THE BREAK-UP by jaiskizzy

after meeting at a baseball game, a tour guide dude and rachel, from friends, fall madly in love with each other, and live in a condo together, seemingly inseparable. but then one night, through an argument over lemons, the artsy girlfriend calls it quits with her video-game-loving boyfriend. both parties, however, refuse to leave the condo, and they start throwing sht at each other (figuratively, of course, but what a sight it would have been if it wasn’t, eh?) to determine who’ll fold up first and make amends. who will win this war? hang on to your lover’s hair ‘cause some of the stuff you’ll see will be familiar.

let’s face it, love’s a killer. sure it’s a good thing, it inspires you, makes you feel high and all, but you’re putting so much at stake, it’s a disaster when it goes bad. they called it “falling” in love for good reason. it’s a risk to take that path: either someone catches you or you end up in pieces at the bottom. and even if somebody did catch you, you know there’s still a slim chance they just might throw you over again. i know because i’ve had four ex-girlfriends, and each one of them i thought, she was the one. anyways, this movie has a lot of truth in it. it begins with pictures of vince vaughn and jennifer aniston kissing, having fun with friends, kissing, going to places, and… kissing. just what all couples in love have. awww sweetness… well, some good things must come to an end because what other thing do all couple have? fights (seriously if you’ve honestly never had a fight with your significant other over anything, you’re lying). and like most fights we all have, this one is just as stupid: vince bought 3 apples when jennifer asked him to buy 12. they shout, say things they’d regret later, things get out of hand, boom. the movie’s title. the movie, however, i think is not about who was right or wrong. it’s about the consequences, the aftermath of the break-up, and choices they made, which, even though meant for laughs, was making it all worse. jennifer goes on dating other guys, vince invites some strippers over, stuff we all would have done as well given that situation despite having knowledge that it’s wrong. that’s how very faithful to life this film is and im pretty sure anyone who watches this will have one or two realizations.

im not gonna go and ruin the ending for those who haven’t seen it. well, there really isn’t any ending to ruin because it does not matter how it ends. only two things can happen after a break-up: one, you go your separate ways and either forget about each other or be friends; and two, you get back together. anyways, you probably wouldn’t like how this movie ends, but i guess that’s an intended reaction. it shows you what happens if you do this or that. i think the ending’s just right.

i apologize if im making this sound more like a love doctor’s lecture than a movie review. apart from its genuine representation of relationships, there’s zero else worth noting. this film is mostly vince vaughn, i guess the writer was male. he did well in his role, give and take pretty much how we all men are. lazy, insensitive, stubborn. vince vaughn was a good choice, words that come out from his mouth are some of the words that stay in my head. im sure some of that weren’t in the script. now i cant say the same for jennifer aniston. she’s still rachel to me. she really oughta something about it, take on a role like charlize theron in monster and maybe she can shake off that “friends”-style of acting and show her versatility. else, i, and others who have seen her wear the princes leia costume for ross, would never get the chance to take her seriously (but a round of applause for that walking-around-naked scene).

overall, there’s just not enough laughs to consider this film a comedy. it’s more like a bad but convincing reality tv show episode. except that it’s not real. anyways, i think only those in a solid, strong relationship can survive watching this. if you’re having a tough time with your pardner, stay away, this won’t help. instead, just get porn.

the good: the arguments, how most couples would relate to it, and jennifer aniston’s ass.
the bad: flat minor characters, and inadequate humor.
the ugly: the tone rangers. and marilyn dean. ugh.
the score: 5 lemons.


