WHY SUPERMAN: THE MOVIE (1978)  IS BETTER THAN MAN OF STEEL (2013)

By BARRY DUTTER

1) IT HAS A REAL ROMANCE BETWEEN LOIS & CLARK: SUPERMAN: THE MOVIE is, at its heart, a love story. MAN OF STEEL is not. Although MAN OF STEEL tries to shoe-horn in a romance between LOIS LANE and Superman, it is a very half-hearted effort. Sure, they kiss at the end, but it comes from out of nowhere. They seem to kiss for no other reason than somebody deciding the movie should end with a  kiss. 

2) SMALLVILLE. SUPERMAN: THE MOVIE gets all the Smallville stuff just right. Clark Kent is a young man who flirts with revealing his powers, but he never actually shows them off to anyone. Except for that one time he kicked a football into outer space, no one in Smallville has any reason to suspect that Clark might have super-powers. In MAN OF STEEL, young Clark rescues a busload of kids, and there are several witnesses. As Clark grows up, it seems the whole town of Smallville comes to regard him as “that kid with the weird super powers.” These early scenes pretty much make it impossible for Clark Kent to ever have a normal life.

3) THE DEATH OF PA KENT: SUPERMAN: THE MOVIE nails it. Pa Kent dies in a cornfield of a heart attack. Clark utters the immortal line, “All my power… and I couldn’t save him.”  It’s a simple yet effective way to convey that despite his Godlike abilities, there are some things that he just can‘t do. In MAN OF STEEL, PA KENT dies during a tornado, all the while ordering his son not to save him, for fear of revealing his powers. I get the idea that the writer of MAN OF STEEL did not want to duplicate all of the events of the 1978 movie. He wanted to put his own spin on the story. But this was a bad way to go. Kevin Costner has a thankless role as Pa Kent, where he spends all of his scenes telling young Clark not to ever use his powers to help people. The scene where PA KENT tells  CLARK he “maybe” should have let those kids on the bus die is perhaps the worst line of dialogue ever written for a Superman movie, and I’m including all of RICHARD PRYOR’S lines in SUPERMAN III. That one line shows a complete lack of understanding of both Clark Kent and the man who raised him. Then, in one of the only lines echoing the first movie, Costner tells Clark that he is here for a reason, and that someday he will find out what that reason is. Apparently that reason is NOT to save the life of his adopted father.

4) THE TONE IS ALL WRONG: The tone of SUPERMAN: THE MOVIE is one of hope. There is a sense of optimism and wonder that pervades the film. The tone of the new film is one of FEAR. Pa Kent teaches young Clark all his life that he should fear humanity, that  he must never reveal his powers to anyone because humanity will only hate and fear him. Pa Kent comes across as the biggest coward of all time, terrified to let his son leave the house for fear of something bad happening to him. Basically, MAN OF STEEL subverts the theme of the X-MEN movies to become, “Protecting a world that might hate and fear him if he ever revealed himself to it.” It seems a desperate attempt to take the age-old concept of Superman as the “big blue boy scout” and modernize it to make him the typical “alienated hero” that is all the rage these days.

5) THERE IS NO HUMOR: The first 2/3 of SUPERMAN: THE MOVIE is perhaps the best super-hero movie of all time. It has just the right mix of action and heart and epic storytelling. The montage of scenes showing  SUPERMAN’s first night in METROPOLIS, where he stops various petty crimes from happening, is filled with funny bits. I even like the bit where Supes rescues the cat from the tree. MAN OF STEEL is too busy presenting a grim and gritty, mopey version of Superman to offer any laughs. 

6) THE DAILY PLANET SCENES: SUPERMAN: THE MOVIE, filmed on location in the actual offices of the NY DAILY NEWS, does a great job of conveying the feel of a big-city newsroom. There is real chemistry between CHRISTOPHER REEVE and MARGOT KIDDER. JACKIE COOPER s a perfect PERRY WHITE. MARC McLURE is just right as  JIMMY OLSEN. The scenes at the DAILY PLANET are humming with life. The PLANET scenes in MAN OF STEEL don’t really add much to the movie. LAWRENCE FISHBURNE is a great actor, but he is not given much to work with. JACKIE COOPER got to utter all the classic PERRY WHITE catchphrases, and got to play a fun variation on the “newsman with news in his blood.” FISHBURNE just plays a generic “boss” character. And the less said about JIMMY’s transformation into JENNY OLSEN, the better.

