vampiresan

Why are so many adaptations of reasonable books so badly done? Is it that the scriptwriters and directors want to remove themselves so much from the source material that they feel the need to stuff it up altogether. Frankly nothing saves this film... it gravitates between being unbelievably slow and sentimental to fights scenes that are so fast and badly directed that it is impossible to tell what the hell is going on. Did they run out of money and decide not to hire a focus puller?

The acting by all concerned is woeful but they are really not helped by the trite and simplistic dialogue given to them. The dialogue in the book wasn't anywhere near this bad so why didn't they just use some of that?

Rachel Weiss as the voice of Sapphira got the shortest straw with most of her dialogue being stupid, repetitive or downright pointless. They could have cut the whole dragon talking thing and no real information would have been lost.

Overall it was so badly done that I am sure it is something that all concerned will drop from their resumes very soon.

This was such a disappointment and I really wasn't expecting much.

The basic problem is that the director (who not surprisingly also was involved in the script) doesn't seem to care about anything more than superficiality. The whole thing is about as interesting as the little plastic merchandising this film seems to have been made in order to flog, rather than as a film to be enjoyed by audiences.

The story made very little sense with nothing explained and great gaping inconsistencies created because the director seemed determined to have a cast of 23 year olds in all the main parts.

The result is that Lois Lane would have had to be 16 years old when she joined the daily planet, 18 when she had her child and still managed to hold down a very prestigious job at a major newspaper. OK OK it's not supposed to be completely realistic but COME ON! If the whole premise is that Superman has been gone for five years then surely something could have actually happened in that time?

Lois wins a Pulitzer prize for a fluff piece titled "Why the world doesn't need Superman" and although we never actually hear her argument for this award winning insight... the fact is that it quite obvious that the world is getting along quite well. When Superman does get back he gets his curl in a knot protecting the world from bank robbers (apparently there are no major civil wars, starving millions, AiDS epidemic or weapons of mass destruction in the world of Superman so again you gotta wonder why the world ever needed him in the first place and certainly no one would have noticed his absence.)

Added to the impossibly young age of Lois is the fact that she also looks like a gust of wind would knock her down... where oh where are the feisty strong looking women who had a bit of upper body strength??? Karen Allen where are you? (Yes I know I think she's in an insane asylum too but can you blame her the way real women are treated in Hollywood.)

Kevin Spacey as Lex Luthor had very little to do and again believability just wasn't there. we were meant to believe he got to serve only 5 years on a double life sentence because superman didn't turn up to a court date???? Plus his dastardly plan made absolutely no sense... sure he can build a land mass out of crystals but it's hardly fertile ground... people would be as well off living in the north pole or the Simpson desert.

I could go on and on about the stupidity and pointlessness of the story and problems with every single scene... but basically it's simply another example of Hollywood ignoring story for special effects and creating a blockbuster of a failure.

Honestly I hate Tom Hanks, I think he is probably the most over rated actor of this generation. I also think Steven Spielberg is a good technical director who often needs someone to tell him when a story has actually played out and not to add an unnecessary 15 minutes to it... But somehow this film resisted the fatal flaws of it's two creative heavyweights (Probably because of the script which was charming and didn't allow too much faffing about from Hanks or a (overly) sentimental ending to be wrung out by Spielberg.) Overall created a lovely little gem that I am sorry i resisted seeing for so long.

The main reason it works is because it is such a simple premise told in a really simple way. It wasn't the best film I have ever seen, but a nice surprise.