jai

holy smokes

i do not smoke. i have a lot of friends who smoke. my closest friend smokes. my dad smokes. sometimes my mom does too. wherever i go, there's someone smoking. i'll be twenty-six in a couple of months and i have not puffed even once on a single stick of cigarette. i know it's no big deal but it's an achievement and im proud of it. it's not that i hate cigarettes. i have nothing against smokers. they choose to fill their lungs with nicotine, fine by me. i just chose not to. nothing philosophical about. well, it's not like i never wanted to try it. i once created/drew this detective character for a number of short mystery stories and he smoked. his hat would always be tipped down to hide his eyes and only thing you'd see would be his mouth with a lit cigarette. i guess i thought smoking made one look cool, thanks to movies and tv, and i admit there were periods in that past where i contemplated putting that filtered butt onto my chapped lips and with a flick of my wrist, burning the other end with a lighter. i would then siphon the smoke into my system, take away the cigarette with my thumb and index finger, and release that grayish white mist that would hang in the air for awhile. at least that's how i think id do it if i did do it (id probably learn how to do those smoke rings too). i will, however, not end that smoking sessions by throwing the cigarette carelessly on the ground and stepping on it. i would put it out in the trash bin where it belongs. that's what annoys me more about smokers than the smoking. dude, you just polluted the air, you're gonna litter the streets with your garbage as well? but like i said i have nothin against smokers, it's their thing. as long as they do not force me to follow their example, we're fine. they're not gonna hear anythin from me either. which is weird. well, smokers are just like the gay community: instead of them adjusting for you, they want you to adjust for them, as if they are the norm and you arent. any smokers out there who doesnt agree with that last sentence can eat these next ones: if i'm wrong then by adjusting for the non-smokers, you shouldn't smoke anywhere near us. heck, you shouldnt even be asking for our permission to smoke (we non-smokers usually say "it's okay" but really it's not). smoke only when you're alone or when you're with other future lung-cancer patients. if on the other hand it is inevitable that you would need to smoke in our proximity, be polite and do everything to prevent us from inhaling it. and that, my friends, is what i would call good "cigaretiquette".

hey! welcome (back, if you're a returner) to my bodacious bad-ass blog! im at our humble happy house in batangas, been a while since i last set foot on here. today is my youngest sister's 15th birthday and i gave her an uno stacko. my first option was actually an inuyasha figurine (it's her most favorite anime) but some stuff came about and depleted my funds. this coming wednesday is yet another special occasion that requires gift-giving: layla and i will be celebrating our 3rd year anniversary! hooray!!! a lot has happened within those years, proof that tempus does fugit fast. there were good times, bad times, ups and downs, rights and wrongs, cheers, tears, and fears, just millions of memories, and if by some sorcery i had to go through all of it again, im in, merlin. as long as it's still with layla. she is my life, my edge, my balance. and i love her verily. anyways, i can't wait to give her my gift. i like gifts, giving em, taking em, thinking of new ways to present them. i don't know, it's my thing to not just hand over the gift and greet her, i like a great surprise set up to accompany the gesture so that she doesnt just get a gift, she experiences it. plus, i like making her cry. happy tears, of course.


oh, by the way, ive quit my e-mailing job.the three-month contract expired and when they showed me a new one, an extension upto october with no salary increase and added benefits (same sht, different paper), i refused to sign it. well, actually it's not really about the money... okay, it's always about the money, that's what jobs are for, but what im tryin to say is that i had other reasons to not keep the job and only a better-looking paycheck amount would sway my decision, depending on how good it looks.well, it looked exactly the way it looked the first time i saw it so i said "screw you, morons." (in my mind) and let myself out and now im a bum again. but not for long, tonto, not for long... (weird. have you seen those movie scenes, usually in the ending, where, after surviving an ordeal, the protagonist, sometimes with a companion, walks off smiling, in slow-motion? i kinda had that when i exited the osma building. took off the id, paused at the sidewalk, wind blew, involuntary smile, then i crossed the road towards a new destiny...)

as jessica simpson/daisy duke would have said it, these links are meant for clicking:

funny classified ads - body tricks - jack the ripper - weird records - davy jones - bad ads - google logo artist - cool cursor kite - not-everyday pics - moscow underground - keyboard food tray - strange statues -

then there's the new trailer for the teenage mutant ninja turtles cgi movie:


and that's my cue. thanks for tuning in. hope you always find the time, interest, and internet connection to come back here. au revoir and take care out there, friends.

breakin the wall

i havent been watching tv lately, i only use it for the playstation2 and as a place to put thing on top of. what's good to watch now anyways? nothin but stupid same old crapanovelas. boy meets girl, one of em is rich and one of em is poor, there's a villain out to destroy their relationship, someone finds out he/she is adopted, someone dies, someone who's supposed to be dead comes back alive, and the villain does some sht on a wedding or a party. over and over and over again. now there's an over-abundance of chinovelas, koreanovelas and japanovelas, which im pretty much sick of as well. they do present a different take on this telenovela thing, but im just so tired of it. and it also proves that the people writing crap for these networks are out of ideas. which is why we got the smallville rip-off captain barbell. what's next? bollywood?! this "trend" of importing foreign entertainment can lead to something positive though... the french! come to papa...