7) TOO MANY SCENES OF JOR-EL INTERACTING WITH OTHERS AFTER HE DIES: SUPERMAN: THE MOVIE introduced the idea that JOR-EL made a bunch of recordings before he died, providing an answer for any question that SUPERMAN may have had over the course of his lifetime. The new movie takes that same idea into the “artificial intelligence” era, where a hologram of JOR-EL is  able to interact with Clark and Lois, and even get killed a by ZOD a second time. It kind of takes you out of the story a bit to see RUSSELL CROWE keep coming back after he dies the first time.

8) THE PLOT IS TOO COMPLICATED: Part of the magic of SUPERMAN: THE MOVIE is that it’s a very simple story. Basically Superman comes to Earth as a child and grows up to try to stop Luthor's insane real estate scheme. MAN OF STEEL has way too much plot, a lot of which makes no sense, including a Codex filled with the genetic info of the next generation of Kryptonians, and a world engine capable of transforming Earth into New Krypton. All of these details just make the movie longer and unnecessarily complicated.

9) TOO MANY PLOT HOLES: There is just too much about MAN OF STEEL that doesn’t make sense, including Clark walking into the offices of the Daily Planet at the end of the movie and no one realizing that he is the same Clark Kent who  was the super-powered talk of Smallville when he was growing up. And the military struggling to find out who Superman really is, when Lois figured it out pretty easily. And…

10) BETTER WRITING: MAN OF STEEL was written by the guy who wrote BLADE, BLADE II, and BLADE: TRINITY. (Yes, he also co-wrote the DARK KNIGHT trilogy, but I hated those movies so he doesn’t get any points from me on those.) SUPERMAN: THE MOVIE was written by the man who wrote the GODFATHER. ‘Nuff said.

11) BETTER ACTING: HENRY CAVILL is not bad, but CHRISTOPHER REEVE is still the definitive Man of Steel. His portrayal of KAL-EL had the perfect mix of charm, whimsy, playfulness, confidence, etc. But he could still convey real emotion, as when he reacts to the death of LOIS LANE. REEVE gets extra points for creating two distinct personalities  in CLARK and KAL-EL, something the new guy was not called on to do. CAVILL doesn’t get to show a lot of emotion other than being sullen and moody. He really needs to smile more.

12) BETTER LOIS: Let's face it, MARGO KIDDER's Lois is spunky, funny, quirky, etc. and makes a strong impression. AMY ADAMS' Lois is cute, but that's about it. Again, she is not given much to work with.

13) BETTER VILLAIN: Sure, his performance is campy and I still don't know why he didn't go bald for the role, but GENE HACKJMAN was a memorable LEX LUTHOR. In MOS, MICHAEL SHANNON a decent ZOD, but he doesn't make a strong an impression as the previous ZOD, TERRENCE STAMP.

1) BETTER MUSIC: Let’s face it, JOHN WILLIAMS’ unforgettable theme from SUPERMAN remains one of the greatest pieces of movie music of all time. That music is so inspiring, so evocative, that just hearing those first few notes has you believing a man can fly. The music in MOS is competent, but there is nothing there as timeless as the 1978 classic.
Basically, SUPERMAN: THE MOVIE takes everything that is great about Superman and updates it for a contemporary audience. MAN OF STEEL takes some stuff from the SUPERMAN legend but then changes a lot of it, and none of the changes are an improvement..

Is there anything the new film does better? Well, the special effects are better, and the slugfest between the Kryptonians is one of the greatest super-battles put on film. So MAN OF STEEL gets high marks when it comes to SFX, but not much else. When it comes to timeless Superman movies that people will want to watch again and again, MAN OF STEEL never really gets off the ground while SUPERMAN THE MOVIE soars.

