Originally Posted by
The Overlord
Lex was a known criminal, seemingly with outstanding warrants for his arrest, how was he going to claim the land he purchased after he destroyed California? If he was planning on claiming the land under a false name, why was he planning on naming things in his new city after himself? It seems like Lex would have been found out as the owner of that land and arrested under one of the outstanding warrants for his arrest. Even if they couldn't prove that Lex caused the Earthquake (there may have been an eye witness who saw Lex at the scene of military conveys carrying the nuclear missiles that were tempered with, they know his female assistant was there.) It would have been very hard for Lex to have made a profit on this scheme. Heck, he likely would destroyed the world economy mistake, which might have rendered his assets still worthless, not many people could have afforded to buy Lex's condos after the entire economy crashes.
And again, Lex's plan only worked because the US military was presented as being really stupid in that film. Lex's plans should succeed because of his brilliance, not because the authority are written down for him to succeed. One competent solider should have been able to stop Lex's plan dead in his tracks.
Now I still have give props to Ricard Donner, Superman the movie was the first major super hero movie and it was a good film, he was working without a net, it delivered in many key areas. But for me, Lex was the weak link of the film, I don't find him menacing and I don't find him funny. I would rank Movie Lex pretty low in terms of Comic Book Movie villains, I would rank I lot of obscure villains adatped to film above him: Obadiah Stane, Sebastian Shaw, Whiplash, William Stryker, Deacon Frost. I rank him as being equal with Movie Dr. Doom, another popular villain with a less then successful screen adaption, I would rank him above the real bottom of the barrel villains: Movie Jigsaw, Nuclear Man, Blackheart, the villain from Catwoman, Mr. Freeze, etc, but that's not really high praise.
This is just my opinion, if some people like Movie Lex, more power to them, I just don't think the comic relief of a movie like this should ever come from the villain, the villain should be played straight to be truly menacing. But this was the major super hero movie, so there was going to be a few pitfalls, its too bad Singer made his Lex a copy of the Donner Lex, I think by 2006 we should have gotten a more serious Lex.