did i hear someone say "get cable!"? no? sorry. i hear voices in my head. sshh. anyways, layla and i do not have cable and wont be able to get cable for a while because the owner of the house we're renting doesnt like... um, cables. says it looks ugly. this, according to the all-round boy who is ugly. if they dont like seeing ugly, why are they letting this horrible creature roam around in and out of the house parading his facial errors? keep him locked in a cage within their side of the premises out of my line of vision and i'll zip it. (i know im not good-looking but im not the one complaining about ugliness). wish moving out aint as easy as pancakes, so layla and i must survive that sht for a while. anyways, some posts ago i mentioned takashi miike's imprint, an episode on the acclaimed tv series, masters of horror. it's on a channel called showtime and the whole show basically shatters the limit of what can be shown on television, horror-wise. gore and nudity are served in huge doses. apparently, sensei miike abused too much of this freedom and imprint was banned from hitting the u.s. airwaves. it's such a shame how we arent as blessed with quality programming as americans. or europeans. and by the way, on a related note, there's a new series showcasing episodes based on stephen king's short stories, and it's called nightmares and dreamscapes, which is also the title of one of maestro king's compilation books. hope my bootlegger buddies do their job...

okay. movie mode time. any of you guys seen pirates of the caribbean: dead man's chest? did you like it? a number of folks didn't, churning out some pretty cruel reviews. most of these unhappy campers failed to see the the first one, the curse of the black pearl, so do the math and we'll arrive at the same answer. i take no offense, i am not a die-hard fanatic of the series, but i just hope that the people attacking the movie like a helpless ant know exactly what they are saying and could justify their review on a debate against me. this goes for all movies and all reviews, i mean, i have written some negativity in my reviews as well but i kept them constructive and never personal (which is why i do not review pinoy films which i unfortunately get to watch every now and then, mostly in buses. i have a pre-viewing hate that would get in the way). anyways, i have seen dead man's chest (and part 1 too) and if you wanna know if i liked it or not, you'd just have to read my movie review. written as spoiler-free as i can. read it here

oh and apropos... before dead man's chest came on, there was the sweet kick-ass holy mother-effin spider-man 3 trailer!!! wooho!!! ive seen like around 10 times already in apple.com and still i had those geekboy goosebumps. this was supposed to be attached to superman returns, but hell, with spidey, any time is a great time!

skizzy want new holographic spider-man 3 poster!!! (see it in action)

the other morning, layla and i were having a hard time falling asleep and we got to talking about some good songs from the past. we focused mainly on dance tunes and basically went through most of the songs that soared to outrageous popularity during the 90's. we sang em out loud, hummed/improvised the unknown lyrics but never finished one. some of the songs we covered were the sign, mmm bop, ice ice baby, raggamuffin girl, and of course, the macarena (when we slept after, i had a mafia-themed dream). it was so much fun, we laughed a lot. anyways, in this regard, i have below the latest batch of web links that piqued my interest which i hope you would cause you an amount of delight as well, including a site that list 50 one-hit wonders. im sure there'll be at least one song in there that you have a memory tied to. click on, baby!

one-hit wonders - funny math answers - cool mini cooper ad - kaleido-mouse - nude vacations - grammar myths - happiest place on earth - funny unintended urls

and with that i bid you adieu, and may all of your dreams come true. especially the ones you have when you wake up and the bed sheets are soaked. this is your friendly neighborhood skizzy, signing off... for now.

p.s. breaking the wall is a tv/movie term used to that realism-defying action when a character looks at the camera or talks to the audience. ka-chow!

