After watching the weight-of-the-world-on-my-shoulder depiction of Superman by Henry Cavill, fans had taken refuge in the old and still excellent animation shows and corny movies like The Peacemaker (sorry, John Cena!). When James Gunn announced the return of superman with Christopher Reeves look alike David Corenswet with Nicholas Hoult playing Lex Luthor, fans crossed their fingers and hoped that the John William score playing collectively in our heads wasn’t going to let us down.
But the story is written on Excel and dictated by what Netflix and other OTT platforms call ‘beats’, this superman will leave you with mixed feelings, as if someone had put some barbecue sauce flavoured popcorn in your cheese and caramel popcorn mix. Sigh.
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Lex Luthor is an oligarch, who supplies a puppet president of Boravia with arms to start a war with Jarhanpur so that he gets half the country that has immense oil and mineral deposits. Sounds like a silly ambition for someone who can create a pocket universe, but superhero movies do have silly villains with silly ambitions. Before you say Mogambo Khush Hua, the new Superman is recovering in the cave of solitude with his robots taking care of him and there’s Krypto the dog he’s fostering!
The movie makes us painfully aware of how migrants are made to feel everywhere. Whether it is Mali in the movie, or you, who work for a company that makes you work extra harder because your visa processes are in their hands. The film happily calls social media influencers ‘monkeys’ and literally shows us angry monkeys typing away to create hashtags that pile hate on Superman. Of course, you cannot miss that Lex controls these monkeys of social media…
This brings us to money lessons we can learn from this film. It’s perhaps the most valuable lesson you will take home.
Will you compromise your personal ethics for money?
Ethical investing is a thing, isn’t it? Young people who join corporations that clearly have nothing but the interest of the billionaire owners need to pause and ask themselves if their computer, AI, analytical skills are being used to kill innocents somewhere in the world, or if their ability to buy ‘nice things’ is only because they’ve helped in mining data of unsuspecting millions to be sold to other billionaires, inadvertently fleecing the poor and the uninformed just to line the pockets of the fat cats who don’t care.
Lex has an army of computer geeks helping his hatred of Superman. They don’t ask why Lex hates Superman so much. They’re just doing their jobs… The film does not tell us why The Engineer (Maria Gabriella de Faria) obeys Lex, she just has a throwaway line about hating Superman too.
When you’re investing, make sure that you are putting your hard earned money in stocks that don’t harm the environment or create social harm. You will think twice before buying a blood diamond, will you not? Then why would you invest in companies that take food away from starving children or those that make guns of war?
Impact investing that creates positive social and environmental outcomes is the need of the day. It’s all right for you to invest so that your family’s future is secure, but when you set aside some money to invest in nonprofits that benefit the community or in clean technology enterprises that benefit the environment, you will leave behind a legacy that will be unforgettable.
Teach your children the value of inclusivity. As Superman battles his own inner demons, his ‘dad’ Mr. Kent tells him: It is what you make of your life, the choices you make that make you, Superman.
If you can invest your money and not burden your conscience then you come out a winner, won’t it? Impact investments can take you to emerging markets or industries like healthcare, education, clean and renewable energy and agriculture.
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This Superman film introduces us to many characters at one go. Mr. Terrific deserves a standalone movie! So does Metamorpho. Hawkgirl and the Green Lantern are there too, and the Metropolis seems to be crammed with too many Metahumans. But Superman fans will take anything to see All Blue flying in the sky. Alas after ten years of the Friends franchise, you will not be able to stop wondering if this Lois Lane was channeling her Monica Geller instead of Margot Kidder.
You will come away with mixed feelings about this film. Haters of Jimmy Olsen’s girl ‘How can filmmakers make women so silly in this day and age!’ only have to see how billionaires are marrying ditzy blondes in real life (apologies to all the smart women out there!). There are funny moments delivered correctly, but then everything seems to be too staged. Even the ‘lesson about migrants belonging’ seems to be better shown in the 1951 film ‘Superman and the Mole Men’ rather than this multi million dollar movie. Loved how Superman’s robots (do the robots, esp. Gary, deserve their own series?) comments on Krypto and his out of control behaviour – just like our desperation to invest in crypto currencies, no?
Manisha Lakhe is a poet, film critic, traveller, founder of Caferati — an online writer’s forum, hosts Mumbai’s oldest open mic, and teaches advertising, films and communication. She can be reached on Twitter at @manishalakhe.
