the passion of the kal-el

[sophiaserpentia]

Saw Superman Returns with cowgrrl last night. I'll give it 2 1/2 stars out of four. The movie was engineered to feel very much like a direct sequel to the first two Superman movies with Christopher Reeve. It was too long. Special effects were good, acting was passable. The action scenes were the most engaging parts of the movie.

So, about that plot.

I personally thought that the plot had so many parallels to the passion narrative in the gospels that it was practically plagiarized. cowgrrl didn't see it, so it could be that i'm just extra-sensitive because i've studied the gospels so much and have political concerns (see the next paragraph). Plotwise and characterwise there were a few differences, one quite significant, but i thought there were too many similarities for it to be coincidental.

Superman has, in the last ~70 years, become a specifically American, mass-media-and-corporate-profit-friendly kind of myth, like Coke and football and Santa Claus. Since i am concerned that America is turning exceedingly theocratic, perhaps i am being overly sensitive to suspect that Superman is now being turned into a gateway for mass-media-and-corporate-profit-friendly fundamentalist Christianity.

[Poll #767612]

Comments

[legolastn.livejournal.com]

I have not seen it yet, but a friend who did, and is not particularly steeped in Christian culture, definitely picked up on the Christ narrative.