The Story of G.I. Joe

Dir: William A. Wellman

1945

****

Directed by the great William Wellman, The Story of G.I. Joe is one of the few American World War II films actually made during the war with real gravitas and grit. It’s hard to imagine that Robert Mitchum only received one Oscar nomination during his career but it was well deserved here, indeed the film was nominated for four in total. It’s a cracking war film with brilliant performances from a fantastic cast but it is also surrounded with great sadness. The story is a tribute to the American infantryman (known as G.I. Joes), told through the eyes of Pulitzer Prize-winning war correspondent Ernie Pyle (played and narrated by the wonderful Burgess Meredith), with dialogue and narration lifted from Pyle's columns. The film concentrates on one company, (C Company, 18th Infantry), that Pyle accompanies into combat in Tunisia and Italy. The friendships that grow out of his coverage led Pyle to relate the misery and sacrifice inherent in their plight and their heroic endurance of it. Although the company has the designation of an actual unit, that unit did not participate in the combat in Italy that makes up the preponderance of the film, and actually stands in for the units of the 34th and 36th Infantry Divisions that Pyle did cover in Italy. The film begins as we see the untested infantrymen of C Company as they board trucks headed to the front for the first time. Lt. Bill Walker (Mitchum) allows war correspondent Ernie Pyle (Meredith), himself a rookie to combat, to hitch a ride with the company. Ernie surprises Walker and the rest of the men by deciding to go with them all the way to the front lines. Just getting to the front through the rain and mud is an arduous task, but the diminutive, forty-two-year-old Ernie manages to keep up. Ernie gets to know the men whose paths he will cross and write about again and again in the next year. Among them are Private Robert "Wingless" Murphy, a good-natured man who was rejected by the Air Corps for being too tall; Private Dondaro, an Italian-American from Brooklyn whose mind is always on women and conniving to be with one; Sergeant Warnicki, who misses the young son he has never seen and Private Mew, from Brownsville, Texas, who has no family back home but finds one in the outfit, exemplified by his naming beneficiaries for his G.I. life insurance among them. Their "baptism of fire" is at the Battle of Kasserine Pass, a bloody chaotic defeat. Ernie is present at battalion headquarters when Lieutenant Walker arrives as a runner for his company commander; Walker has already become an always tired, seemingly emotionless, and grimy soldier. Ernie and the company go their separate ways, but months later he seeks them out, confessing that, as the first outfit he ever covered, they are in his mind the best outfit in the army. He finds them on a road in Italy, about to attack a German-held town, just as the soldiers are elated or disappointed at "mail call": letters for Murphy and Dondaro, a package with a phonograph record of his son's voice for Warnicki, but nothing for now Captain Walker. Ernie finds that Company C has become very proficient at killing without remorse. In house-to-house combat, they capture the town. Fatigue, however, is an always present but never conquerable enemy. When arrangements are made for Wingless Murphy to marry "Red", his Army nurse fiancée, in the town they have just captured, Ernie is recruited to give the bride away, but can barely keep awake. The company advances to a position in front of Monte Cassino, but, unable to advance, they are soon reduced to a life of living in caves dug in the ground, enduring persistent rain and mud, conducting endless patrols and subjected to savage artillery barrages. When his men are forced to eat cold rations for Christmas dinner, Walker obtains turkey and cranberry sauce for them from a rear echelon supply lieutenant at gunpoint. Casualties are heavy: young replacements are quickly killed before they