PIRATES OF THE CARIBBEAN: DEAD MAN'S CHEST by jaiskizzy

the gist: in this swashbucklin sequel to the curse of the black pearl, the talented mr. johnny depp returns as the peculiar pirate and antihero of the high seas, jack sparrow. pardon me... captain jack sparrow. legolas/will turner and his hottie wife-to-be, keira knightley, are need to find him to save their necks from the gallows, he, on the other hand is looking for a key which would open a chest, the contents of which will help him settle his debt of death to the dreadful davy jones. will the captain succeed in salvaging his soul? will will (tee-hee!) turner and his feisty fiancee do some pleasurable pirate pumping? (mickey says nope!) oh well... avast, landlubbers! wacko captain jacko is backo.

the reaction: the only other pirate movie i saw before this and after the first one is a porn flick entitled pirates. yes, you read that right. porn. but clear your head of the cheesy nonsense pre-sex situations and equally cheesy nonsense dialogue because pirates was actually a very good movie. it had great special effects. it had a story. it had set designs. it had costumes. and yes it had hardcore sex, but the point is that it looked like a hollywood-made film, leaping miles beyond b-movie territory. bottomline: if a porn company can come up with something like that, what more can hollywood do right? well, years ago, the curse of the black pearl became a surprise hit as nobody thought that a movie based on a disneyland theme park ride and made by kid-friendly disney would do well in the box office. it surpassed expectations and left the fans wanting more. turns out it's actually a trilogy, and here came part 2. is dead man's chest as good as its predecessor? nah... it's better! the first one was a fresh fun frolicky flick on a subject none of us havent seen in decades: pirates (hook was about peter pan, mostly). it introduced us to captain jack sparrow, will turner, and elizabeth swann, and now they've taken these three persons (and some small players) and put them in an all-new adventure, against the usual way of sequels showing pretty much the same from the original, comparable to the equally entertaining indiana jones movies.

dead man's chest begins with a woman's chest, keira knightley under the rain, and from there we are taken on a wild roller coaster-y ride, and i think exactly a roller coaster ride because the movie kinda starts off slow (this is for non-watchers of the first movie to get to know the characters), much like the long queue you go through before you actually get strapped onto the cars. however, i was never bored with any of the non-action scenes and though that it was a proper re-introduction, especially with captain jack sparrow and his count of monte cristo-inspired entrance (note that gun he aptly brandishes in the posters). once that is done, the movie picks up the pace and kicks off the endless fun. like the first one, this may be an action-adventure movie but it never takes itself seriously, and ultimately triumphs as a comedy. but dont expect the laugh-out-loud balls-to-the-floor type. the movie is about silly fun and that's the kind of fun-ny you will get. i had the most laughs for the sequences in the cannibal tribe island. cannibalism has never been as hilarious. even the serious character of will turner takes part in the hilarity. but of course, when it comes to fun, the captain is your prime pirate. also, if you pay attention to the dialogue, there'll be lots of jokes and innuendos to giggle at.

dead man's chest does not let one down on the awe aspect as well. i enjoyed all the action sequences a lot, the three-way swordfight was great from start to finish. the special effects were awesome, so awesome that in some parts, it's hard to tell which are real and which are cgi. of course, the magnificent monster of mayhem, the kraken, is obviously cgi but all of its scenes were terrific. but davy jones wins the best cgi prize on this one. this octopus-faced villain was so well-done, some kid's gonna have nightmares about him. those tentacles are so life-like, always squirming about, and davy jones even uses them as extra limbs to hold things and play the piano (as opposed to the low budget medusa effect of darna's nemesis, valentina, using eels. the nerve these morons claim that they're at par with hollywood standards! spit!). great character design and great translation on the screen. also, one memorable scene for me is when the flying dutchman, davy jones' sinister skeletal ship, submerges into the ocean with and over-the-shoulder camera angle on an unflinching davy jones. neato!

the actors get the largest portion of kudos, and the versatile mr. johnny depp takes most of it, being the genius behind captain jack sparrow. instead of giving us the cliche cutthroat pirate performance, he opted for an eccentric swaggerring almost gay-like interpretation, loosely based on the rolling stones guitarist keith richards, at least according to the depp (keith richards will play captain jack sparrow's father in part 3). and just like in part 1, the depp carried the whole film, owning every scene he appears in. of course, legolas and keira "amidala decoy" knightley were just as great with their respective roles, orlando, keeping his will turner as the calculated commanding hero against the happy-go-lucky wing-it captain jack sparrow, and keira being pouty and spunky and yummy like most girlfriends are. i wouldnt have cared if she didnt have any lines. she did a naked vanity fair cover. she's hot. the rest of the minor characters did well too, biggs was good and so is the inclusion of bald headed fatso and guy with a wooden eye, but i cant help but notice that the beckett guy was sort of doing a captain jack sparrow thing with his role. and who would forget bill nighy as davy jones, yes there was a real actor behind that cgi, the dude who played the rude old rockstar in love actually and sang "christmas is all around me", and viktor in underworlds 1 & 2. the voicing was just perfect. overall, a cast of champions.

