne's birthday, Fred decides to get the gang back together for a road trip while Daphne is filming her show. After encountering a lot of fake monsters, the gang finally arrives in New Orleans, where they'll discover the real monster: Hurricane Katrina! Just kidding, but they are soon invited by a young woman named Lena Dupree to visit her employer's home on Moonscar Island, which is allegedly haunted by the ghost of the pirate Morgan Moonscar. Just thought of visiting a place called "Moonscar Island" is a turn off enough already. So you know...fuck that noise. Though the gang is skeptical, they go with Lena, to whom Fred has taken a fancy. That horny bastard.

On the island, the gang meets Lena's employer Simone Lenoir, as well as the ferryman Jacques, and Simone's gardener Beau, to whom Daphne takes a fancy. That horny slut. They also meet Snakebite Scruggs, an ill-natured fisherman, and his hunting pig, Mojo. Snakebite Scruggs is voiced by Mark Hamill. Why did you need to know that? Why not? It's Mark Hamill! The gang sets out to prove that the "ghost" of the island is a fake. Shaggy and Scooby are chased by Mojo and end up falling into a big hole, where they encounter the zombie of Morgan Moonscar, in probably one of the first horror scenes in the movie. By the time the rest of gang comes to investigate, Moonscar is gone. So you know...zombies are here now. Plus the movie just went from child-friendly "Fuck, what is happening right now?" pretty damn quick. After the zombie sighting, Simone invites the gang to her house to stay for the night. Wouldn't you want to stay the night on an island inhabited by zombies? I know I wouldn't. As the gang is dressing up for dinner, Shaggy sees the ghost of a Confederate colonel in the mirror; Simone explains that the island was a temporary headquarters for a Confederate regiment during the American Civil War. Due to Simone's cats, Shaggy and Scooby eat in the Mystery Machine, but find the food spicy and get some water from the lake, where an army of zombies emerge. Shaggy's bad driving gets the Mystery Machine stuck in the mud, forcing him and Scooby to flee on foot.

Fred and Daphne later head out and find the Mystery Machine, but no sign of Shaggy and Scooby. They argue about each other's supposed love interests and come across Shaggy and Scooby. They manage to capture a zombie, which is revealed to be real when Fred pulls its head off thinking it is a mask. Let me reiterate. Fred...from Scooby-Doo...rips a zombie's head off. They play this off as nothing, but this is a zombie. Which means this was a real human head at one point, and Fred just ripped it off. As the zombies swarm around them, the gang splits in panic. One generic (yet badass) heavy metal song later, Shaggy and Scooby discover wax dolls that look like Fred, Velma, Daphne and Beau, and they play with them, causing their friends to undertake a series of involuntary actions for a short time until they leave after disturbing a nest of bats. Thank God for this, terrifying is slowly returning to comedically cheesey once again. Later, they return to Simone's house and discover a secret passage under the staircase. They find Lena, who tells them that the zombies dragged Simone away. Ominous. They find a secret chamber for voodoo rituals, where Velma finds footprints of Simone's heels and interrogates Lena about the story. Simone then appears, and she and Lena use voodoo dolls to trap the gang in the chamber before revealing themselves to be evil cat creatures... and horrifying once again. When Velma recognizes this, she accuses Simone of stealing Morgan Moonscar's treasure. Angered by the mentioning of Moonscar, Simone explains that centuries ago, they were part of a group of settlers who were devoted to a cat god. When Moonscar and his pirates chased the settlers into a bayou filled with alligators that later ate them, the vengeful Simone and Lena asked their cat god to curse Moonscar. Their wish was granted and they killed Moonscar and his crew, but the curse caused them to become cat creatures permanently, provided that they keep draining life forces every harvest moon to preserve their immortality. WHAT DOES ANY OF THIS HAVE TO DO WITH SCOOBY-DOO?! This is scary voodoo shit! Not men in masks. This is too scary! I'm stopping the VCR to watch Toy Story and feel better about myself! Turns out that Jacques joined them later on, agreeing to bring them more victims in exchange for immortality. Jacques turns into an even scarier cat creature, ripped and ferocious. Thus the repentant zombies' intent was to warn the gang to leave to escape their fate. So...the horrifying zombies, whose groans haunt our very nightmares when the lights are off and we're home alone...were the good guys after all. Well played, Scooby-Doo. Well played.

Finding Shaggy and Scooby, Jacques transforms into a cat creature and chases them to drain their lives. Thanks to the zombies, Shaggy and Scooby escape and accidentally tumble into the cave, interrupting the draining ceremony and distracting the cat creatures. Velma quickly unties herself and creates voodoo dolls of Simone and Lena to interrupt their ritual. Where did Velma learn how to do this? How did she? Who knows, but when Lena and Simone start slapping each other around, it's not scary anymore. When they are finally cornered, the cat creatures' curse expires, causing them to age hundreds of years and disintegrate, freeing and avenging the zombies' souls and allowing them to rest in peace. Reminds me of the end of Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade when the guy drinks the wrong grail. Fucking brutal. Beau is revealed to be an undercover police officer sent to investigate the disappearances on the island. Betcha he didn't think he'd see fucking cat creatures. Daphne offers Beau a chance to guest-star on her show and discuss the adventure. The next morning, everyone leaves the island via ferry to head back to town.

