Villains are plot points

Rating: Null/10 (30 December 2001)

This one is quite diverting, despite the inherent corniness of the superhero subplot. It keeps you viewing and the ending is quite good - so obvious, that you don't really predict it. But, yeah, the last 20 seconds with the Dragnet style captions are not only unnecessary but infuriating. We felt so irritated and ripped off by them particularly because the rest of the movie had been so unexpectedly fascinating. All it needed was another 20 seconds showing him wandering around the train station again, or something . . . sitting at the breakfast table with his family . . . despite assertions to the contrary, the story is not about the villain - as with any good comic book story, particularly of the golden age this movie pulls from, the villain is usually the catalyst by which the hero shows his mettle - therefore it would've been nice to at least give some story closure to the decisions he needs to make in regard to being a hero, and in regard to his family . . . such a sloppy ending is really beneath the tidy filmmaking that unfolded before it.