the conclusion: shiver me timbers! a well-done follow-up movie to a seemingly hard to follow-up movie (i hope you understood that). the figures agree: dead man's chest took the record from spider-man for being the highest grossing film on its opening weekend (spidey=114.8 million; captain jack=$132 million). a cult series in the making, im sure that disney will find it difficult to turn a blind eye to the fans after part 3 arrives and proves to be a splash hit as well. if disney makes the right decisions, i strongly believe that the pirates of the caribbean franchise can do to the sea what star wars did to space. arrr!

the good: the special effects, the comedy, and captain jack sparrow.
the bad: some incomprehensible pirate language, and the slightly uneven pace.
the ugly: davy jones's crew.
the verdict: 8 compasses that do not point north.


captain jai skizzo

tech it out

welcome me back, jack.

allow me first to extend my gratitude to the wonderful folks who keep tuning in to this blog despite the inadequate amount of updates. ironic how im online every single minute of my work hours but unable to post a word on my blog. them free web proxies aint no help either. still, some good-natured creatures took the time to pay a visit and, for a guy who handles customer complaints all the time, i appreciate such lil gestures of kindness (yes, im that easy to please). to my dear friends, thank you, thank you and... did i say thank you yet?

here is a picture of a brand new sony playstation 2 still in a box:

and that brand new ps2 is mine!!!

oh yeah. i bought it in greenhills about a week ago from a shop named eyo and ive been having a hard time keeping my hands off it ever since. layla went green-eyed monster mode of course, but because she is the perfect girlfriend, she eventually understood the situation: im a kid and santa actually gave me what i want for christmas (she did at first, she was with me when i bought it and helped me a bit with the damage, and didnt find out its side effects until after ive played it during half of my sleep time for a couple of days). i swear that when i opened the box, a choir hit a high note and treasure-chest-like light emanated from within as i laid my eyes on its beautiful bad-ass blackness. anyways, the price tag included the console, a/v and power cables, two controllers, a memory card, and ten games. a sweet deal! first thing i played on it was god of war, and what a great way to get introduced to the console, baptism by hellfire (actually, when we tested it in the store, i chose final fantasy x so technically that would be the first one)! this bloody game rocks. one good thing about it was that it was easy to get into. no boring tutorials needed, just take the controller, punch em buttons and pale-skinned red-tattooed kratos will kick evil enemy ass with a swing-slash-chop of his blades of chaos. another thing is that it's not all slice and dice mass murder mayhem, there are neat puzzles thrown in to give your adrenaline a rest and get your brain juices sloshing. brutal, bloody, and booby, a tough but fast mythology-based game. next up on my playlist: need for speed most wanted and final fantasy x.

ive also got a brand new mobile phone, the nokia 3250 (the twisty thing that you've probably seen advertised in ayala cinemas), but i didnt buy it myself. my father did. because my previous one, 7650, was fcked up. i didnt ask for it, i was planning to save up for a new phone after the ps2, but i guess my parents had a few moolah to spare so voila! thanks, dad and mum (not what i actually call my 'rents).

oh and layla bought a fridge as well. small, cute and white. no more not-cold drinks. and next-to-nothing electric bills.

well that's it. that's the update. i'll be hoppin around to check out your blogs. till next time, guys.

faster than a speedin bullsht

this'll be short. im in a hurry.

i have been busy and havent got enough time to blog so sorry for the absence of updates. i'll explain soon. in the meantime, my superman returns review has been up since last week, if you ever check the movie review links on the right you'd have read it already. ive sequelized it as well. the reason for that is, i was in the process of posting an entry but some unforeseen turn of events needed my presence at once and so i wasnt able to finish it.

thanks to everyone who visit my blog regularly despite having nothing new to view. i'll see yours as well the moment i have my time all to myself. take care, friends.

