9 out of 10 monkeys believe they are not behind glass

Gore Verbinski surprised me when the first Pirates was released three years ago. (Wow, three years already?) Heck, the entire Disney team suprised the world with the movie. Can you imagine how huge of a flop it could have been? Especially when you are talking about a movie built around the revamping of a RIDE? How silly it could have turned out? But it turned out to be a pretty decent movie.

So now… the sophomore curse is looming. The sequel is coming Friday (as everyone knows), and my wife is pretty excited. She is a closet movie fan with very limited tastes, so when she gets excited, it is a rare event indeed.

The concept and plot look clean enough. Davy Jones, the baddest of the bad, is set as the main villian and I think that alone will give the movie plenty to dwell on. I hope that it doesn’t sink in its own references to the previous movie and just focuses on the characters. If it turns into a farce of character exploitation and just ends up reveling in the exaggeration of traits, I will be disappointed. Everyone knows Cap. Jack Sparrow and we don’t need to see him just be a parody of himself from the last movie, ya know?

Gore Verbinski suprised us all once… hopefully he can pull it off again. After MI3, X3 and Superman Returns, I need a mind blowing movie this summer. The summer season just hasn’t been delivered yet. Has it?

I have mixed feelings on the new movie. First the positive.

Kevin Spacey is a good Lex Luthor. Self-serving, kind of manic, and continuing many of the finer points that Gene Hackman established in the first two movies. Spacey lent a bit more “nemesis” feeling to the role, where as, Hackman was kind of cheesy and as a character hid behind his monologuing (monologing? whatever). Spacey lends his quirky factor to the role and it suited him. His scene with Lois and her son on the boat was a lot of fun.

Brandon Routh and Kate Bosworth had nuances in the characters of the previous actors (Reeve and Kidder). There were moments I swore Routh was Chris Reeve. Remarkable nods to the previous movies and such. I thought some of the those geeky references were cool. And creepy. And it made things a tad uneven. As if Routh and Bosworth couldn’t quite succeed on making the roles their own.

The special effects without question were, of course, summer blockbluster quaility. No doubt. But then again, special effects are rarely biffed anymore, so they kind of fade into the background after a while.

The story had its moments. And each character had their moments. But that is about it.

And you are starting to catch onto what I am about to say is a negative.

The movie has cool moments. But just moments. The plot is disjointed somewhat. It flows when you look back on it, but while you are watching it, it feels uneven. There is no real impact on the audience as to who and why Superman “is.” He has been gone for five years on a mission to a dead planet, and comes back to a world struggling with the question of needing a flying Jesus. And I think the movie drowns in that question. Spacey’s plot to do what he wanted to do, lacks oomph and kind of just fizzles. Singer succeeded in making Superman’s enemies natural forces and catastrophes. But totally failed on making Luthor have an impact. It almost felt if we were rehashing the first movie somewhat. And that is a bummer.

I was hoping for something… Dramatic. Impressive. Luthor spent all this time talking about technology from another planet, but you never see it. You just crystals and water and earth. And good ol’ Kryptonite. Yippee.

There are some cool moments, and it did get my geek on, so I would say it is up there with the first Xmen movie and below Batman Begins. Batman sort of suffered from the same “moment” thing, but it hustled along so fast that you didn’t catch it. And it worked. There was no huge question about a flying Jesus. Batman was a man with an issue.

Superman has an issue, but in the end, you kind of don’t care. Like I said, no oomph.