I'm a big fan of bad movies. The entire Superman series is quite a fine example of the use of early 80's technology for the purposes of evil.

It seems that the writing staff of Superman II really had no concept of what Superman's limitations were. It's also quite possible that the writing staff of Superman II consisted of a mentally handicapped 8-year-old named Todd who spends his days in a Warner Bros. broom closet until he's needed for more screenwriting.

Anyway, in this installment of the Superman saga, three criminals from Krypton (led by the nefarious General Zod) who were exiled before its destruction, come to Earth to assert their dominiance. Unfortunately, Superman has just given up his powers using his power-sucking-away-gizmo located in the Fortress of Solitude. He did this so he can lead a normal life with Lois Lane and get beat up by truckers a lot, even though the holographic projection of his mother informed him that he would NEVER be able to reverse the process.

When Superman sees the evil Kryptonites/Kryptoners/Kryptonians/Bad Guys roughing-up the President of the United States and committing various acts of vandalism upon Washington, D.C., he faces a dire dilemma: give up his powers and stay with Lois, or save the world again.

Wait a minute, didn't we just establish that Superman would never, ever be able to get his powers back once he lost them? Ah, who cares at this point? There's some ass kicking to do, after all!

So he goes to the Fortress of Solitude in desperation and, lo and behold, there's a shard of superman crystal lying on the ground that Mommy forgot to blow up. He plunks the shard down in the Super-Power-Removal chamber which took his powers away to begin with, and boom, he gets his powers back. Suck it, Superman's mom.

Now he can confront General Zod and his assorted baddie friends and get himself a world-class ass whoopin' by the bad guys until it's about time for the movie to be over. Then, in true Superman fashion, he tricks them with his superior goodness and intellect, wins the day, and there's the traditional humorous ending where Lex Luthor tries to make himself look like he was on Superman's side all the time.

The "best" part of this movie are Superman's Plot Advancing Powers. It seems that his powers are solely determined by what would be best to keep the plot moving in the direction that Todd wants it to go. For instance, there's a scene where the evil bad guys pick up a bus and throw it on Superman. Then they proceed to blow things around for a good 5 minutes while Superman is stuck under the bus. Now, this is the same Superman who, two episodes later in Superman IV, moves the freakin' moon. Stuck... under a bus. As if that weren't enough, when Superman gets hit with the bus, a number of idiot citizens jump out, become convinced that Superman is dead (he got hit with a bus, after all!) and decide the best plan of action would be to attack the three people who just threw the bus.

"They killed Superman! Let's get 'em!"

I get the feeling that Metropolis is mainly a service economy...

Some more examples of Superman's Plot Advancing Powers:

  • The evil bad guys vandalize the Great Wall of China by knocking down a small portion of it.
    Superman's reaction: He uses his "Masonry Vison" to sternly glare at the wall, thereby causing it to rebuild itself.
  • Non, the angry giant one, advances on Superman to attack.
    Superman's reaction: Superman pulls a cellophane copy of the big S off of his shirt and throws it at him. It for some reason becomes a cartoon, grows in size, and wraps itself around Non, causing him to fall down. RRRGH!
  • Evil bad guy General Zod shoots a red hand-laser-beam at Superman.
    Superman's reaction: Superman fires his own hand-laser-beam (blue, of course) and overpowers Zod's through the use of intense forward thrusting of his hand.
  • Evil bad guys outnumber Superman 3 to 1.
    Superman's reaction: Superman creates holographic multiples of himself which act independently, but are physically insubstantial. Hi-larious hijinks ensue.
  • Superman can transport himself instantaneously anywhere. No need for flying or walking here.. he's got the editors on his side.
Many people think that this is the best Superman movie ever made. I tend to agree with them.

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