SUPERMAN RETURNS by jaiskizzy

it has been five years since superman disappeared from the face of the earth just like that (snap!). the world has moved on with him, and so has lois lane, who is now with a child and a new man in her life. and just like that (snap!) the big blue boy scout returns and catches up on the things he missed. meanwhile, the evil lex luthor has another evil scheme up his evil sleeve: use the crystals he found in superman's fortress of solitude to make a new kryptonian continent right next to america. will he succeed or will our formidable flying friend foil the foul fiendish foe's felony? fee-fi-fo-fum!

first, i am angered that they did not show us the spider-man 3 teaser trailer. it was supposed to be included in all prints of superman returns, and i so expected to see it in the theater but alas! some morons decided not to release it just yet. what? they gonna show it in front of some stupid pinoy teen love team flick? curses! disappointed, i went to apple.com and watched the trailer there and thanks to the goosebumps, i am now okay.

so there i was with layla, lying on our lazy-boy seats, finishing our popcorn and drinks before the movie started. then the lights went out, spider-man was a no show, and then... superman returned. as kyrpton exploded and the credits rolled (or flashed, like the opening credits of superman 1, props to that!), i repeated in my head a pre-movie mantra i think every comic book geek knows: please, don't suck... please, don't suck... please, don't suck...

well, it didnt suck. it... sipped (i hope you get it).

as a kid, when i first saw superman the movie in betamax, i thought it was the most amazing thing i have ever seen in my entire life. holy hummingbirds, that man can fly! fast forward to the present, it is only understandable for a fanboy like me to expect as much. but i read a couple of not so good reviews, and i forced myself to lower my expectations. now those were met. the rest, misfired. i believe that it is bryan singer's fault, that he was given too much freedom with the material, and that he wanted to pay homage to the original too much that he made a movie that had personality issues. wait, folks. dont crucify me yet. i liked the movie. i feel i got my money's worth. but it needs improvement. it has more flaws than i thought it would have.

now before i delve into the details of what worked and what didnt in superman returns, i must warn you that i will be treading in spoilersville. actually, to me, this review is spoiler-free. i mean, what is there to spoil? it's superman versus lex, superman will obviously win and save the day. plus, there's the love story and we all know where that's going, so technically, no spoilers. but for goodness' sake, if you havent watched the movie, i would recommend that you stop reading this right now and just come back here when you've seen it. thanks.

passionately honoring the superman legend and choosing to follow the continuity of superman 2 was both a hit and miss for bryan singer and co. sure, he had to show his love for the superman mythos and do this as a tribute to those who went before him, but this only makes superman returns less original, seeming like more of a remake (of superman 1) than a sequel. some of it where cool though, like retaining the silly but iconic cowlick, and the one photograph of superman carrying a car above him which is exactly like the action comics #1 cover where superman first appeared. i did like the superman and lois flying scene a bit (which they already did in superman 1) because this one was done in a different context and how this used the same theme that played in the original. (layla questioned what the flying scene was for, to which i replied that in superman 2, superman erased lois lane's memory of her knowledge that clark kent is superman and who knows what else was deleted. and besides, if i was superman, id take her flying everyday!). and while im on the subject of flight, the flying effects were okay but having scene all of this in matrix reloaded and revolutions, it wasnt anytything new.

i didnt like the idea of superman just leaving like that without saying au revoir to search for kryptonian answers and then come home with nothing. they should have at least made him find something, no matter how insignificant, or or maybe something found him, so that at least his 5 year-absence was a total waste of time. it's also awkward how his return was just accepted like air by everyone, except lois, and as clark kent he just goes back to work like he just took a day off. the coincidence of superman and clark being gone at the same time and returning at the same time wasnt even touched. only one scene sniffs at this suspicious subject: lois lane and her husband-to-be compare superman's stats with clark's but they dismiss it with a nerdy wave from clark. a weak scene, would've have been better if clark clumnsily toppled a pen holder or a pile of papers instead. superman returns scores low on humor. not much in the drama department either, so leave your box of tissues at home (in superman 1 i fought tears from fallin when jonathan kent died and clark said that he couldnt even save him despite all his powers. classic). i guess bryan singer needs to work on his tearjerking.

