Saturday Movie Madness! ALL-STAR SUPERMAN & DEMONS

I think it's general consensus that Superman is the most well-regarded of the big-time superheroes- hell, even Jerry Seinfeld loves him - even if he is, admittedly, in a goofy kind of universe.  His world is the stuff of science fiction being that, yes, he's an alien from the planet Krypton, and he puts on his facade of Clark Kent, and then fights bigger and badder aliens and robots and of course a megalomaniac with a bald head.   All-Star Superman's strength is to not make the proud and high and mighty too high and mighty and revered like, say, the Bryan Singer 2006 Superman revamp.  Based off of what is also considered THE Superman comic of the past decade by Grant Morrison and Frank Quietly, it takes the character dead seriously but doesn't forget the campiness of the world that he inhabits and protects.

It's knowing of how silly sometimes this all is, and yet it doesn't detract from it being less than entertaining or touching.  And there's humor throughout a story that should be really sad: after Superman stops an imminent threat of a spaceship going into the sun, he gets too close and is told that his cell structure will be breaking down due to the solar radiation... and he'll die(!)  Superman is philosophical about all this (and hey, why not, if he can come back after Doomsday he can come back from... well, maybe not this), and decides to get some of his affairs in order: chiefly that of Lois Lane, who doesn't know Clark Kent and Superman are one and the same.  How she finds out should be kind of obvious (take off the shirt, and there's the S), but the revelation doesn't hit her so hard.  That is until it dawns on her: he's been *lying* to me for years!  Or, you know, her not asking about it and him not saying anything, semantic argument, but I digress.

Even his diary-writing entries are bad-ass

But along with this with Lois, which ends up with her at the fortress of solitude and finding out more about Superman than she knew before, there's also the conflict with Lex Luthor.  He's arrested following another one of his plots and is put behind bars awaiting execution, but plans to break out come full-force after he finds out about a certain formula that Superman made that can give someone Super-strength (even Lois, who takes it herself for part of the film) for 24 hours.  How Superman reconciles this unfortunate development, and an unexpected visit from some nasty ex-Kryptonians who scoff at the "El's" and Superman especially, while Superman gets weaker, makes up the dramatic obstacles for the character.  And Superman being Superman he takes everything as it comes, despite being super-fast and with "down-time" at the Fortress of Solitude being relative, and of course there's the thing with the Sun.

An example of what I mean about the goofy side mixing in with the sincere comes from a development that happens midway through the movie: Lois and Superman are having a semi-romantic night, but it gets interrupted by first uninvited guest time travelers who act like 14-year olds in muscles and spandex trying to vie for Lois' affections, and secondly for reptile-monsters from the Earth's core (and Superman actually apologizes in acknowledgment of them being reptiles from the Earth's core).  It is silly, but shouldn't Superman be silly too?  Morrison and the makers of this film look on Superman as being indebted to the time it came from - dopey serials in print form and from the cartoon serials from the 1940's - but that he still has a place in the world of comics because of what he represents: a kind of God who comes to Earth, is not exactly half human but knows where humans are coming from and how they can love as well as hate, and is on top of things all over just by his genetic make-up.  If you gotta have a God, might as well be Superman.

Helloooo Lois!

Even more surprising is how wonderful Lex Luthor is written here, as a character who, of course being Luthor, wants to take over the world and mess things up, and when he's not working on his robots to try and kill Superman he has his next diabolical plot with the serum he takes to try and *be* Superman.  All of this should be typical Luthor stuff, but is given some umph with some fantastic dialog, and a sequence where Clark Kent is 'interviewing' Luthor behind bars, and then ironically has to save him when a monster breaks out of a prison cell (a big purply monster thing with a gigantic mouth) and has to save Luthor and (some) prisoners as it wreaks havoc everywhere in the jailhouse walls.  But where Luthor winds up near the end of the story, as he has his Super-Powers and Superman is at his weakest... he has a breakthrough, and realizes that he could have done more to save the world instead, as the powers given him show what Superman sees: everything is connected, and one can see everything that's happening, and hence in trouble, at the same time.