So yeah, Scooby-Doo on Zombie Island is a pretty fucked up children's movie. It's got the usual Scooby-Doo stuff, like capers, monsters, and comedic stoner antics, but it's also got carnivorous cat people, curses, groaning undead and night-time bayou chases, all serenaded with late 90s heavy metal music. So...it's all over the place. A lot of it is still pretty cartoony and enjoyable for kids everywhere, but other parts of it are either really creepy or just flat-out unsettling. So, in a way, it's the perfect Scooby-Doo movie. Every one after this one got more cartoony and dropped the adult horror themes so that it could play safer to kids, but this one had some balls and still stands out as probably the best Scooby-Doo movie ever made. Hell, even the 2002 live-action movie was more cartoony than this, and that was the fucking live-action movie. Have some balls, Hollywood. If I don't get an R-Rated Scooby-Doo movie where monsters disembowel people, Shaggy and Scooby get high while Fred swears like a sailor and busts caps in people's asses, I'm going to be sorely disappointed by the end of my lifespan.

A Review of "Superman Returns"

It was nineteen years. Nineteen up and down years in cinema between the motion picture ass-fest Superman IV: The Quest for Peace and the next Superman movie. First, ideas came in the early 90s for Superman V: Reborn, a script that was floating around after Ilya Salkind got the rights back once the Cannon Group went belly-up. He wanted to adapt the "Death of Superman" arc in a motion picture once the comic book came out. That eventually fell through when famous comic-book enthusiast/comedian Kevin Smith got a hold of the script and rewrote it as Superman Lives. This was the script that was eventually approved by Warner Bros in the late-90s for Tim Burton to direct with Nicolas Cage starring as Superman. This is the one where a whole lot of pictures and videos, even a whole fucking documentary exists about. Superman Lives eventually fell-through when Tim Burton and Nicolas Cage both dropped out of the picture. So the Superman franchise dwelled on until the mid 2000s, when the director of X-Men and X2 Bryan Singer agreed to write & direct the newest Superman movie. This... is Superman Returns. A movie that proves you don't have to have a whole lot of action to be a period-specific thinkpiece. For $204 million, Bryan Singer got to make the exact Superman movie he would want to, honoring the Richard Donner versions of Superman & Superman II and boy it's...something.

For the previous five years, Superman (Brandon Routh) has mysteriously abandoned his adopted home of Earth while on a journey into outer space to investigate what astronomers believed to be an intact Krypton. When Zodd (Terence Stamp), Ursa (Sarah Douglas) and Non (Jack O'Halloran) showed up and Superman defeated them, he decided that it was time to search the galaxy for any other possible Kryptonians floating around the universe. In his absence, journalist and past love Lois Lane (Kate Bosworth) wrote a scathing article "Why the World Doesn't Need Superman", winning her another Pulitzer Prize. Lois is engaged to Richard White (James Marsden), the nephew of Daily Planet editor-in-chief Perry White (Frank Langella), and with whom she shares a young asthmatic son, Jason (Tristan Lake Leabu). Meanwhile, the notorious criminal mastermind Lex Luthor (Kevin Spacey) secured an early release from prison due to Superman not appearing as a prosecution witness during Luthor's fifth appeal trial. By seducing an old heiress (Noel Neill, the original Lois Lane), Luthor is able to inherit her fortune, giving him resources for his next real estate scheme.

Unforeseen to everyone, Superman returns to Earth, crash landing at the Kent farm, just as he did as a child. He reveals to his adoptive mother Martha Kent (Eva Marie Saint) that he left hoping to find his homeworld, and expresses his dismay at being the only one of his kind remaining. Thus begins the whiney emo Superman we'll see for the duration of the movie. Upon returning to Metropolis in his human identity of Clark Kent, he is shocked to discover the consequences of his disappearance. When a mysterious nationwide power outage causes catastrophic failures during a space shuttle launch, Clark realizes he must reemerge as Superman. Yeah I mean... of course. Otherwise, what's the point of the fucking movie? Saving the shuttle and its ferry jet in highly public fashion causes a resurgence of media attention regarding Superman's return. Unbeknownst to anyone, the accident was triggered by Luthor using Kryptonian technology stolen from the Fortress of Solitude, including a cameo by Jor-El (Marlon Brando).

Luthor sends his moll, Kitty (Parker Posey), to distract Superman, allowing him to steal a sample of kryptonite from a museum. Yeah... again, what kind of threat would Lex Luthor pose without kryptonite? Still investigating the earlier power outage, Lois tracks the hypocenter...whatever that means...to the mansion Luthor recently inherited (I mean "stole") and, along with her son, explores the yacht docked there. Discovering Luthor, she is held captive as the yacht heads out into the Atlantic. Luthor plans to use the Kryptonian crystal technology Superman used to create his Fortress of Solitude to create a massive new continent which would swallow some of the current landmasses bordering the Atlantic. The world will then be forced to use his new land. Placing a crystal inside a shell of refined kryptonite, Luthor triggers the new land growth by launching it into the sea. I'm not going to lie, that part was pretty cool and it's a unique idea. I'm just going to ask though: why does ever Superman movie have to default to Lex Luthor and another landmass scam? The Lex Luthor in the comics was much more pimp than that.

Lois manages to use a fax machine on board the yacht to send their location to the Daily Planet headquarters, where it catches the attention of Clark and Richard. Upon discovering her attempt at subversion, one of Luthor's henchmen attacks Lois, causing Jason's powers to emerge as he crushes the henchman with a piano – revealing that the (no longer asthmatic) Jason is Superman's son. At least, its revealed to the audience. Because Pulitzer Prize-winning author Lois Lane can't deduce it for the love of fuck. The son pitches a piano across the fucking room...like, flying across...and Lois is still like "OMG How did Richard's kid do that?" Luthor even realizes this a million miles ahead of Lois and he and his thugs escape by helicopter as the earthquake effects from the growing landmass span back to Metropolis. While Superman works to contain the damage in the city, Richard reaches the yacht by way of a floatplane and releases Lois and Jason from their locked room. Why Jason's powers just fucking vanished on us is beyond me. The three become trapped when the yacht is split in two by the growing rock formations, knocking Lois unconscious and sinking the yacht. In a really cool scene complete with the classic Superman music, Superman rescues them and gets them to the safety of Richard's plane.