can learn the tricks of survival in combat (which Walker confesses to Ernie makes him feel like a murderer), Walker is always short of lieutenants, and the veterans lose men, including Wingless Murphy. After a night patrol to capture a prisoner, Warnicki suffers a nervous breakdown when, finally hearing his son's voice on the record, his pent up frustrations at the war are released. Walker sadly directs the others to subdue the hysterical sergeant and sends him to the infirmary. Ernie returns to the correspondents' quarters to write a piece on Murphy's death and is told by his fellow reporters that he has won the Pulitzer Prize for his combat reporting. Ernie again catches up with the outfit on the side of the road to Rome after Cassino has finally been taken. He greets Mew and a few of the old hands, but the pleasant reunion is interrupted when a string of mules is led into their midst, each carrying the dead body of a G.I. to be gently placed on the ground. A final mule, led by Dondaro, bears the body of Captain Walker. One by one, the old hands reluctantly come forth to express their grief in the presence of Walker's corpse. "Then the first man squatted down, and he reached down and took the dead hand, and he sat there for a full five minutes, holding the dead hand in his own and looking intently into the dead face, and he never uttered a sound all the time he sat there. And finally he put the hand down, and then reached up and gently straightened the points of the captain’s shirt collar, and then he sort of rearranged the tattered edges of his uniform around the wound. And then he got up and walked away down the road, all alone." Ernie joins the company as it goes down the road, narrating its conclusion: "For those beneath the wooden crosses, there is nothing we can do, except perhaps to pause and murmur, 'Thanks pal, thanks.'" Casting of the role of Ernie Pyle began in June 1944, after speculation about the role brought forth a large number of names as possibilities to producer Lester Cowan. Pyle was seen by Americans as part saint, part seer, and part common man, and himself pleaded with a fellow correspondent, headed to Hollywood to contribute to the storyline: "For God's sake, don't let them make me look like a fool.” The choice narrowed down quickly to three character actors resembling Pyle or his perceived persona: James Gleason, Walter Brennan, and Meredith, who was then little-known and serving as a captain in the Army. Meredith was chosen because he was lesser known. Cowan was advised that if Capt. Meredith appeared in the film, all profits would have to be donated to the Army Emergency Relief Fund, and the Army refused to release him from active duty. According to Meredith, the Army was overruled by presidential adviser Harry Hopkins, and his honorable discharge from the Army was approved personally by General George C. Marshall. Meredith himself spent time with Pyle while the correspondent recuperated in New Mexico from the emotional after effects of surviving an accidental bombing by the Army Air Forces at the start of Operation Cobra in Normandy. Although filmed with the cooperation of Pyle, the film premiered two months to the day after he was killed in action on Ie Shima during the invasion of Okinawa. In his February 14, 1945, posting entitled "In the Movies", Pyle commented: "They are still calling it The Story of G.I. Joe. I never did like the title, but nobody could think of a better one, and I was too lazy to try." Most of the extras were actual GIs in the process of being transferred from the war in Europe to the Pacific. Many of them were killed in the fighting on Okinawa alongside Pyle never having seen the movie in which they appeared. It’s a great film full of sadness. It feels incredibly real because it is real, the actors were solders and the war happening behind them really was the war. It’s incredible when you think about it, a great old-school Hollywood war film and a historical document at the same time. An incredible film.