IRON MAN 3 REVIEW MAJOR SPOILERS

- DON’T READ THIS UNLESS YOU HAVE ALREADY SEEN THE MOVIE!!!

 By Barry Dutter

 As a lifelong fan of Marvel Comics, I find fault with every super-hero movie, and IRON MAN 3 was certainly no exception. Here is my point by point review.

1) IRON MAN 3 is better than IRON MAN 2. This movie actually has a script, but, as with all summer movies, I’ll be damned if I can figure out exactly what the villain’s plot was. Killian creates the MANDARIN to cover up… the fact that some of his Extremis patients have blown up by accident?

Killian gives GWYNETH PALTROW super-powers because…why, exactly? Like all comic book movies, IM3 is fun while you’re watching it but it falls apart the minute you stop to think about it when you get home.

2) ROBERT DOWNEY JR. basically plays himself in these movies-- a fast-talking Hollywood jerk who has so little respect for most people, he seems to be talking to himself most of the time. He does not play TONY STARK the way that Tony has been portrayed in the comics over the years. While it’s true that Stark/Iron Man was very arrogant in the early issues of the AVENGERS, DOWNEY takes arrogance to the next level. Case in point: The TONY STARK in the comics would never call a child a pussy.

3) I didn’t buy Tony’s panic attacks in this movie. The TONY STARK in the comics would never have a panic attack just because a bunch of aliens tried invading New York. Tony is made of sterner stuff than that. This was clearly done just to give RDJ a new “arc” for a character he has played in 5 movies now (if you count his HULK cameo).

4) The movie puts Tony in a place where he is on his own, and he must rely on his own wits to survive. Um, wouldn’t that be a good time to call THE AVENGERS? Or even SHIELD?

5) BEN KINGSLEY would have made a great MANDARIN but the movie turns him into a joke.

 

6) TONY STARK spends less time in his armor here than in any movie yet. There should be a rule that a super-hero should spend at least 1/3 of the movie in his super-hero costume. This movie really should have been called THE ADVENTURES OF TONY STARK.

7) The prologue shows us that the EXTEMIS project has catastrophic results when tested on plants. So naturally they thought it would be a good idea to try it out on humans?

8) The bad guys in the final battle have an unbelievably easy time of tearing apart IRON MAN’s various armors.

9) The POST-CREDITS scene of the movie is perhaps the weakest one to appear in any Marvel movie, and it has the unintended effect of making the entire preceding two hours feel like a big joke…

10) This is the first IRON MAN movie to NOT use the song “Iron Man” by BLACK SABBATH. This is a good thing. I always felt it was just lazy for the filmmakers to use the song for the IRON MAN movies. Lyrically, the song has nothing to do with the Armored Avenger. (SAMPLE LYRIC: “Vengeance from the grave. Kills the people he once saved!” HUH?)

11) The worst part of the movie for me was that STARK destroys all of the IRON MAN armors at the end. Why? What possible purpose did this deserve, other than to provide some false sense of “closure” to the “trilogy.” Why destroy all his armors and then declare, “I am Iron Man?” Makes no sense.

12) SHANE BLACK is a better director than JON FAVREAU. But not that much better.

13) IRON MAN 3 features the ugliest armor yet. That color scheme blows!

14) If RDJ does retire, you know who would make a good replacement? The guy who played TONY STARK’S FATHER in the CAPTAIN AMERICA movie! He looked a lot like old school TONY STARK. He’s like RDJ without any of the smarminess.

　

　

　

　

　

　

　

　

　



　

　

　

　

　

　

　

　

　

　

　

　

　

MY AMAZING SPIDER-MAN REVIEW

By Barry Dutter

AMAZING SPIDER-MAN is the first chapter in the new film trilogy from Marvel. It could be subtitled, THE MYSTERY OF PETER PARKER’S PARENTS. This is the first time an attempt has been made to tell one semi-continuous story over three movies with the same Marvel character, in the tradition of DC‘s latest BATMAN franchise.

AMAZING SPIDER-MAN is the best of all the Spidey movies that have been released to date. It loses a lot of the campy/jokey elements that marred the Sam Raimi movies. Raimi’s first Spidey movie made Peter Parker out to be the biggest nerd/loser of all time, getting mocked on by every kid in the school, including what looked like a twelve-year-old girl on the bus.