Superman pursues Luthor, who has made his way to the growing land mass. The kryptonite shell surrounding the crystal has caused the new rock formations to be infused with kryptonite, making the land itself toxic to Superman, causing him to become weak and lose his powers. Luthor's thugs brutalize Superman into submission as he is unable to fight back...in a hearbreaking, gut-busting scene for someone as big of a Superman as I was. Luthor then impales Superman with a kryptonite shard and allows him to fall into the ocean, presumably to die. Regaining consciousness in the escaping floatplane, Lois learns that Superman has gone to confront Luthor. Knowing of the kryptonite danger, Lois convinces Richard to double back to help him. Jason, realizing that he's already in the express lane to Divorce Town, spots the Man of Steel in the water and Lois and Richard get him into the plane, where Lois removes the shard. Recovering, Superman flies high into the atmosphere to regain his strength by exposure to sunlight. Using his heat vision, he then tunnels deep under the new land mass and, using the last of his strength, is able to fly it off into space before it absorbs more land.

Escaping with Luthor in the helicopter, a disillusioned Kitty discards the remaining crystals and the two eventually end up on a deserted island when they run out of fuel. Complications from kryptonite exposure cause Superman to fall into a coma, and while doctors are able to remove more fragments from his skin, they cannot revive him. Somehow falling into a coma in space from Kryptonite poisoning doesn't kill him, but you know. Anywho, Lois visits him in the hospital and whispers into his ear while glancing at Jason. Looks like somebody finally started using her brain. Soon after, hospital staff discovers his room empty. No longer feeling alone in the universe, Superman visits his newly revealed son in the boy's room and repeats to Jason the words of his own father as he sleeps. Lois starts writing another article, titled "Why the World Needs Superman". Superman reassures her that he is now back to stay, and flies off into space, where he gazes down at the world in a similar fashion that he used to... back when Brandon Routh was Christopher Reeve.

Superman Returns is a fun adventure, albeit it can be a little boring at times. Okay... it can be a lot boring at times. It's an arthouse version of Superman we thankfully never got and then un-thankfully ended up getting with this. If you told me in 2006 that Superman Returns was going to be as critically panned as movies like The Shaggy Dog and X-Men: The Last Stand, I would've laughed in your face. I won't lie though, seeing the main title march in theaters was pretty great. It gave me goosebumps. It was a nice throwback reference piece to the Richard Donner original Superman & Superman II. Luckily it omitted Superman III & IV so we didn't have to worry about those. On top of the story having a few holes in it, the actors do well in their roles. Kevin Spacey was a freakin' perfect cast choice as Lex Luthor. Brandon Routh looked like Christopher Reeve enough and talked like him enough to cast him. The other people do the part. All-in-all, it's a decent Superman movie. It isn't memorable and classic, but it sure was better than the previous entries we got.

A Review of "Superman IV: The Quest for Peace"

"Chris? This is your villain... an ex-Chippendale's dancer"
"That does it, I'm calling my agent." "Chris, they aren't hiring--" "NO NOT TO DANCE!--"

Oh God. *Gags* *Dry heaves* *Tries to regain composure*. Dear Christ, Superman IV. What the hell happened? Why is this movie so BAD? I almost shouldn't even waste my time writing a blog post about it. I mean...fuck is this movie terrible. We started out with all the momentum and success in the world thanks to Superman. Superman II did all it could to carry that momentum and despite that it didn't quite live up to its legendary predecessor, it was still fun and was a pretty entertaining movie. Superman III took that momentum, laughed at it, wrote several bad jokes about it, decided to parody it and then shit itself into theaters much to the chagrin and anger of all those involved, but that wasn't even the end. Thanks to the abysmal reviews of Superman III as well as its spin-off follow-up Supergirl, Ilya Salkind decided that beating a dead horse was detrimental to his arm and sold the franchise rights off so he could no longer be responsible for Superman's cinematic demise. The rights were then purchased by...The Cannon Film Group. Holy God, why? If you don't know, The Cannon Group was an independent motion picture studio in the 80s renowned and notorious for their smutty, schlocky, low-brow action and drama cinema, and now they tasked themselves with breathing new life into Superman. Welcome to the cinematic assfest that's even worse than Superman III. This is Superman IV: The Quest for Peace, and yes, for some unGodly unHoly reason, most of the people who complained and vowed never to work on another Superman movie came back, including *gasp* Christopher Reeve himself. Reeve was so traumatized by the outcome of Superman III that he hung up his proverbial cape and bid adieu to Superman. The Cannon Group lured him back with a higher salary plus story and script input, proving once again that yes, "Money talks". So why? Why does Superman IV: The Quest for Peace fail across the board and stand tall as not only the worst Superman movie ever made, one of the worst comic book movies ever made, but one of the worst MOVIES ever made? Let's take a gander and see. Sit back, relax, and grab a drink; this is going to be a lengthy one.

"Nice to meet you. I'm Christopher Reeve and I'm
never fucking coming back ever again."

The movie opens with the familiar space credits that Superman & Superman II gave us, except it looks like a filmmaking class project on a budget of three dollars. We then see as Superman (Christopher Reeve) saves a spaceship of cosmonauts whose ship was thrown off course by debris at pure random. He opens the door and speaks to them, breaking not just one but a shitload of Laws of Physics. After that little scientific debacle, he visits his home-town of Smallville as Clark. Now that his adoptive parents have died, Clark has inherited their now-unattended farm. In an empty barn, he uncovers the capsule that brought him to Earth, and removes a luminescent green Kryptonian energy module. You know... the one he used up to build the Fortress of Solitude in Superman and he used again in Superman II and shouldn't even be in the space pod to uncover? That's right, fuck you continuity. A recording left by his Kryptonian mother Lara states that its power can be used only once... even though it was previously used twice and this would make it the third fucking time it was used. Good God we're already five minutes in and this movie's broken both science and continuity like twigs you find in your front lawn. After refusing to sell the farm to a mall developer, Clark returns to Metropolis, where he stops a runaway subway train after the conductor collapses at the controls. Just another random isolated incident, thank God Clark--I mean Superman--was there.