A Town Like Alice

Dir: Jack Lee

1956

****

Based on the best selling novel by Nevil Shute, A Town Like Alice does not follow the whole novel, concluding at the end of Part Two and truncating or omitting a fair bit of detail. Leslie Norman expressed interest in directing an adaptation in 1952 but nothing came of it. While I think Norman would have perhaps made a better film, I’m glad he didn’t otherwise he wouldn’t have made the amazing X the Unknown which was released the same year as A Town Like Alice. The original script was written by W. P. Lipscomb, who concentrated on the first half of the novel only, leaving out the second half of the story that was set in Alice, Australia. You have to wonder why they didn’t change the title. Producer Joe Janni sent a copy of the script to director Jack Lee, who later recalled, "The script made me cry, and I knew it would make audiences cry too". Janni and Lee took the script to Rank, who agreed to finance. Lee did further work on the script with Lipscombe and then with Richard Mason. After visiting Singapore and Malaya, Lee soon realised that if he cast the film in the UK, decided on their exact clothing, and filmed their characteristic way of walking, he could find a second cast in Malaya, and, if he were careful, he could work very close to them on location. So in the end Lee shot some footage in Malaya then went back to Britain, where the majority of the film was shot at Pinewood Studios. I’d say he got away with it. Olivia de Havilland and Anna Kashfi were considered for the main role of Jean Paget but in the end Virginia McKenna got the part and it became one of the best of her career. Jack Lee had worked with Peter Finch before and cast him as the male lead, stating that he never considered anyone else for the part but the truth is that while at the 1952 premiere of Disney’s The Story of Robin Hood and his Merrie Men,  producer Earl St. John was particularly impressed by the young man who played the Sheriff of Nottingham. The name on the program was that of Peter Finch. St John bumped into Finch on the stairs of the theatre and invited him to come and talk business at Pinewood. The following day he gave Finch what would be a pivotal role in his burgeoning career, Joe the Australian soldier in A Town Like Alice. The film begins in post-Second World War London, where Jean Paget is informed by solicitor Noel Strachan that she has a large inheritance. Asked what she wants to do, Jean decides to travel to Malaya to build a well in a small village, as a way of thanks for taking care of her during the war. Jean goes to the village and arranges for the well to be dug and she recalls her life in the village for three years of the war. The film flashes back to 1942 when Jean was working in an office in Kuala Lumpur in Malaya when the Japanese invaded. She was about to escape but decided to stay behind and help her boss and his family to escape, but in the end they were all captured and taken prisoner. As part of a group of women and children - the men having been sent away - she is the only one to speak Malay fluently, and so, she takes a leading role in the group. However, the Japanese refuse to take any responsibility for the group, marching them from one village to another. Many of them, unused to physical labour, die of exhaustion, sickness and starvation. Jean somehow keeps going and is spurred on by the fact she promised to take care of the children of her employer after his wife dies. Along their walk the group meets a young Australian soldier, Sergeant Joe Harman, also a prisoner, who is driving a truck for the Japanese. He and Jean strike up a friendship, and he tells her about the town of Alice Springs, where he grew up. Appalled at the women's treatment by the Japanese, he steals food and medicines to help them. Jean does not correct his impression that she is married. When the thefts are discovered and investigated, Harman takes the blame to save Jean and the rest of the group. He is crucified on a tree and left to die by the Japanese soldiers. The distraught women are marched away, believing that Joe is dead. To further humiliate them, the Japanese assign only one guard to the group, an elderly sergeant. They become friendly with him, although they can barely communicate. They even help to carry his pack and rifle when he is ill. When he dies of exhaustion, Jean asks the elders of a Malayan village if they may stay and work in the paddy fields, asking only for food and a place to sleep. The elders agree, and they live and work there for three years, until the war ends. The film returns to the present, and Jean discovers from the well-diggers that Joe Harman survived his punishment and returned to Australia. She decides to travel on to Australia to find him. On her travels, she visits the town of Alice Springs, where Joe lived before the war, and is much impressed with the quality of life there. She then travels to the primitive town of Willstown in the Queensland outback, where Joe has become the manager of a cattle station. Meanwhile, Joe has learnt that Jean survived the war, and that she was not married. He travels to London to find her, using money won in a lottery and arrives just as she does in Australia. It is some time before they are re-united in Alice Springs and they fall in love immediately. The last few scenes are a little clumsy if I’m being honest and much of the story’s more important parts are rushed, while other less important scenes drag. However, the last scene is about as rewarding as it gets and is a classic weepy moment. I’m a big Peter Finch fan but Virginia McKenna steals every second she is on screen. It’s a non-perfect, perfect film.

