Ever wonder why the bad guys don’t just shoot Superman in the face? Just wait…..
Unfortunately, the love story turns cold during the second half of the movie. Superman and Lois just can’t convince us that they’re in love anymore. There just isn’t enough alone time between the two to really spark anything, and the time they do spend together is spent with Lois guilting Superman for leaving. Also, Superman’s alter-ego Clark Kent disappears around the half-way point. There is no stand-off between Luthor and Superman, the Richard/Superman/Lois triangle is never resolved, and there is no action sequence that tops the airplane scene at the beginning of the movie. The movie leaves us with little satisfaction at its closing.
Besides looking good, the movie also sounds fabulous. John Ottman takes the credit for the score, but allows John William’s original theme plenty of run-time throughout the film. Gone are the days that the original theme sounded like one weak trumpet with some out of tune violins for a background….it has been re-recorded and sounds absolutely fabulous. John Ottman did a great job on the soundtrack as well, crescendoing to reinforce the importance of the scene and backing off enough to support calmer moments.
The film clocks in at 157 minutes, but I never found myself checking the clock. Despite its frequent flashbacks to the originals, there is enough new content to keep fans excited about the movie, and although this film is a little hard to place in the original trilogy, it nevertheless has deserved its place among the hard-to-follow originals.