This must be how Walgreens pharmacy techs
see old people when they get the medication they
so crave... after an hour arguing over insurance.

After returning to the Daily Planet, Clark learns that the company has gone bankrupt and been taken over by David Warfield (Sam Wanamaker), a tabloid tycoon and your stereotypical 1980s asshole media mogul who fires Perry White (Jackie Cooper) and hires his own daughter Lacy (Mariel Hemingway) as the new editor. Hooray for nepotism! Lacy takes a liking to Clark (for whatever reason; she's kind of hot and Clark's kind of a dork) and tries to seduce him; Clark agrees to go on a date with her. Following the news that the United States and the Soviet Union may engage in a nuclear arms race, Clark is conflicted about how much Superman should intervene. After receiving a letter from a concerned schoolboy, Superman travels to the Fortress of Solitude to seek advice from the spirits of his Kryptonian ancestors, which shouldn't even be possible. Kryptonians could only be viewed through crystal recordings or "ghosts". These are acting like they're just talking on the phone like nothing's wrong. Superman II is also guilty of this, but you know, to hell with it I guess. They recommend that he let Earth solve its own problems, or seek new worlds where war has been outlawed. After asking for advice from Lois Lane, Superman attends a meeting of the United Nations General Assembly, announcing to the assembly that he will rid the planet of nuclear weapons. Various nations fire their nuclear warheads into space, which are collected by Superman into a giant net and then thrown into the sun--okay stop, stop stop. Fucking stop for a second.

Superman's *sigh* Nuclear missile net

First off, the scene where he takes advice from Lois is so ass-backwards and broken. Lois comes over and asks Clark why he's so bummed, so Clark takes her on a walk... off the rooftop. As they fall, in one of the worst green screen effects you'll ever see, he saves her as Superman, re-revealing his identity to her. They then mimic the flying sequence from Superman, including the same musical cues...for NO reason. Then they return to Clark's rooftop, where he kisses her to make her forget everything that just happened, un-re-revealing his identity to her. Fuuuuuuuuck this noise. Next, Superman agrees to rid the planet of all nuclear weapons, to which EVERY SINGLE NATION is overwhelmingly in support of. Imagine you're some minute country surrounded by angry dictators on all sides...I don't know the name of one, so let's just make one up and call it "Israel". Imagine you're this made-up country "Israel" with made-up angry dictators on all sides of you, but the only thing you've got to stop them is your nuclear arsenal...which Superman is now taking away because "They'we dangewous". You are now up shit creek without a yamaka, Israel, you made-up country you. This movie's premise is shit. Pure shit. Thirdly...a giant net? How fucking Looney Tunes can you get? Where did Superman acquire this net? Did he build it? Did he find it? If so, how do all of the nukes just sit in the net and not go off in contact of each other? He flies them into the net pretty forcefully. Also again, when he throws the net into the sun, a net containing DOZENS of nuclear devices...that would set off a chain reaction, wouldn't you think? Like a cataclysmic one? Fuck you Superman, you arrogant dickhead.

"I HAVE THE POWER!"
"For the last time, fuckface, you're NUCLEAR
man... NOT HE-MAN."

In a distracting subplot, young Lenny Luthor (Jon Cryer) breaks his uncle Lex Luthor (Gene "What the fuck am I doing here?" Hackman) out of prison. Returning to Metropolis, Lex and Lenny steal a strand of Superman's hair from a museum, and create a genetic matrix which Lex attaches to a U.S. nuclear missile. The strand of hair is being shown to hold one thousand pounds with relative ease and it can be cut by Lex with wire strippers. *Screams* After the missile is test launched, Superman intercepts it and throws it into the sun. *Screams Again* A glowing ball of energy is discharged, which develops into a superhuman. This "Nuclear Man" makes his way back to Earth to find his 'father' Lex, who establishes that while his creation is powerful, he will deactivate without exposure to sunlight. *Screams Just Because* A vicious battle ensues between Lex's creation and Superman. While saving the Statue of Liberty from falling onto the streets of New York, Superman is infected with radiation sickness by a scratch from Nuclear Man's radioactive claws. Yes, he has claws, but they don't look like claws. They look like fucking Press-on nails. "Whoopsie-doodle, Superman. I'm'a just give you a good scratchin' here, honey".

"Hey Lois, remember when we did this last time?"
"No?" "Oh, right."

To Lois' disgust, the Daily Planet (which has been reformatted as a tabloid newspaper) publishes the headline "Superman Dead?" Lois indicates a desire to quit and seizes Superman's recovered cape for herself. Lacy is also upset and reveals to Lois that she cares for Clark. Lois ventures to Clark's apartment where she proclaims her love for Superman, a man she would know is in the room right next to her if it weren't not one but two mind-erasing kisses. Felled by radiation sickness, an elderly Clark staggers to his terrace where he retrieves the Kryptonian energy module and attempts to heal himself. So that's use number three. Good work writers, you assholes. Having developed a crush on Lacy out of her looks alone, the shallow Nuclear Man threatens mayhem if she is not brought to him. Why does he have a crush on her? What does he hope to gain? I don't know, maybe they can paint each other's nails at night. The newly restored Superman agrees to take him to her to prevent anyone else from being hurt. Superman lures Nuclear Man into an elevator car, trapping him inside and then depositing it on the far side of the moon. As the sun rises, Nuclear Man breaks free due to a sliver of sunlight through a crack in the elevator doors and Superman is again forced to defend himself. The battle on the soundstage--I'm sorry, I mean "the moon" goes on for a while. The black curtains--I'm sorry, I mean "space"--looks pretty great in the background. You can even see the strings when Superman is tossed and when Nuclear Man flies. This is like a backyard Super8 film. At the end of the battle, it appears as though Superman has been defeated, as he is driven into the moon's surface by Nuclear Man. Literally like one would drive a fence post into the ground.