The Kid Who Would Be King

Dir: Joe Cornish

2019

**

I’ve been a fan of Joe Cornish since the 90s and his Adam & Joe days. I thought Attack the Block was an unexpectedly edgy sci-fi, when in truth I was expecting a Shaun of the Dead-style film vs Aliens. I think he’s wasted too much time with the likes of Steven Spielberg and I really felt for him when he left the Ant-Man project, even though the film still turned out to be great. So I was excited about The Kid Who Would Be King but ultimately disappointed with it after viewing. The story is solid, it’s the first really great British sci-fi fantasy in a very long time, I just don’t think it was executed that well. The story follows Alex Elliot, a twelve-year-old boy who is starting a new term at school while struggling to adapt to his new surroundings. When his best friend Bedders is bullied by older students named Lance and Kaye, Alex comes to his aid but ends up in a fight and gets his face punched. Alex, Lance, and Kaye are given detention by the headmistress while she tries to encourage Alex to live up to himself. Meanwhile, Lance and Kaye plot to harm Alex further. That night, the duo chase Alex as he is on his way home but he hides in a nearby construction site, where he finds a mysterious sword and removes it from its position. Taking the sword with him, Alex shows it to Bedders, and they discover that its markings identify it as Excalibur, the sword of King Arthur. Alex then playfully "knights" Bedders, shrugging off the idea that it really is Excalibur. Elsewhere, the wicked sorceress Morgana awakens underground and sends her minions of Mortes Milles after Excalibur. The next day, a teenager appears from inside Stonehenge and presents himself at Alex's school as a new student. The boy reveals himself to Alex as the wizard Merlin, capable of aging backwards, but is also able to shift between his Arthurian counterpart. Alex plans to return the sword, wanting nothing to do with ancient myths. That night, Merlin saves Alex from a demon and explains that he has four days to destroy Morgana or she will enslave all of England. Morgana's demons can appear only at night and can only be seen by Alex and those he has knighted, but an upcoming total solar eclipse will enable her to emerge fully into the world. Alex realises that these events parallel an inscribed storybook his estranged father once gave him. Alex concludes he descends from Arthur through his father and later recruits and knights Lance and Kaye, who fight beside Alex and Bedders, defeating three demons. Alex declares them a new Round Table. Merlin soon tasks Alex to find the entrance of Morgana's prison. Believing his father is the key, Alex leads the group to Tintagel where he last saw his father. En route, Merlin trains them in swordsmanship. But when Morgana infiltrates the lesson, Lance betrays Alex and takes the sword for himself. Merlin barely saves them and Excalibur is broken when Alex and Lance come to blows in a marsh. Alex calls upon the Lady of the Lake who appears and restores the sword. Rededicating themselves to the quest, the four overcome a horde of demons by luring them over a cliff and arrive at Tintagel. Alex meets his aunt Sophie who tells him that his father was revealed to be an alcoholic who abandoned Alex's family, and that it was secretly his mother who inscribed the book. Alex is enraged to discover that not only has he come a long way for nothing but also that his mother had lied to him about the book and is overcome with resentment. Merlin tells Alex that Excalibur is not handed down by birthright, but by individual merit. Alex and his friends arm themselves and Alex uses the storybook to locate the entrance to the Underworld. Alex challenges Morgana who takes on a monstrous form and breathes fire, but Alex strikes her down and the children escape. Believing Morgana is dead, Alex returns Excalibur to the Lady of the Lake knowing that if he was caught with it back at home the police would confiscate it. On the day of the eclipse, Merlin informs Alex that Morgana was merely wounded and Alex realizes that he violated the Chivalric Code by lying to his mother. In desperation, Alex tells her everything that has happened. His mother reveals her own lie that she never told him the truth about his father or the book, because if he had known the truth to begin with, it would've hurt him. Eventually, he stuns her by summoning the Lady of the Lake into the bathtub, where he regains Excalibur. At the school, Merlin enchants the faculty and Alex knights the entire student body. During the eclipse, Morgana appears with her entire army and now takes on a huge, semi draconic form. The children fight back, using strategies combining medieval warfare with modern technology, but ultimately retreat to the rooftop. Merlin casts a magic spell to pull Morgana from the world and Alex decapitates her as she vanishes, dispelling all the demons. Alex, Bedders, Lance, and Kaye bid farewell to Merlin, who encourages them to become leaders with Alex once again returning the sword to the Lady of the Lake. While there is a lot I liked about the film, ultimately it is let own with a few glaring issues. The pace of the film is all over the place, with long scenes where nothing happens and then over the top action scenes that are a little too CGI heavy. I liked Louis Ashbourne Serkis as Alex and Dean Chaumoo as Bedders but Tom Taylor and Rhianna Dorris  are rather boring as Lance and Kaye respectively. The only kids film that I can think of that truly unites the bully with the bullied, and they cast two of the most plain actors I’ve ever seen. I think Rhianna Dorris has around three lines, and she’s one of the main characters. The kids are a little too drama school for my liking and they don’t come across as normal state school kids. I hated the school battle at the end, it was a real anti-climax, and when I was a kid I’d refuse to watch anything set in a school, I didn’t want to think about school when I was at home. I also hated the absent father sub-plot. It’s quite a tiresome story now, why can’t interesting things happen to kids with both parents still alive? Angus Imrie and Patrick Stewart are the film’s highlights, both playing Merlin at different ages. Other than that, it was only the expected Adam Buxton cameo that kept me watching. Like I said, the idea is great, it just needed a 95% change in cast and a different ending. The Lady in the Lake coming out of the bath was about the only hint that it was written by Joe Cornish. He’s a great director, a great writer and a very funny man but I’m afraid The Kid Who Would Be King was ultimately over-ambitious and missed the mark.