Raimi’s movies mostly played it straight, but his “comedy” scenes were so over the top and campy, they brought the whole series down. (I will never forgive Raimi for having Peter use his Spidey powers to deliver a pizza in Spider-Man 2.)

Biggest problem with the Raimi movies was that Peter was too much of a  crybaby. In the new movie, Andrew Garfield turns on the waterworks, too, but not nearly as much as Tobey Maguire did.

I love the fact that this movie eliminates the organic web shooters and goes with the mechanical ones instead. It just makes Peter Parker seem smarter if he invents his own gadgets. By losing that element, Peter just seemed a little less smart in the Raimi movies.

Overall, Garfield does a decent job as Spidey. He does a convincing American accent, though he does come across as the world’s oldest high school student.

The AMAZING SPIDER-MAN is a better movie than the AVENGERS by virtue of the fact that it only has one super-hero and one super-villain in it, thus it‘s more linear, not as complicated. Having said that, the story for ASM is not perfect. There are some flaws, and they are big ones.

For starters, there is the (yet again) deviation from the comic book origin. Sigh. My favorite part of the original Spidey origin in the comics is the way that Peter Parker tried to use his powers to become rich and famous on TV -- the same thing that you or I or any real person might do. For some reason, all the movies have left out this crucial part of his origin, and I’ve never understood why. Oh well. Maybe the next reboot will have it…

As far as the actual story that is in the movie: this seems more like the origin of ULTIMATE SPIDEY than the one in the Marvel Universe, but whatever. We’ve kind of gotten used to the Marvel movies picking and choosing elements of both universes.

As the movie begins, Peter Parker has apparently never spoken to Gwen Stacy, even though he sits behind her in class and they are apparently the two smartest kids in the school. Kind of weird that they would have never spoken before, huh? But ok, I get it, it’s  a movie, it’s fun to watch characters meet for the first time.

I know a lot of people are saying that the romance with Gwen and Peter is the best part of the movie, but I feel the filmmakers dropped the ball here in a number of ways.

For starters, Peter and Gwen don’t even get to have their first date together until after Peter’s Uncle Ben dies. Peter never even asks out Gwen on a first date, leaving Gwen to become the aggressor. The actual first date is an a awkward dinner where Peter gets in an argument with Gwen’s police captain dad. Later on that same date, Peter reveals his secret ID to Gwen and makes out with her for the first time. That’s an awful lot to cram into one date. It all felt kind of rushed to me.

The filmmakers seem to have had a hard time deciding what the most important element of the movie would be: the mystery of Peter’s parents or the romance with Gwen. (The trailer for the movie teases several scenes offering clues to the Peter’s parents mystery -- including a line about Peter‘s powers not being an accident -- but none of those scenes is in the finished film.)

I usually don’t like Dennis Leary in anything, but he acquits himself nicely here. I remember Captain  Stacey as being more kind and fatherly, not the sarcastic smart-ass we see here, but whatever. Leary fits the character as written.

Emma Stone is not pretty enough to play Gwen Stacy, but then, I’ve always said that Kirsten Dunst was not pretty enough to play MJ, too. Problem is that artist John Romita Sr. drew both girls looking so sexy and glamorous, it’s hard for regular girls like Kirsten and Emma to measure up. Despite not physically fitting the part, Stone is okay in the role.

A few story points I have to comment on:

There are too many scenes where Peter should be apologizing to Aunt May and Uncle Ben for his increasingly outrageous behavior but instead he says nothing. I guess this is what it means to be "emo": wear a hoodie all the time and never actually speak, apologize, or offer explanations for why you are getting the crap beaten out of you every night. I call it lazy screenwriting.

Some viewers griped that J. Jonah Jameson is not in the film. You don’t really miss him. Capt. Stacy fills the role of Spidey’s main human antagonist nicely.  They can always have JJJ in the next movie. I appreciate that the makers of this movie tried as hard as they could to differentiate this movie from the previous three by focusing on different characters and situations. The Spidey mythos is so rich and well-layered there are many different elements to focus on. (This movie doesn’t even mention Mary Jane, or the fact that she lived next door to Peter and always secretly knew his secret Identity from day one, which is a piece of ret-con from the comics that has always bugged me.)

