But really, that's just the symptom -- the real problem at the heart of the movie is that Superman doesn't care about the destruction; he doesn't care about the consequences. And there's a way to fix that without getting rid of all the destruction porn that we apparently can't get enough of.
How to Fix It
All the destruction and cavalier disregard for human life should have happened at the beginning of the movie.
Far be it from me (a doofy comedy writer whose most successful piece of fiction is a didactic fart joke) to criticize grown-up Hollywood screenwriters, but Clark Kent's character makes no goddamn sense. You're telling me this guy never lost his temper until his late 20s?
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And the first time he does, he gets a suit? Fuck that guy.
No, if you want to do a Superman movie where The Man of Tomorrow loses his shit and rips the world apart with his bare hands, put that part at the beginning of the movie. That should be the catalyst, the part of his personality he has to overcome and the crime he has to atone for. We can have our cake and punch it through a brick wall too because we superhero fans are a forgiving people. But it's hard to root for a guy whose Hero's Journey, according to Wikipedia, goes from "Clark spends several years ... anonymously performing good deeds" to "Clark warns the government that, if it wants his help, it will be on his terms." That's not a plucky hero learning the importance of virtue, that's a kindly immortal alien building the strength of character to install himself as Earth's dictator-god. And on the subject of deities throwing tantrums ...
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Left Behind Should've Been a Horror Movie About God
The premise of Left Behind is that God abruptly kidnaps every devoted Christian on Earth, as well as all the kids below a certain age, and society more or less crumbles. And this probably sounds like Christian propaganda, but it's not, because I think this movie hates Christians too.
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"NICOLAS CAGE looks SURPRISED that he is IN THIS MOVIE."
Since the movie is oh-so-obviously religious propaganda, you can expect the particular denomination behind it to be portrayed positively -- but that's not what happens. Atheists and insufficiently devoted Christians and even a kindly, charitable Muslim are all mocked as being inadequate for God's love, but the devoted Premillennial Dispensationalists Christians -- the religious faction that the movie is made by and for -- are all depicted as insecure, impotent, boring assholes: the first one we meet loses an argument about faith with a journalist, and the second one is hated by her family because she doesn't know how to do anything but bitch at them for not being Jesusy enough. The third one is an insecure woman who tries to live vicariously through her friends' sex life, because she finds her own existence so unsatisfying. These are the people who get to go to heaven. Is this how Primo-Linear Disco-Fashionists see themselves? I hope not, because that's shitty. Cheer up, guys! We'll all wanna be your friend if you just stop telling us we're going to hell all the time.
How to Fix It
The weird thing about Premeridiall Dissipationalists is, as has been pointed out before, they're not actually trying to get people to join their religion. They just want to rub in everyone's faces how saved they are (because they're not gonna die, see, because God is going to save them) and how fucked everyone else is. So I say this unto them: quit hiding behind your feigned attempts and proselytization, and just make the God-based slasher movie you all want, in your twisted black hearts, to make. Give us a delusional, hateful, vaguely senile doom-deity, and explode the fuck out of everything. Can you imagine? I can't! I could never dream up anything half so small-minded and hateful as Left Behind. That's why I want them to do it.
Remember when you hilariously booted the little person off the plane? That was awesome!
I never would've thought to have a hero be such an irrational douchebag.
Seriously, do it. Depict God as a flaming ball of death that vaporizes anyone who dares look upon him. Give us shots of biology teachers forced to flay themselves for refusing to teach intelligent design. Show us an abortion clinic atomized by meteors made out of flaming fetuses. Give us a scene where Los Angeles is consumed by a dick-shaped volcano that spews homosexual semen that burns through non-believers' flesh like a Xenomorph's blood. If you shoot the CGI-filled, R-rated, Old-Testament, fire-and-brimstone, balls-to-the-fucking-wall, snuff film that plays constantly in your deranged little heads, I promise we'll pack that theater hard and fast enough to give the entire film industry a prostate-based money-gasm. Because even if you won't admit it, we all know that's what you Preludial Differentialists want.
JF Sargent is an editor and columnist at Cracked. Witness his terrible glory on Twitter and Facebook.
For more from Sarge, check out 4 Ways We Can Save the Marvel Cinematic Universe and 5 Behind-the-Scenes Features That Show Why Movies Went Wrong.
J.F. Sargent
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