Strategic Air Command

Dir: Anthony Mann

1955

***

1955’s Strategic Air Command was a post-war propaganda recruitment tool, the last of three films that paired Jimmy Stewart and June Allyson and the eighth and final collaboration between one of the greatest partnerships in modern cinema, that of Anthony Mann and James Stewart. Stewart's character, Robert "Dutch" Holland, is based on the real-life military career and an actual mission flown by Brigadier General Clifford Schoeffler, who crashed during an Arctic B-36 mission and survived. Brigadier General Schoeffler was on site at Carswell Air Force Base during the filming of Strategic Air Command for consultation. However, his character could also be inspired by Boston Red Sox legend Ted Williams, a World War II veteran, who was recalled for Korean War service as a U.S. Marine Corps aviator, at the height of his baseball career. However, Stewart's military service and lifelong interest in aviation greatly influenced the making of the film. In real life, during World War II, Stewart had been a B-17 instructor pilot, a B-24 squadron commander, and a bomb group operations officer, completing 20 combat missions. At the time of filming, Stewart, much like the character he portrays, was also a colonel in the Air Force Reserve, serving with the Strategic Air Command when on duty; he was later promoted to brigadier general. In later years, Stewart continued to fly, including Operation Arc Light missions in Vietnam as a non-duty observer aboard a B-52F. Stewart pushed for an authentic but sympathetic portrayal of the Strategic Air Command, which led Paramount to put together a strong cast of Hollywood veterans and production people including June Allyson, Frank Lovejoy, his long-time collaborating director Anthony Mann, and the top stunt pilot of the day, Paul Mantz. The film accurately portrays (from the perspective of the 1951 starting point of the script) the duties and responsibilities of an Air Force strategic bomber pilot, and the demands such service places on family life. Robert "Dutch" Holland (Stewart) is a professional baseball player with the St. Louis Cardinals. A B-29 bomber pilot during World War II, he is also an officer on inactive status in the United States Air Force Reserve. During spring training at Al Lang Field in St. Petersburg, Florida, he is recalled to active duty for 21 months. He reports to his posting at Carswell AFB, a bomber base in Fort Worth, Texas, to qualify in the Convair B-36. He arrives in civilian clothing because his old uniforms are those of the old U.S. Army Air Forces, for which he is rebuked by General Hawkes (Frank Lovejoy), the commander of SAC. The General's character is patterned after the real SAC commander of the time, General Curtis LeMay. Dutch is given a staff job with the bombardment wing at Carswell that involves a lot of flying. He soon has a B-36 crew of his own, selecting a former World War II colleague as his flight engineer, and becomes enamored with both flying and the role of SAC in deterring war. He is joined by his wife, Sally (June Allyson), who had not bargained on being an Air Force wife, and who struggles with his repeated absences and the dangers of flying. On any given night, Dutch might find his aircraft on airborne alert far from the continental United States, in secret, only telling his wife when he returns days later. Even so, Sally tells Dutch that she is happy as long as they can be together, no matter what he decides to do with his life. The B-36 is a complex aircraft when introduced, but improvements are being worked on all the time. One challenge was leakage from the fuel tanks, but a new fix is introduced to address this once and for all. On their next flight, Dutch's crew has to fly their B-36 from Carswell AFB to Thule Air Base, Greenland. The fix does not work and one of the engines bursts into flame, causing the entire left wing to catch fire. The crew is forced to abandon the aircraft and bail out over the ice and snow of Greenland before arriving at Thule. Dutch and his radar navigator stay on board for a forced landing, which causes Dutch to injure his right shoulder. Dutch becomes a favorite of General Hawkes, and he is rewarded with a revised assignment flying the new Boeing B-47 Stratojet at MacDill AFB, Tampa, Florida, across the bay from St. Petersburg where his old baseball team continues to conduct its spring training. Promoted to "Full Bird" colonel and made deputy wing commander of his B-47 wing at MacDill AFB, Dutch decides, to Sally's displeasure, to remain in the Air Force, rather than return to baseball at the end of his active duty obligation. On a full B-47 wing deployment exercise that involves flying nonstop from MacDill to Yokota Air Base, Japan, they encounter severe wind and storms. Low on fuel, they divert to Kadena Air Base, Okinawa. As they prepare to land, Dutch realizes that his shoulder injury from the B-36 crash was worse than he thought, and his arm is almost immobile. He is unable to operate the engine power levers (throttles) during final landing phase, and he has to rely on his co-pilot to do so, while Dutch works the flight controls with his left arm and two feet. This injury not only bars him from further flying (he is discharged from the Air Force (USAF) shortly after the incident), but also appears to threaten his baseball career. General Hawkes suggests that he would make an excellent team manager. The final speech is propaganda at its finest as Hawkes reminds Dutch that it is people like him, volunteers, who keep the country safe from threat, often at the expense of a normal home life. It’s a war film without a war. The film includes some spectacular aerial photography which was accompanied by a soaring score composed by Victor Young, for which it was awarded a special citation by the American National Board of Review. It is also the only motion picture to highlight the Convair B-36 (depicted in the movie poster), the largest mass-produced piston-powered aircraft ever built, and the first bomber for the hydrogen bomb. The propeller-driven B-36 was then near the end of its service life, about to be replaced by the jet-powered B-47 Stratojet, and ultimately by the Boeing B-52 Stratofortress. The B-36 and B-47 bomber aircraft showcased in the film were such powerful deterrents against Soviet aggression in the 1950s that neither plane ever had to be used in combat and the film reflects this brilliantly, even though it was made long before the cold war ended. The B-36 was eventually retired due to persistent problems with it's engineering and it's fuel distribution to the outer wing exactly as shown in the movie. I love all of James Stewart’s films but I did find his character to be less enthusiastic than usual which was strange due to how passionate he was about the subject. I adore June Allyson and it was nice to see Harry Morgan and James Bell once more but the Glenn Miller Story connection was a little distracting. In both The Glenn Miller Story and Strategic Air Command (both directed by Anthony Mann), James Stewart and June Allyson portray a married couple, Stewart portrays Harry Morgan's boss, and James Bell portrays Allyson's father. While it isn’t the greatest of Stewart and Mann’s films it was sad that it would be their last. I enjoyed it overall but propaganda aside there really isn’t much to the film at all.