The Special Effects are better this time than in the Raimi films. The web-slinging scenes no longer look like they are part of a video game.

The part with the cranes was very corny and didn’t work for me at all. It seemed like something out of Raimi‘s run.

Captain Stacy commands a police force of several hundred men, but when he finds out his daughter is in danger at the top of the Oscorp building, he decides to go there alone. I know this allows him to have some private moments with Peter, which helps the story, but it doesn’t work at all from a logic standpoint.

The Lizard is a decent villain. Gotta feel bad for the actor (Dylan Baker) who played Curt Connors in all 3 Raimi movies but never got to transform into his scaly alter ago! That guy has got to be kicking himself now!)

In the screening when I watched THE AMAZING SPIDER-MAN, the projector stopped at one point, and the audience sat waiting for about 10 minutes for the movie to start up again. A smart-ass in the crowd had the biggest laugh of the night when he shouted out, “I’d give my right arm for this movie to start up again!” That’s an inside joke for all you Lizard fans out there…

Gwen Stacy seems to have made all her fashion choices in the 1960s and gotten stuck there. With her "mod" headband and "groovy" thigh-high boots, she's like a girl out of time! But no one else seems to notice.

At first sight, Sally Field seems too young to play Aunt May. This is the first attempt to play Aunt May as a younger woman and overall it works.

This movie features the deaths of 2 major characters that are close to Peter Parker. I think that might be one too many. Might have worked better to save one of the deaths for the next movie. It’s like they tried to cram 80 issues of continuity into one movie.

In the 1960s comics, Peter’s parents were secret agents. Here, Peter’s dad is a scientist, which is a bit they took from the Ultimate universe. As always, it bugs me any time I see a deviation from the OMU (Original Marvel Universe), but I guess I can allow it this time if it creates a nifty new reason for Peter to have gotten his powers that ties in with his dad’s experiments.

The mystery villain who pops up in the end credits sequence and then disappears in a flash of lightning? Rumor has it that it's Electro! 

Peter never did catch that burglar who killed his Uncle Ben. Guess they gotta save something for the sequel, but it sure felt like one hell of a loose end from this movie.

I’m curious to see the final fate of Peter’s Parents and which actor they will get to play Norman Osborn. I’m guessing we will see a revitalized Green Goblin in the third chapter of the trilogy. I’m hoping this time they get his costume right! (No crappy Goblin armor!)

Spidey's silver booties are the worst thing in the movie, but thankfully, you barely see them.
 
Finally, best Stan Lee cameo yet!

30 COMMENTS/QUESTIONS about THE AVENGERS MOVIE        

By Barry Dutter

I don't see the point in reviewing a movie like the AVENGERS. It's not really a movie, it's more of a media event/ rollercoaster ride/ vessel for selling toys.

A movie like THE AVENGERS doesn't need a plot or character arcs or any of that fancy stuff. It just needs some cool fight scenes, a few token nods to the fanboys, and some quotable lines. In that respect, the film delivers on all counts.

Of course, as a longtime comic book fan (and a guy who read THE AVENGERS comics for over 30 years), I do have some opinions...


1) When Marvel publishes a 22-page comic that is just a plotless fight scene, it costs the company a few thousand dollars to produce. It costs you three or four dollars to purchase and you can read it in ten minutes. When a movie studio produces a big budget super-hero movie that is just a plotless fight scene, it costs the company $250 million to produce, takes two and a half hours to watch, and costs you up to $20 if you see it in 3-D. I guess this is my way of saying I’m a  lot more forgiving of a  plotless comic than a plotless movie.

2) In the original AVENGERS #1, Loki tricked the other heroes into fighting the Hulk. Imagine how much better the Avengers movie would have been if Loki had pitted a mind-controlled Hulk against all the other heroes.

3) At one point in the movie, Loki allows himself to be captured so that he can have access to the Hulk. But then he never follows up on this.