"Effective immediately, I'm standing down from the role of Superman
so they can't make anymore of these goddamn, shit-ass sequels to
torture you all" - Christopher Reeve, final day of shooting.

Nuclear Man returns to Earth, forces his way into the Daily Planet and abducts Lacy, carrying her into outer space. Yes, you read that right. He carries her into outer space, where she is ABLE TO BREATHE NORMALLY as if she is not in outer space. That does it, I'm convinced the director just didn't give a shit. I don't even know his name and I don't care to look it up. He's a bitter disappointment of a director. That's second-grade level science. It's okay though, because Superman manages to free himself from the moon's surface and then PUSHES IT OUT OF ITS ORBIT to cast Earth into an eclipse, nullifying Nuclear Man's powers and leaving Lacy helpless (again... IN SPACE). "Apologies for all the rogue waves and tsunami's, people of Earth. I have to stop NUCLEAR MAN!" Superman rescues Lacy (again... FROM SPACE) and returns her to Earth, recovers Nuclear Man and deposits him into the core of a nuclear power plant, destroying him. Perry White secures a loan to buy a controlling interest in the newspaper, making David Warfield a minority shareholder and protecting the paper from any further takeovers (in case you gave a shit which you shouldn't). In the movie's ending press conference, Superman declares only partial victory in his campaign, saying, "There will be peace when the people of the world want it so badly that their governments will have no choice but to give it to them". Oh so that's why there's war in the world. It's not differing ideologies, power-hungry dictators, or a never-ending game of economic grabass; it's just because we don't want peace hard enough. Superman also recaptures the fleeing Luthors. He places Lenny in Boys Town, telling the priest that Lenny has been under a bad influence, and returns Lex to prison.

What. A fucking. Load. Superman IV: The Quest for Peace is seriously one of the worst movies ever made and easily one of the worst I've ever seen. It makes no sense, it's poorly written,  and it's story is stupid, confused, contrived, broken, ill-timed, poorly-paced and horribly executed. The science and physics are absolutely forgotten about or, hell, considering what we've seen, completely fucking ignored just for the sake of scriptwriting. The special effects are fake and cheap-looking that it makes the movie out to be a farce of itself, including that shot of Superman flying used over and over and over and over and over and over again. The movie ultimately goes nowhere, does nothing, moves no characters in any sort of way that can be considered "development" and returns the city of Metropolis, Superman, Lois, and fucking everybody else into the exact same predicament they were in when the movie first started. Oh, except "Israel" doesn't have its nuclear weapons now and is probably getting fucked on all sides by evil dictators who were smart enough not to surrender them to Superman. I read online where the movie's only an hour and a half because well-over forty minutes were cut from it. I've read small bios on these scenes and guess what? They didn't go anywhere either. Thank God this movie's only ninety minutes long. It's like "what the fuck were we being punished for?" Is this God returning the favor for the Miracle on Ice? Why were we punished with this atrocious garbage? We didn't think it was possible to top Superman III's suckage and yet here we are, bawling in a corner while Superman IV's end credits play on the TV. Christopher Reeve thought Superman III was bad, I can't believe he didn't just burn his costume, walk off set and become an English teacher for the rest of his life when he saw Superman IV being made. I'm astounded they released this. Absolutely astounded. It should be branded illegal to watch this movie. Avoid it all costs...unless you're just absolutely messed up on drugs.

A Review of "Superman III"

"Chris, I know you love method acting--but flying me forty miles from the set just to
help me pick up my pizza is a tad overdoing it!"

After the triumphant ending to the theatrical release of Superman II, that is Richard Lester's Superman II, the end credits open by telling us "Coming Soon, Superman III". So basically, they were like "You want more of this? Well we won't give you more of this, but we'll give you a big old punch in the nuts and call it Superman III." Superman III is bad. Very bad. It's such a farce and a lame-brained attempt to cash-in on the comedic prowess of legendary actor and comedian Richard Pryor that you even wonder what fucking Superman himself is even doing in the movie. This movie started out as a stand-up routine by Richard Pryor called "SuperN*gger" where he acts out a bank robbery thwarted by an African-American Superman from the ghettos of America's slums. When asked what provoked such a routine, Pryor jokingly said that he always wanted to be in a Superman movie. I repeat... he jokingly said that. Well, Ilya Salkind was such a numbnuts that he took it seriously and saw an opportunity to not only cash in on Pryor's fame but to keep his superhero franchise alive...and for all intents and purposes, Superman III sucks ass. Christopher Reeve even was so humiliated by the outcome that vowed to never play Superman again, but we ALL KNOW WHERE THAT WENT HAHAHAHAHA. So let's dive into this shit heap and figure out why we went from Richard Donner's epic masterpiece to... I don't know, whatever the fuck this is.

No, I didn't pull this from another Richard
Pryor movie. This is from Superman III.

Gus Gorman (Richard Pryor), a chronically unemployed ne'er do well, discovers a talent for computer programming, and is hired at the Metropolis-based conglomerate Webscoe. Gus embezzles from his employer through salami slicing, that is taking fractions of a cent that the computer rounds off in electronic transactions and stores them in a bank account. The same plot device used in Office Space, because as they said in Office Space,"...it's just like Superman III". The embezzlement brings him to the attention of CEO Ross Webster (Robert Vaughn). Webster is intrigued by Gus's potential to help him rule the world financially. Joined by sister Vera (Annie Ross) and "psychic nutritionist" Lorelei Ambrosia (Pamela Stephenson), Ross blackmails Gus into helping him. So you're probably wondering "What the hell does any of this have to do with Superman?" Well it doesn't. But hey, Superman's in here somewhere. Stick around.