Reign of the Supermen

Dir: Sam Liu

2019

**

2018’s The Death of Superman was the third adaptation of the Doomsday story following Superman: Doomsday in 2007 and the live-action Batman vs. Superman: Dawn of Justice. Neither was that faithful to the original, which might be the reason why they revisited the rather tired story, but I think more to the point, DC really wanted to explore the events that followed. Reign of the Supermen is an adaptation of what happened in the comics following the infamous The Death of Superman – the most over-hyped comic event of all time. I’ve mentioned my loathing for this comic several times in my reviews but if there is one thing worse than the Doomsday story, it is the nauseatingly bad comics that happened straight after. We all knew Superman would come back from the dead some how and his eventual rebrand was a relief from the long-haired yuppie that he had turned into in the early 90s, but before then we had to endure the Reign of the Supermen. It had a few high points but generally it was unimaginative stuff. Much like the 2018 adaptation of The Death of Superman, the 2019 sequel got rid of some pointless sub-plots but kept the crux of the story in tact. Six months following Superman's death after saving the world from Doomsday, four new versions of the hero appear: Superboy, Steel, Cyborg Superman, and the Eradicator. Each one of them is different in their personalities and crime-fighting style compared to the original Man of Steel, leaving the world questioning which one, if any, is the true Superman come back to life. Lois Lane, still reeling from Clark's death, decides to investigate. Lex Luthor holds a press conference introducing Superboy as the true Superman, sponsored and bankrolled by LexCorp. Lois attends the conference, along with Steel, and sneaks inside one of the labs inside LexCorp. There Lois learns from scientist Dabney Donovan that Superboy is a clone of Superman. Suddenly, the conference is attacked by the Eradicator, who seeks to "eradicate" Luthor. Superboy and later Steel try to stop him, only to be defeated until the timely arrival of Cyborg Superman, who fights and drives away Eradicator. Many see him as the real Superman, angering Luthor. Lois writes an expose revealing Superboy to be a clone and asking if all of the Supermen are fakes. This leads to a meeting between her and Cyborg Superman, telling him she knows he isn't the Superman she knew and loved. Luthor, angry that Superboy was not declared the true Superman, forces Superboy to be security detail for the President of the United States. Superboy soon butts heads with the Justice League as the President arrives to launch the new Justice League Watchtower. A boom tube opens and Parademons terrorize the event. Superboy is defeated, but the Justice League hold their own while Cyborg Superman saves the President. The boom tube collapses and falls onto the League, appearing to have killed all of them. With Cyborg Superman declared the "real" Superman, Luthor, on the verge of injecting Superboy with a fatal substance, angrily reveals Superboy to be a clone of both Superman and Luthor himself; deciding against destroying the only viable Superman clone, Luthor instead unleashes the remaining failed clones to kill Donovan. While Cyborg Superman visits the grave of Terri Henshaw, he gets a message from Darkseid to begin. Lois and Irons learn of this visit, and discover that Cyborg Superman is really Hank Henshaw, the astronaut thought dead from the previous film. Cyborg Superman announces to the world his plans for a new Justice League: a Cyber Corps, composed of regular people that he grants superpowers. Everyone agrees, and while it has good results at first, many become drones in the process, losing their humanity. Lois recognizes the technology as Apokoliptian and questions Luthor's involvement, as he has stolen the technology before. Steel confronts Intergang, Luthor's buyers of the tech, only to discover that they have been attacked by the Eradicator. Steel follows the weapons' signal to the Fortress of Solitude while Lois breaks into Luthor's penthouse and meets Superboy, who reveals he knew Luthor had previously intended to kill him, which has shaken his allegiance to his 'father'. Steel and the Eradicator fight while Lois and Superboy, and later Luthor, get a video call from the fight. Lois discovers the Eradicator is technology that protects Kryptonians, and realizes that the real Superman is inside the Fortress. Superman is revived and stops the fight. At the same time, Lois and Luthor see a broadcast from inside Cyborg Superman's mind, revealing Darkseid and his plans to invade, and that he orchestrated the deaths of both Superman and the Justice League in response to the failure of his previous attempt. Lois and Luthor form a plan just as Superman, Steel, and Superboy head to Metropolis. Cyborg Superman begins the invasion, using the Cyber Corps to open a giant boom tube over Metropolis as Lois heads inside the Watchtower and reveals to Cyborg Superman that she knows who he really is. When the Watchtower reveals the real Superman heading towards him, Henshaw betrays Darkseid and closes the boom tube, stopping the invasion so he can personally kill Superman. He orders the drones to attack Metropolis just as Superman arrives. The battle is one-sided, as Superman is not yet at full strength, and Cyborg Superman reveals he blames Superman for not being there to save him and his wife from the Excalibur space shuttle disaster. Luthor uses the Mother Box to free the Justice League, who were actually imprisoned in another dimension, to help Steel and Superboy defeat the drones. Cyborg Superman launches the Watchtower into orbit to prevent the League from aiding Lois and Superman. With Superman nearly defeated, Lois opens the Watchtower's window shutters so the sun's yellow rays shine on Superman, bringing him back to full power. Superman defeats Henshaw with help from his "wild card", the Eradicator, in the form of one of the Fortress' crystals which injects the Eradicator's program into Henshaw's brain and destroys him from within. With Cyborg Superman dead, the battle ends when the drones are deactivated, although all of the people who were turned into drones die in the process. Weeks later, Clark Kent is revealed to be alive (with the cover story of having been stranded off grid during the Doomsday attack), and the real Superman, donning a new suit, is welcomed back to the world with open arms. Clark later tells Lois that Superboy, with the new name Conner, now lives with his parents Jonathan and Martha Kent. In a post-credits scene, the Justice League meet up at the Watchtower and agree to end the war with Darkseid by going to Apokolips. Luthor enters the watchtower inviting himself to the fight. I have to admit I found the whole thing only slightly more entertaining than I did the comics all those years ago, but, if it leads to a Justice League vs Darkseid battle then fine, it may have all been worth it, especially adding the untrustworthy Lex Luthor into the mix. The problem I have with it, and this is generally more with DC’s treatment of Superman, is that it all seems rather rough and rushed. DC animations isn’t the quality studio it once was and you have to wonder, would it really be that hard to go back to the brilliance of the original Batman animations? It’s not like DC is short of a few stories it could tell.