4) Hawkeye needs a mask. And Cap's new headgear looks stupid. They should have kept the mask from his first movie. 

5) The invading aliens face the power of a Norse God, the awesome armor of Iron Man, the limitless strength of the Hulk -- and a red-headed girl with two handguns! Look out!

6) The aliens in the movie were completely ineffectual. Might have been nice to see the aliens actually do something, anything successfully, like maybe capture one of the heroes or defeat one of them in battle. They were basically video game fodder.

7) Joss Whedon’s BUFFY THE VAMPIRE SLAYER lived in a town where there existed the Hellmouth -- a portal through which evil creatures could escape to Earth. The AVENGERS MOVIE has something similar. So basically, this is a big-budget episode of BUFFY THE VAMPIRE SLAYER.

8) The Hulk in the THE AVENGERS MOVIE looks too much like Mark Ruffalo. I liked the way ol’ Greenskin looked in his 2008 movie better.

9) Tony Stark is much more likable in the comics than he is in the movies. Basically Robert Downey is playing an exaggerated version of Hollywood movie star Robert Downey Jr.

10) Steve Rogers wakes up after being frozen for 70 years, and he basically hangs out in the gym at SHIELD HQ and never gets to see the outside world, except when fighting aliens. Really? I thought this movie would have shown Steve venturing out into the world for the first time in 70 years and seeing how it all has changed. This movie completely misses the fact that everyone Steve has ever known in his life is dead and that the world as he knows it no longer exists. I guess they’re saving that for CAP 2.

11) Yay, Cap gets to lead the Avengers! Even Iron Man bows to Cap’s superior leadership ability.

12) Hulk sucker-punches Thor -- best moment in the movie? Yeah, I think so.

13) Hulk throttles Loki -- second best moment. (But Loki getting the crap kicked out of him by the Hulk makes Loki out to be pretty weak for a God.  Asgardians are supposed to be much stronger than humans and Loki‘s magic should have enabled him to put up a much better fight against the Hulk. The least original thing a writer can do is to have your villain get beaten by a hero who punches him really hard. It’s the #1 comic book cop-out ending.)

14) Hulk tries -- and fails to lift Thor’s hammer. Perfect!

15) At one point, Thor tries to summon his hammer to his hand and fails. Huh? What gives? What was the point of this scene? It is never referred to again and his hammer is working just fine later.

16) I never had much use for Agent Coulson, but he is used better here than he was in previous movies.

17) I didn’t like any of the scenes where Nick Fury answers to the council. They were willing to nuke New York? Really? They never even thought to fire the nuke at the portal? Why is it that the government never trusts the good guys to do the job they were asked to do? This reminded me of the 2 Ghostbusters movies where the govt. doesn’t believe in the heroes and tries to shut them down -- despite the fact that the Ghostbusters are clearly the only ones equipped to deal with the ghost problem plaguing the city.

18) Least favorite line in the movie: Fury says to Loki, “You have made me very desperate.” What he should have said: “I just put together a team of the most powerful heroes on Earth. Loki, you don’t stand a chance.”

19) I stayed through the end credits and saw the first extra scene, then I left. Who knew there was another extra scene at the end? Not me!

20) Bruce Banner is “angry all the time.” Sorry, not buying it. The whole point of the Banner character is that he can‘t allow himself to ever get angry because he has no control over his transformations. In this movie, he seems to change to Hulk at will. That contradicts the comics.

21) Favorite line in the movie: When Cap says, “Hulk… smash!”

22) Coolest scene: when Thor’s hammer strikes Cap’s shield.

23) What, Natalie Portman was too busy to do a cameo?

24) Fury’s explanation to the council at the end that the point of forming the Avengers was to send a message to the galaxy that Earth now has powerful protectors. I thought the purpose was to save the Earth from an alien invasion. There had to be a deeper meaning than that?

25) I guess we won’t be seeing Spider-Man or Wolverine joining the Avengers any time soon! (They are licensed to different movie studios.)

