Originally Posted by
The Overlord
Why is Lex Luthor is so lame in the films? Every version of Lex we see on the Silver Screen always seems overly campy, not threatening, not very intelligent and not even remotely in Superman's league.
I like the Donner films, but Lex is one of the worst part of those films, his plan makes no sense, he is going to use a nuke to sink California and then profit off of some land he has in Arizona. There are so many problems with this scheme, one he is wanted a criminal and yet he is going to name several things in this beach property after himself and two, he may very well crash the world economy with this stunt, which may result in the land he has being not as valuable as he would hope. Also Lex plans to send a nuke to a city where Miss Tessmacher's mother lives and doesn't think that will result in her betraying him, a smart Lex would see this coming and plan for it, a dumb Lex would be got blindsided by it. This Lex seems like such a comic relief character, that he is not in Superman's league, I much prefer Zod in these movies. Sure Zod is over the top, but I never felt like he makes really stupid mistakes and he seems like a threat to Superman.
Lex in Superman Returns is pretty bad too, his plan is even worse then Donner Lex. He wants to use Krypton tech to create a giant island that will displace North America, kill millions and then try to sell condos on this island which is a barren rock filled with kryptonite that will likely give everyone on it radiation poisoning. Everyone in the world will be trying to kill Lex, but he thinks everything will work out for him because he has 3 thugs and an assistant to ward off anyone who would to will him. There is a million better things he could have done with this tech, instead he does one of the worst super villain plans I have seen in a film and he still seems like a campy idiot. Sure Lex stabbing Superman with a kryptonite blade is pretty cool, but that's all he does in terms of interesting things in this film. Lex is lucky Superman foiled him, because Lex would be dead in a week if he succeeded.
In Batman v Superman, Lex is again a campy loser. He comes off as a Joker knock off rather then Lex himself, he puts a jolly rancher in a Senator's mouth, acts like a psycho toddler through out the film, has a ridiculously convoluted plan with a million flaws in it to make Superman and Batman fight each other and plans to create a Doomsday monster that will just start randomly killing people (including Lex himself) for no good reason.
I think a good Lex Luthor should one who takes himself seriously, he is not the Joker, he is not going to kill millions of people for kicks and his plans should not be the kind of thing a 10 year old could spot the flaws in if you gave him 20 minutes to think about it. Lex should be cool, intelligent and charismatic, to be in Superman's league, he has to come off as really intelligent, not some two bit grifter with a couple of gimmicks, but no actual tactical ability. Lex should be over the top in terms of what he can do, but he does not some silly campy personality to be a good comic book movie villain, a calm, cool Lex who does amazing things is better then a campy Lex who barely seems to be able to tie his shoes.