The Death of Superman

Dir: Sam Liu, Jake Castorena, James Tucker

2018

***

1992’s The Death of Superman is the best selling comic of all time. In my opinion, it is also the worst. I have always considered myself more of a DC man than a Marvel guy but the truth is DC have made some awful comics, the early 90s Superman comics being a prime example. I adore Superman and read all the comics from the mid 80s to the mid 90s but The Death of Superman story was such a low point it pretty much killed it for me. After that I only really read DC Elseworld one-shots and switched to their Vertigo imprint. It was a marketing gimmick, probably a much needed one due to poor sales but nether the less, it was for non-comic reading Superman fans and not those of us who had stuck around hoping that one day the comics would get better. Unfortunately it is now one of those stories DC can’t seem to be able to get away from, not that I think they want to. They already made an animated adaptation in 2007 that got rid of a lot of the crap admittedly, but still did little to make the story more interesting. Batman vs. Superman: Dawn of Justice also touched on the story and we all know how that panned out. It’s time DC just left it alone but I can’t help but think this won’t be the last adaptation of the Doomsday story. They’ve certainly made the the story easier to digest than the comic and have cut out certain characters and made Lex Luther bald again but essentially the story is the same. There is more made of Lex Luther’s argument that no one polices Superman or the rest of the Justice League but not so much that the cartoon becomes anywhere near intelligent. It starts with a few uninteresting sub-plots and Clark Kent admitting to Louis Lane that he is in fact Superman. I’m pretty sure she was supposed to know by now but this film doesn’t seem to follow the comics or indeed DC animation. An attempt to kidnap the mayor using Apokolips technology, the Intergang are stopped and their equipment taken to S.T.A.R. labs. There, Silas Stone and Dr. John Henry Irons determine Intergang’s devices contain both Apokoliptian and Earth elements, leaving only one suspect with the means to synthesize these technologies -  Lex Luthor. Meanwhile, Superman admirer Captain Hank Henshaw leads a team of astronauts aboard the space shuttle Excalibur when a boomtube sends a meteorite hurtling towards the shuttle. As Henshaw waits for Superman's rescue, the shuttle is destroyed, leaving everyone dead and Henshaw's body unaccounted for. The meteorite crashes to the Atlantic Ocean floor, monitored by Luthor’s underground research facility. Luthor sends a deep sea exploration team to the crash site where they encounter Atlanteans, but both groups are destroyed by a monster (Doomsdays) that emerges from the wreckage. Doomsday reaches the U.S. coastline and murders two campers and a grizzly bear before rampaging against the police. The Justice League arrive and are brutally defeated in a battle that isn’t as good as either the original comic or the 2007 adaptation. Martian Manhunter’s telepathy reveals the creature to be a living weapon designed to annihilate entire civilizations. As the monster heads for Metropolis, Batman notes that their last hope is the Man of Steel. Meanwhile, Clark and Lois meet for lunch at a restaurant owned by Superman fan Bibbo Bibbowski (how the hell did he make it into the film?), where Clark finally reveals himself as Superman to a shocked Lois. The two resolve their differences, and Clark receives the Justice League’s distress call. He arrives just in time to save Wonder Woman from the rampaging creature. Lois, reporting live by helicopter with her cameraman Jimmy Olsen, gives the monster his name Doomsday as his fight with Superman rages through Metropolis and reaches the Hall of Justice. A battlesuit-clad Luthor joins the fight against Doomsday, aiming to become Metropolis’ “true savior,” but he is incapacitated and saved by Superman. Realizing the toll the battle has taken on Superman, Lois attempts to sacrifice herself to Doomsday to force Clark into using lethal force. As the beast prepares to kill Lois, Superman hurls himself at Doomsday and breaks the villain’s neck, but is fatally stabbed at that moment, and dies in Lois’ arms. There are only so many times you can retell this moment before you become numb to it. Jimmy broadcasts Superman's death across the globe as the world mourns. After a state funeral for the fallen Man of Steel, the Kents welcome Lois into their family. Jimmy brings Lois to Superman's mausoleum where they find his coffin open and witness a figure resembling Superman fly away. At S.T.A.R. Labs, Lex Luthor tries to gain custody of Doomsday's corpse for Project Cadmus before Superman's rocket self-starts and flies off. Four mysterious figures are then introduced during the ending credits. First, as numerous failed Superman clones are destroyed at Cadmus, the sole surviving prototype escapes. Second, Dr. Irons forges Superman’s symbol onto a suit of armor. Third, a Superman-like figure watches as Superman's rocket buries itself under the North Pole and creates a vast crystalline structure. Lastly, high above the Earth, a cyborg resembling Superman arrives. It wasn’t that intriguing in 1992 and it still wasn’t in 2018. The only things I liked about it where the improved version of Lex Luther, the inclusion of certain characters who weren’t in the original, the interaction between Wonder Woman and Louis Lane and the fact that Jerry O'Connell and Rebecca Romijn, who provide the voices for Superman/Clark Kent and Lois Lane, are married in real life.