what i do think bryano is quite good at is finding untapped talent. he gave us hugh jackman with wolverine, now he's got brandon routh. when i first saw this guy in a few online pics as clark kent, he had a slight resemblance to the late christopher reeve. in the movie, not only does he look a bit like chris, he sounds very much like him as well, especially in clark kent move. he was great as clark kent, but kinda lacked the simpleton-ness that chris conveyed. he also did good as superman (the resemblance ends with clark kent), but still needs to work on the level of respect that chris's superman demanded. and is it me, or doesnt the way he flies looks kinda awkward? (this is evident in the pre-end credits flight scene where brandon flies and smiles to the camera the same manner it was done by chris in the 4 superman films. im sure that if you played those scenes side by side, you'd notice the difference.) i also think he needs to practice "pain" acting more. tom welling seemed better at this. overall, mr routh was a good choice for this role. another good choice which really surprised me was kate bosworth. i initally thought she was a miscast, considering her previous roles (a babe in rules of attraction, a surfer chick in blue crush), and how she didnt look like the lois lane type. but lick my loins, what a great performance by miss bosworth. great as reporter lois, great as mommy lois, and great as you-left-and-i-moved-on lois. would have been better with a pinch of margot kidder's quirkiness, the role was kinda too serious, but that's just me. photo-junkie jimmy olsen was good, and so was perry white, although i wonder what it would have been like if hugh laurie (house) got the role. the inclusion of cyclops was okay too, a good guy instead of being "she's mine" psychotic. it was also nice to see that the kid didnt do any haley joel osment or dakota fanning all-out acting (watch out for the piano scene). also, the little screen time that martha kent had was effective, especially in her last scene, looking up at the hospital because she cant go in or else she blows superman's cover. which finally brings us to the role of lex luthor. hmm. ive always like kevin spacey as an actor, he was great in the usual suspects (also by b.s.), k-pax, american beauty, the life of david gale etc. here, he wasnt great. not even good, imho. i prefer the lex luthor portrayal of gene hackman, and im sure kevin spacey used that as inspiration and mixed it with his own, which led to a mad, unconvincing lex. gene hackman's lex was arrogant and rude and funny, repetitively proclaiming that he is the greatest criminal mind of the century, and casually dealing with three powerful kryptonian villains. kevin spacey's lex just comes off as a 2-dimensional power-hungry mastermind. i do however have sort of absorbed his "billions!" and "wroonnngg!!!" lines, so i guess he managed to squeeze in a good one. and then there's lex's neanderthal minions, one who looks like will ferrell and another who looks like adrien brody, who were pretty useless, and i couldnt see why they had to cast kumar from harold & kumar go to white castle, in an equally useless, yes-sir role. kitty was great though, enjoyed her car with no breaks scene, but she is no ms. teschmacher.

now about the costume... it was fine with me. they had to do some changes, okay. the s became smaller, okay. there's an s on the belt and no s on the cape, okay. keyword: acceptance. but i think the colors were kinda dull. when the s shield is displayed in the opening credits, it was shiny and vibrant. why then did they have a different color scheme with the costume? because... the shield would look dull if they used the costume colors. sheesh. and then there is superman's boots. or, more appropriately, his "combat" boots. looked like they were designed by skechers. very out of place with superman's sleek suit. and by the way, they really schould start tackling the science behind the costume. if bullets ricocheting off of it dont leave a scratch, how come a human doctor was able to rip it off so easily?

all in all, i think this was a good "reintroduction" movie. im sure some would get blown away by the airplane resuce sequence. it was good scene, but i thought it needed more oomph, as this movie needed more action than just superman carrying stuff. heat vision was used well here, i particularly liked the sheet that superman made to disintegrate the falling debris. after several paragraphs, i still havent said enough about this movie. there many other things to like and love, to hate and hiss at. maybe it was just that we expected too much after taking so long for the movie to arrive at the silvescreen. remember, it could have been worse: nicholas cage was once cast as superman and one producer wanted to make some "gay" changes. clearly, bryan singer wasnt able to perform the magic he did with xmen 1 & 2 but was able to put on a good show for fans and non-fans alike. and hey, it's superman, dude! that man can fly!

the good: homages, acting, and that one scene where superman bathes in the sun's rays!
the bad: lex, costume, having nothing new.
the ugly: the borrowed scenes from spider-man (run jump run) and james bond (you'll see... well, only if you saw goldeneye).
the verdict: 7 kryptonite shards.

superskizzy.