Clark Kent (Christopher Reeve) convinces his Daily Planet boss, Perry White (Jackie Cooper), to let him return to Smallville for his high-school reunion. En route, as Superman, he extinguishes a fire in a chemical plant containing unstable Beltric acid, which produces corrosive vapor when superheated. The fire at the chemical plant is actually pretty decent and a fun sequence. You wonder why the whole movie couldn't be like this. At the reunion, Clark is reunited with childhood friend Lana Lang (Annette O'Toole), a divorcée with a young son named Ricky, and harassed by Brad Wilson (Gavan O'Herlihy), her ex-boyfriend. So you're probably wondering "what does this high school reunion shtick has to do with Superman?" Well, it doesn't. Back aboard the boredom express, Ross is infuriated by Colombia's refusal to do business with him, so he orders Gus to command Vulcan, an American weather satellite, to create a tornado to destroy Colombia's coffee crop for the next several years. Yeah... you read that right. Your vision is working just fine. Gus then travels to Smallville to use the offices of WheatKing, a subsidiary of Webscoe, to reprogram the satellite. Though Vulcan creates a devastating storm, Ross's scheme is thwarted when Superman (of all people) neutralizes it, saving the harvest. Superman in a Superman movie? Get fucked! Ross orders Gus to use his computer knowledge to create Kryptonite, remembering Lois Lane's Daily Planet interview with Superman from the first movie... even though there was absolutely no fucking mention of Kryptonite in that interview. Good God, did the producers even watch the first Superman movie? Gus uses Vulcan to locate, scan, and analyze Krypton's debris. He discovers that one of the elements of Kryptonite is an "unknown" compound, and substitutes tar.

"Lana, I've been nervous to say this but... will
you go to the prom with me?"
"Clark, we're in our mid 30s--"

Meanwhile, on this week's episode of fucking Dawson's Creek, Lana convinces Superman to appear at Ricky's birthday party, but Smallville turns it into a town celebration. Superman, a man known for stopping runaway missiles and thwarting Kryptonian villains just as strong as he is, now makes public appearances at children's birthday parties. I'm getting a very "Batman & Robin" vibe from this crap. Gus and Vera, disguised as Army officers, show up and give Superman the Kryptonite, though it appears ineffective. Superman soon becomes selfish, focusing on his lust for Lana, causing him to delay rescuing a truck driver from a jackknifed rig hanging from a bridge. Superman becomes depressed, upset, and casually destructive, committing petty acts of vandalism, such as blowing out the Olympic Flame, and straightening the Leaning Tower of Pisa. It's basically the effects of the Red Kryptonite in the comic books, but it's still green so...go figure. Also, these aren't really acts of vandalism...he's kind of just being an asshole. It's almost hilarious.

A proverbial shot of the post-movie reaction: Christopher Reeve
beating himself up for being in such a pile of pigshit.

Gus, feeling used, gives Ross crude plans for a supercomputer he's designed and Ross agrees to build it in return for Gus creating an oil embargo by directing all oil tankers to the middle of the Atlantic Ocean until further notice. When the captain of one tanker insists on maintaining his original course, Ross has Lorelei seduce Superman into waylaying the tanker and breaching the hull, causing a massive oil spill. The villains decamp to the computer's location in Glen Canyon. Sigh... what is even happening in this movie? Could we get another hilarious moment? Sure, let's just watch Superman go on a drinking binge, become overcome by guilt, and suffer a nervous breakdown. That's...funny? Well, he lands in a junkyard where he splits into two personas: the immoral, corrupted Superman and the moral, righteous Clark Kent. How? Why? Who fucking cares. They don't explain it. It just happens, like a magical take on cellular mitosis. They engage in a pretty semi-decent battle, ending when Clark strangles his evil identity and kills him. Restored to his normal self, Superman repairs the damage his counterpart caused. I don't know how we'll get this derailed plot back on course, but goddammit we're going to try. 

After defending himself from rockets and an MX missile launched by Ross and his cronies, Superman confronts them in the cave where Gus's supercomputer identifies him as a threat and attempts to determine his weakness, unleashing a beam of pure Kryptonite. Guilt-ridden and horrified by the prospect of "going down in history as the man who killed Superman", Gus destroys the Kryptonite ray with a firefighter's axe, whereupon Superman flees. The computer becomes self-aware, much like Skynet but 1000% less badass, defending itself against Gus's attempts to disable it. Ross and Lorelei escape the control room, but Vera is transformed into a cyborg. What the fuck is going on here? Vera attacks her brother and Lorelei with beams of energy that immobilize them. No seriously, what the fuck is going on here? Superman returns with a canister of the Beltric acid from the Smallville chemical plan from earlier. Superman places the canister by the supercomputer, which does not resist as it suspects no danger. The intense heat emitted by the supercomputer causes the acid to turn volatile, destroying the supercomputer.

Our villains: Hughie, Dewey and Louie.

Superman flies away with Gus, leaving Ross and his cronies to the authorities, and drops Gus off at a West Virginia coal mine, where Superman recommends him to the company as a computer programmer. Afterwards, Superman returns to Metropolis. As Clark, he pays a visit to Lana, who has found employment as Perry White's new secretary. He is attacked by Brad, who has stalked Lana to Metropolis, only to end up falling into a room service cart. He restores the Leaning Tower of Pisa, and the film ends with Superman flying into the sunrise for further adventures... which we'd hoped we'd never get, but hey, life's a bitch. Get used to disappointment. 