26) New members I would like to see in AVENGERS 2: Giant-Man, Wonder Man, the Wasp, Vision, Scarlet Witch, Ms. Marvel

27) The ending of the first THOR movie makes it pretty clear that it will be almost impossible for Thor to ever return to Earth. But he shows up in Avengers with a weak explanation as to how he got back, and it is kind of glossed over. Since Marvel knew all along that all their movies were going to be connected, they could have dealt with this better.

28) The Tessaract? Couldn’t they have referred to it as the Cosmic Cube just once?

29) I wonder if Ed Norton has any regrets about not being the Hulk any more…

30) They should have had the SKRULLS in this movie instead of the SHITAURI…

TALENTED SINGERS THAT DID REALLY CRAPPY MOVIE THEMES

By Barry Dutter

1) 38 SPECIAL: Theme from the movie TEACHERS (1984):  38 Special were responsible for some of the best Southern rock songs of the early 80s, including “Hold on Loosely” and “Caught Up in You.” But they seem to have run out of ideas when it came time to write the theme for the Nick Nolte comedy TEACHERS. The uninspired chorus tells you all you need to know: “Teacher, teacher, can you teach me? Can you tell me what I need to know? Teacher, teacher, can you reach me? Or will I fall when you let me go? Oh no.” Oh no is right. They should have been expelled for that one.


2) QUARTERFLASH: Theme from NIGHT SHIFT (1982). Quarterflash had two of the best songs of the 80s: “Harden My Heart” and “Take Me to Heart.” They had a third semi-hit with the Pat Benatar-esque “Find Another Fool.” But they really bombed when it came time to perform the theme for the movie NIGHT SHIFT, starring Henry Winkler and Michael Keaton. The song was actually co-written by Burt Bacharach, long past his 60s heyday. At that point in his career, Burt would usually bring in co-writer Carole Bayer Sager to sing the song, but in this case, the tune was handed off to a younger, hipper group. Quarterflash was never heard from again.

3) STARSHIP: “Nothing’s Gonna Stop Us Now,” -Theme from MANNEQUIN: The first thing you might ask is, “Was Starship ever a great band?” Sure. Before they sold out and got all soft and wimpy, they had a couple of the best pop/rock hits of the 80s: “Jane” and “Find Your Way Back.” The MANNEQUIN theme makes the list, not because it was that much different from any other mediocre 80s songs, but because with its generic lyrics, it could be the theme of any movie ever made.

4) KENNY LOGGINS: “Meet Me Halfway,” Theme from OVER THE TOP.  I have to defend Mr., Loggins, who was responsible for some great movie themes, like “I’m Alright” from CADDYSHACK and the theme from FOOTLOOSE. But this one was a clear case of making too many trips to the well. Check out this chorus: “Meet me halfway. Across the sky. Up where the world belongs to only you and I.” Ugh. Mr. Loggins had built up plenty of good will over the years, so we could forgive him for other lesser movie theme lyrics like TOP GUN’s “Highway to the Danger Zone, gonna take me right into the Danger Zone.” But there was no forgiving this one.

5) PHILLIP BAILEY: Theme from TWINS. Bailey did great work with Earth Wind & Fire in the 70s, and had one of the best pop songs of the 80s in his duet with Phil Collins, “Easy Lover.“ But he didn’t fare as well when he joined forces with LITTLE RICHARD to sing this non-hit, which takes the title of the movie and tries to build a song around it. The movie, starring Arnold Schwarzenegger and Danny Devito, had a few laughs, but this song was a lost cause. Check out this groaner of a chorus: “We’re twins, united outside and in. When you‘re twins, the magic just never ends.” And when you’re singing a bad song, the magic just never begins.

6) PRINCE: “Batdance” - Theme from BATMAN (1989) To say the song does not hold up today is being kind. People had so much good will for that first Tim Burton Batman movie that they were buying anything Batman related -- including so many copies of this song that they drove it to the number one spot on the pop charts!  “Batdance” came just a few years after Prince created his masterpiece, Purple Rain, and it’s hard to believe both albums were done by the same artist. This was not long after other seminal Prince works like “Pop Life” and “Raspberry Beret.” Reportedly Prince had several songs rejected for the Batman soundtrack, which is mind-blowing because  the songs are all pretty unlistenable. It's hard to imagine the poor quality of the stuff they threw away! A once-creative artist at his nadir.