It's a deep revelation in a story that earns deepness from its stories and characters, and morality is always put to the test for Superman and he passes just by the skin of his teeth.  It's who he is, an alien-but-a-man-sorta who fights for those he cares about and the rest of the world not because he can but because he should and feels such responsibility as to make one final heroic act near the end (only made a little less dramatic by what Lois thinks he's really doing where he's at near the end).

And yet on top of what goes on on Earth, Morrison and director Sam Liu ups the stakes beautifully with a big-bad confrontation (and in white spandex no less! and with robots!) to fight a machine-sun in space that made a pact with Luthor.  It's one of those action sequences that is rousing and exciting and with just enough dialog to keep things humming along to the great animation on display.  It's moments like this and more in All-Star Superman, a top-tier DC Animated feature, than do more than remind me why I do, if only periodically, really like Superman: I feel like seeking out more and more of the comics to dig in to when he works as well as he does in the right hands. 


Why is another matter, as we move along to the next movie....

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Demons marks as a slightly more 'meta' project for Italian horror-meister Dario Argento, who produced and co-wrote this film with director Lamberto Bava (son of Mario), as it mostly takes place in a movie theater showing a horror movie that patrons go to see by way of a free invitation.  But unlike, say, an invite to a free test screening, this is for just a run-of-the-mill teens-go-into-a-crypt-and-die-one-by-one flick... until one woman who gets scratched by a mask that she wears in the lobby of the theater turns her into a demon, and from there more demons are made and spring to un-dead action against the attendees at the theater.  Some may last longer than others, such as the always durable-but-soon-to-due black dude (this one bald but with bad-ass sideburns) and a blind guy who gets his eyes gouged out by the demons.  IRONY!

The filmmakers relish in conventions of horror but don't miss any opportunity to go into the muck of it either, and always with fun and practical special effects.  Maybe I'm a little spoiled by time, but seeing such wicked make-up and gooey and 'eww' effects with these demons- and, naturally for an Italian horror film, over the top stylized violence (if nowhere near an Argento-directed or Mario Bava picture)- brought a smile to my face.  I liked seeing all of this mayhem ensue, often through characters doing stupid things.

Ex-Nickelodeon contestant, specifically Double-Dare

How stupid?  At one point after the theater patrons realize that there's no way out of the theater after being locked in with lots of concrete wedged into the doorways they go back into the main auditorium.  They pull a zombie-movie deal and barricade themselves inside, without really paying mind to going outside again... until they remove ALL of the barricaded material due to, um, I guess the threat being gone for the moment or demons coming from another side.  Oh, and they think it's the movie doing the demonic possession thing and spend ten minutes of the movie going to destroy the film, which would be nice if it was that infamous Are You Afraid of the Dark episode where the monster comes out of the screen.

To be sure there are moments like that in the film- such as those with a bunch of real 80's coke-metal heads (and you know they are as they snort their coke from their Coca-Cola cans to Billy Idol's "White Wedding" blaring in the car as they drive past neon-lit buildings at night)- that do feel superfluous to the plot.  But really, once the story gets rolling after its strong initial set-up, it's mostly an excuse to have people running and then being caught in the grip of Demon-Zombie fervor.  A guy riding on a motorcycle in the climax with a samurai sword (no, it's not as crazy as you think, the sword came from a statue holding it in the lobby of the theater) should be crazy horror-comedy, and it is, but it's also bad-ass horror stuff.  The makers of this movie don't make things too messy, and only near the climax does it get godDAMN ridiculous with the appearance of a helicopter.  How did it get there?  Um... you tell me.

Demons isn't too deep an entertainment.  Just watch with your buddies, recognize how much it is a rip-off of Evil Dead 1 (made in 1983, this came out in 1985) in how it deals with the undead demons, and it's meant to appeal to hardcore GORY Horror-geeks.  It's characters are mostly jerks or idiots save for the main lead couple, and there's only so much time to get to know anyone anyway, so it's best to watch it as pure B-movie-ness with over the top dialog and an ending that's made purely to go "AHAHA!" and be on your way.  You want splatter, dismemberment, and just a few solid hints at self-referential humor, look no further.  For the squeamish, stick with... well, definitely not this.