Superman III is an unequivocal pile of garbage. It's action scenes are cheesy, hokey, lame and not really all that awe-inspiring. It's comedic scenes are complete duds, they go nowhere and they do nothing. It's established characters are laughably misused and its new characters are annoying, spotlight-stealing lunatics who have no clue what century they're in or how to behave in this kind of universe. Margot Kidder is in the movie a grand total of five minutes. LOIS LANE ISN'T EVEN IN THE MOVIE FOR FIVE MINUTES. She was so disgusted by Richard Donner's firing during Superman II and so outraged at the laughable script for III that the producers just wrote her out of the movie and wrote Lana Lang a bigger part. Superman literally plays second-fiddle in his own movie to a bumbling, nervous, comedic sidekick in Richard Pryor. If they wanted to drive the nail into the Super-coffin and kill the shit out of this franchise, they couldn't have done any better. It's embarrassing. They don't even open with a triumphant space title sequence anymore; Superman III opens with a series of slapstick gags occurring in Metropolis on a typical weekday morning. I shit you not. God, it's ridiculous that they chased Christopher Reeve out of the franchise out of sheer embarrassment by being included in such a thing. It's like if director Richard Lester was handed the cockpit pilot seat of a 747 and then just crashed it straight into a mountain because he thought it'd be hilarious. Fuck this movie. 

...but just when you thought Superman III was the worst, it gets even worse than that...

Stay tuned.

A Review of "Superman II"

"Hello, I'm Sarah MacLachlan. For only $50/month, you canpledge to house and feed Kryptonian refugees such as these folks done in by the destruction of their homeworld."

Well we talked about Superman and how it was such a pop culture smash hit when it was released. Richard Donner's brilliant big-screen portrayal of the Man of Steel was the first serious take on the character in quite some time, if not ever. Depends on how you look at the Adventures of Superman series starring George Reeves and whether or not you saw it as campy or not. Well, since Superman was such a huge project undertaken by its producers, Ilya and Alexander Salkind, they decided to ensure Superman's silver-screen triumph by shooting the first movie and a sequel back-to-back, with the sequel being a continuation of the first movie's subplot involving the Kryptonian villains General Zod, Ursa and Non. The problem? Well there was a lot of production mischief going on behind the camera. Donner was hired to be the man to shoot Superman and Superman II back-to-back. He had finished Superman, but was so at-odds with the producers that they actually fired him when he was only about forty percent done with Superman II. There was still much of Superman II that needed to be shot. Following Donner's dismissal, the Salkinds hired comedic director Richard Lester to finish Superman II using some of Donner's existing footage. What we get in Superman II is still pretty epic, but not quite as epic as what Superman brought us. Lester took Donner's original story ideas and downplayed them, even having Superman coin one-liners or have much of the fights be kind of like slapstick gags. The cellophane 'S'. Need I say more?

Margot Kidder posing with Sylvester Stallone

The movie opens with a replay of the beginning of the first Superman. Before the destruction of Krypton, the criminals General Zod (Terence Stamp), Ursa (Sarah Douglas) and Non (Jack O'Halloran) are sentenced to banishment into the Phantom Zone. There's a distinct lack of Jor-El in this scene, unlike the first time you saw it. Marlon Brando's fees were too high to allow the producers to use his footage so they cut him and reshot the banishment scene, but it's acting like it was the first banishment scene even though Jor-El's not there? I don't fucking know, just roll with it. Then the movie rapidly switches gears to a showdown in Paris, where a bomb is reported on an elevator in the Eiffel Tower. This (I guess) is supposed to pick up right after the first movie, so we're going from two stolen hydrogen bomb missiles to a bomb threat in Paris in sub twelve hours. The world is a fucked up place. Clark Kent (Christopher Reeve) arrives in the Daily Planet's office, only to ditch and fly around the planet to Paris, where he saves Lois Lane (Margot Kidder) from the elevator bomb, heaving it into space. So, let me get this straight. Lois gets her life saved in the California earthquake caused by the fault line, and then immediately buys a ticket to Paris to investigate something else? Doesn't she ever quit? Unbeknownst to Superman, but knownst to us, the elevator bomb hits and destroys the Phantom Zone as it passes by Earth, freeing the Kryptonian villains Zod, Ursa and Non who absorb energy from the Earth's yellow sun and fly toward Earth's moon.

*Laughs Uncontrollably*

Following that debacle, the Daily Planet chief editor Perry White (Jackie Cooper) sends Clark Kent and Lois Lane to Niagara Falls to pose as a newlywed couple in a weird resort. Lois beings to suspect that Clark and Superman are the same person. That night, when Clark recovers Lois' comb from a lit fireplace, Lois discovers that his hand is unburned, forcing Clark to admit he is Superman. Literally on an accident, too. He just tripped on the rug in the room and his hand went in the fireplace. Unbelievable. Now that the jig is up, he bails on their Daily Planet assignment and takes her to his Fortress of Solitude in the Arctic, and shows her the traces of his past stored in energy crystals. One is the green crystal that created the Fortress and opened Superman's contact with his parents. Superman declares his love for Lois and his wish to spend his life with her. After conferring with the artificial intelligence of his mother Lara, Superman removes his superpowers by exposing himself to red Kryptonian sunlight in a crystal chamber, becoming a mortal man. Clark and Lois spend the night together, then leave the Fortress and return from the Arctic by automobile. In answer to your question, yes this is how the kid in Superman Returns is conceived. Yes, I know, we'll have a huge problem with that one, but we'll get there. Just bear with me. We've only begun. Anywho, arriving at a diner, Clark is beaten up by a truck driver named Rocky. Why is his name important? Because what man named "Rocky" isn't going to be an abrasive insecure jerk who jumps to fisticuffs first? While this exercise in superpower futility is going on, the Zod gang travels to the White House and force the President of the United States (E.G. Marshall) to surrender on behalf of the entire planet during an international television broadcast. When the President pleads for Superman to save the Earth, the gang demands that Superman come and "kneel before Zod!" Clark and Lois learn of Zod's conquest and, realizing that humanity alone cannot fight Zod, Clark returns to the Fortress to try to regain his powers.

