HollywoodLand: The Review

[Gangbuster]

Per Rao's request, here is my review of HollywoodLand, the movie about George Reeves starring Adrien Brody and Ben Affleck.  Its original title was "Truth, Justice, and the American Way," and while I do not like the new title, the old one would have been too ironic: there is very little justice in the movie, and the truth is a bit elusive.

This is not a Superman movie. It is a movie about humans, there is no wink at the end, and you shouldn't watch it if you do not want to see Superman fall, hurt, or die. While it contains facts about George Reeves that you may not know, it confirms that he was a charming and ambitious person of goodwill. The crux of the movie is about the investigation into George Reeves' death by an investigator hired by his mother. While the investigator's name is changed to "Simo," he is not altogether fictitious.

The movie is about 1/2 Adrien Brody's character, and 1/2 flashback scenes into George Reeves' life, career and the love triangle in which he was involved. That said, it is a movie, and a powerful one: It shows the effect of Reeves' life and death on children. It shows a couple of things that are questionable- for example, the rumored scene in which Reeves' scenes were cut from a movie when everyone was whispering "Superman" has (I think) been repudiated. It shows Reeves as always being generally negative toward his role, whereas Jack Larson has said that he only heard him mention anything about it once.

In short, the movie is really sad (as I said, no wink at the end.) Ben Affleck, the reason I was skeptical about the film, does a great job portraying his character. But the primary focus of the movie is "Louis Simo" the investigator who takes the case after his son becomes upset at the death of Superman, and begins to realize the importance of his son by the end of the movie.  Much like I've heard about "the Passion of the Christ," this movie focuses more on someone's death than life, but it is a powerful movie nonetheless.