About Elly

Dir: Asghar Farhadi

2009

*****

What starts out as a middle-class Big Chill-esque look at old friendships and the different levels of relationships, suddenly becomes an edge of your seat thriller that refuses to let up. Director Asghar Farhadi is now famous for his intense dramas, many involving a kind of redemption, relationships and divorce in Iran but for me this is his most deceptive and exciting film. It makes you look one way, so that you don’t see it coming from the opposite direction. The film begins as we see a group of middle-class friends, former classmates at the law faculty of the university, as they travel to the Caspian Sea for a three-day break. They consist of Sepideh, her husband Amir and their young daughter; Shohreh, her husband Peymān and their two children, including their son Arash and Nāzy and her husband Manuchehr. Sepideh, who planned the trip, brings along her daughter's kindergarten teacher, Elly, in order to introduce her to Ahmad, a divorced friend visiting from Germany. When they arrive they discover that there has been a mistake in the booking and their villa is not ready. At the villa that Sepideh has booked the woman in charge tells them the owners will return the next day and suggests that they stay instead in a deserted beach-front villa next door. During making arrangements Sepideh lies to the old woman about the relationship between Elly and Ahmad and says they're married and on their honeymoon. The group finally decide after much debate to stay at the dilapidated villa and proceed to clean it up for their overnight stay. Elly is a little shy, but begins to feel interested in Ahmad, who seems to have developed an attraction for her. She calls her mother and lies to her, saying that she's with her co-workers at a sea-side resort and that she expects to go back to Tehran the following day, as planned. Sepideh, however, doesn't want her to leave and hides her luggage. While some still clean the villa and others enjoy themselves playing volley ball, one of the mothers asks Elly to watch the children who are playing at the seaside. Everything changes when one of the children calls out to the men who are all playing at the side of the house. As they rush to the call they find Arash floating in the sea. Arash is saved and resuscitated in a particularly intense and unexpected scene. Once things are settled, the group wonder where Elly is an are angry that she has left the children unattended, that is, until they realise that Elly might have drowned herself in trying to save Arash. The children are confused and unsure whether Elly went in the sea or not, so the group are divided; Elly either abandoned their children or she is dead. The police are called, while the group continues to search for Elly. The group starts to blame each other for the series of events leading up to her disappearance and her presence on the trip. It also becomes clear that none of them really know who Elly is and their story becomes more and more suspicious to the police. Sepideh had been lying and knows Elly is engaged to a man named Alireza. Since Elly is reluctant to marry Alireza, Sepideh insisted she comes on the trip to meet Ahmad. Elly initially refused the invitation, as an engaged woman but, following pressure from Sepideh, eventually accepted without telling anyone where she was really going. Alireza is contacted under false information and arrives later that day. Suspecting something is up he attacks Ahmad, then asks Sepideh whether Elly had refused her invitation to go on holiday. Sepideh wants to protect the honour of Elly and tells the truth but, following pressure from the others who feel threatened by Alireza, lies and tells him that Elly accepted the invitation without hesitation. The conclusion challenges each character in a different way and effects the relationships between partners and old friends to a devastating degree. The first half of the film is somewhat slow and then goes from 0 to 60. It asks a few moral questions and looks at some very average issues to do with marriage, parenthood and friendship but turning into a a gripping thriller that tests each one of those issues to the extreme. It also shows the effects a simple lie can have on a situation, something that can seem quite innocent at first, can lead to a series of chaos and disaster. It is everything you expect from a Asghar Farhadi drama, with an huge helping of Alfred Hitchcock thrown in. The story itself is a huge onion of mystery, with a devastating conclusion, but the lies and mysteries themselves are simple, ordinary and are by and large usually of no consequence. To make this mountain out of a mole hill is quite spectacular and proves how clever a writer/story teller Farhadi is. The film is so intense and full of suspense, I was exhausted by the end of it. The sign of a great thriller, certainly one of the best I’ve seen in recent years.