"My name is Gene Hackman. Vote me for best
actor in this movie and I'll send you a free
Rolls Royce convertible!"

In subplot #37, Lex Luthor (Gene Hackman) escapes from prison with Eve Teschmacher's (Valerie Perrine'shelp, leaving his accomplice Otis (Ned Beatty) behind. Thank you Ned Beatty, your check is in the mail. Luthor and Teschmacher infiltrate the Fortress of Solitude in the Arctic before Superman and Lois arrive. Luthor learns of Superman's connection to Jor-El and General Zod. He finds Zod at the White House and tells him Superman is the son of Jor-El, their jailer, and offers to lead him to Superman in exchange for control of Australia. The three Kryptonians ally with Luthor and go to the offices of the Daily Planet. Superman arrives, after having found the green crystal that restores his powers (the "deus-ex-machnia" crystal) and battles the three. The fight isn't bad for 1980. They came up with some cool ways to show off the archaic blue-screen and rope-suspended flight fights as best as they can, but it's ultimately kind of a weak showdown by today's standards. Zod realizes Superman cares for the humans and takes advantage of this by threatening bystanders. Superman realizes the only way to stop Zod and the others is to lure them to the Fortress, in the barren Arctic, away from people. Superman flies off, with Zod, Ursa, and Non in pursuit, kidnapping Lois and taking along Luthor. Upon arrival, Zod declares Luthor has outlived his usefulness and plans to kill both him and Superman. Superman tries to get Luthor to lure the three into the crystal chamber to depower them, but Luthor, eager to get back in Zod's favor, reveals the chamber's secret to the villains. Zod forces Superman into the chamber and activates it, seemingly once again wiping Superman's powers out again. However, Superman crushes Zod's hand during an attempted handshake and tosses him into a crevice to his death. Luthor deduces that Superman reconfigured the chamber to expose the trio to red sunlight while Superman was protected from it. Non falls into another crevice when trying to fly over it...like a complete dumbfuck...and Lois knocks Ursa into a third. With all three villains seemingly defeated, Superman flies back to civilization, returning Luthor to prison and Lois home. What an ending.

What is even happening in this picture?

At the Daily Planet the following day, Clark finds Lois upset about knowing his secret and not being able to be open about her true feelings. In what is perhaps a bigger "WTF" moment than Superman flying backwards around the Earth to reverse time, he kisses her, using his abilities to wipe her mind of her knowledge of the past few days. How? Why? When did he obtain this power? Who knows but it's caused ire with Superman fans since they first saw it. Does it tongue do it? Do his eyes? Does his mind? What the fuck? Later, Clark returns to the diner and has a rematch with Rocky the truck driver and defeats him easily. Superman is many things, and I guess petty is one of them. Superman restores the damage done by Zod, replacing the flag atop the White House and tells the president he won't abandon his duty again. He's right, but he'll replace his moral and ethical standards for motion picture making in Superman III.

Superman II is a mixed bag. It's still on the epic scale of the first movie, even including a bloated opening credits sequence retelling the first movie's events with the "Superman March" blasting triumphantly... but it's a tad hokey and rushed in its ensuing presentation. It's definitely the result of two directors' clashing styles. There's more dialogue than you'd want in a showdown between Superman and the Kryptonian villains and there's also less fighting than you'd want in a showdown between Superman and the Kryptonian villains. The stuff in the truck diner is fun, especially the end where Superman gets his revenge on the guy...despite the fact that I don't think it's something Superman would do. Lois is just...there. She cries, she mugs and she's ultimately a bystander. Lex Luthor's a hilarious inclusion in the movie, but once he and Eve Teschmacher find the Fortress of Solitude, he totally just leaves her elsewhere and carries the rest of the movie on his own. Like I said, the city fight is pretty good for 1980, but pretty lame by today's standards. There isn't a lot of fighting and there's like a three-minute sequence where the Kryptonians use their super breath to blow a street of Metropolis into disarray, complete with many Richard Lester sight gags. Ugh. Is it worthy as a follow-up to Superman? Sure, but it's just... not on the same caliber or tone and definitely not in the same league as Superman.

Oh right, you probably want to know about The Richard Donner Cut. Well, in 2006, twenty-six years after this movie came out and a couple years after the unfortunate passing of Christopher Reeve, original movie director Richard Donner released a recut version of Superman II, complete with all of the long-thought-lost footage that he shot for it. It still needed most of Lester's footage to cobble it together to make a finished movie, but it ended up making a completely different Superman II. Instead of retelling the events of Superman, the opening credits now just mimic the opening credits of Superman with no other images or movie clips, even using the original recording of the Superman March. The Paris sequence is completely omitted and instead, the missile that Superman diverts from Hackinsack New Jersey is what destroys the Phantom Zone and frees the Kryptonians. Lois's discovery of Clark's secret identity is completely changed and the fight at the end in Metropolis is extended, with just a bit more action and different bits and takes of things. It's a slight improvement, but it pretty much shuts the book at the end by having Superman destroy the Fortress of Solitude. Oh and it ruins everything it tried to build because do you want to know how Superman undoes his revealing of his secret identity to Lois, the Kryptonians, and basically everything after the end of the first movie? HE FUCKING SPINS THE EARTH BACKWARDS AGAIN. THE ENTIRE MOVIE NEGATES ITSELF. FUCK OFF.