7) CYNDI LAUPER: “The Goonies R Good Enough” - Theme from GOONIES.” This song gets a dishonorable mention because the word “Goonies’ is never actually sung  in the song. It was just shoehorned into the title in a lame attempt to tie the song to the movie. The song itself is OK. Not one of Lauper’s best, but she certainly had worse. (Actually her worst song was the theme from the movie VIBES (1988), which had one of the dumbest song lyrics of all time: “There’s a hole in my heart that goes all the way to China.” Ugh.)

8) BOBBY BROWN: “On Our Own” - Theme from GHOSTBUSTERS 2. The chorus to this song is respectable, and does an adequate job of summing up the theme to the movie -- that this time, the Ghostbusters have to do it on their own. (Um, wasn‘t that the basic idea of the first movie, too?) But the rap that appears twice in the song is awful, among the worst ever written. It’s definitely a case of an artist trying way too hard to fit the plot of a movie into a song. The part that sucks the most is when Brown raps, “Found about Vigo, the master of evil. Try to battle my boys? That's not legal.” Writing bad raps? That should be illegal too. (Then we would have been spared such travesties as MC Hammer's "Addams Groove" from ADDAMS FAMILY VALUES and Vanilla Ice's "Ninja Rap" from TEENAGE MUTANT NINJA TURTLES!)

9) A HA; Theme from the James Bond film, THE LIVING DAYLIGHTS. AH HA was a band that had one of the best “new wave” songs of the 80s (and perhaps the single best video), “Take On Me.” The problem comes when a one-hit wonder tries to write a second hit. For their first movie theme, the band was given an impossible title to work with: THE LIVING DAYLIGHTS. Rather than trying to come up with anything to rhyme with that title, the chorus simply consists of the band chanting, “Ahhh ahhh ah ah -- the Living Daylights.” It was one of the worst Bond themes ever.

10) AEROSMITH: “I Don’t Want to Miss a Thing,” from ARMAGEDDON: Hands down the sappiest song ever performed by Aerosmith., They didn’t write it, it was penned by songwriting hack Diane Warren. But it became their biggest hit ever, which is kind of sad, considering these guys were responsible for great tunes  like “Sweet Emotion” and “Walk This Way” back in the 70s. This sorry song is about a guy who is so in love with his woman that he doesn't even want to sleep, or even blink, for fear that he might miss something amazing that she does. Trust me me, Steven Tyler, no one is that interesting. Go ahead, close your eyes.

11) BRYAN ADAMS: “All For Love” - Theme from THE THREE MUSKETEERS. It must have sounded like a great idea on paper. Bryan Adams was coming off one of the biggest hits of his career -- “Everything I Do (I Do it For You)” from the movie ROBIN HOOD. Why not have him write another theme song for another period adventure -- only this time, (wait for it) he could team up with two other singers, and they could be just like the Three Musketeers! Great idea, but it was a lame song even by Bryan Adams sappy ballad standards. It was understandable that Rod Stewart agreed to be one of the other singers joining Adams on this Three-Man Duet -- Stewart’s career had been on a steady decline since his 1970s heyday. But why the hell did Sting agree to be the third wheel? Surely he had better things to do than to help sing a hacky Bryan Adams ballad. It was because of the inclusion of Sting , an artist who was still vital and creative at this time, that this turkey makes the list. And lyrics like, "When it's love you give (I'll be a man of good faith.) Then in love you live" didn't help much, either.

13) (TIE) ARETHA FRANKLIN singing “Jumpin’ Jack Flash” for the Whoopi Goldberg movie of the same name? Did we really need that?  Finally, I have to take a jab at BOB SEGER for “Breakdown,“ the uninspired theme from BEVERLY HILLS COP II. Who could forget those unforgettable lyrics? “Breakdown, shakedown, take down. You’re busted!” That’s a far cry from the evocative lyrics of  early Seger hits like “Hollywood Nights” and  “Night Moves.”