Valerie Perrine

Nick Marshall (Mel Gibson) is a Chicago advertising executive and alpha male. The mother of Nick Marshall was a Las Vegas showgirl. Raised by beautiful women who spoiled the boy as an adored mascot, and with tough casino men as role models (who treated women as nothing more than objects), the adult Nick is a chauvinist skilled at selling products to men and seducing women. Nick is famous for not lifting a finger at work and is surrounded by beautiful women who do all the heavy lifting for him, while he takes the credit. Annie (Sarah Paulson) is Nick's secretary, Stella (Diana-Maria Riva) is his maid, the doorman to his apartment building Flo (Loretta Devine). Coworkers Eve (Delta Burke), Dina (Lisa Edelstein), and Sue (Ana Gasteyer) work with him at his office. Nick's only male coworker is Morgan (Mark Feuerstein), who participates in Nick's skirt chasing contests. His conquests including local coffee attendant Lola (Marisa Tomei). Nick expects a promotion at the advertising firm Sloane Curtis. However, just as he thinks he's headed to a meeting for a promotion, his manager, Dan (Alan Alda), informs him that he is hiring the talents of Darcy McGuire (Helen Hunt) instead, to broaden the firm's appeal to women. He says that women in the age group of 18 to 24 are the fastest growing consumer group, and they control the spending and hence the advertising dollars. Dan says that 10 years ago they were the best agency in town and now they are 3rd. Dan says that getting into woman's psyche is not really Nick's strength. Also, his estranged 15-year-old daughter Alex (Ashley Johnson) is spending two weeks with him while his ex-wife Gigi (Lauren Holly) goes on her honeymoon with her new husband Ted (Robert Briscoe Evans). Alex is embarrassed by Nick, and resents his being protective when he meets her much older boyfriend Cameron (Eric Balfour). Darcy tells her team that female driven advertising market is worth $40 Billion and Sloan Curtis' share of that pie is zero. Needing to prove himself to Darcy and Dan, Nick attempts to think of copy for a series of feminine products that Darcy distributed at the day's staff meeting. However, he slips and falls into his bathtub while holding an electric hairdryer, electrocuting himself. The next day, Nick wakes up able to understand his maid's thoughts as she cleans his apartment. Nick finds that Flo has lustful feelings towards him. As he walks through a park and encounters numerous women, he realizes that he can hear their thoughts, even those of a female poodle. This proves to be an epiphany for him when he hears the thoughts of his female co-workers (some of whom have slept with him and regretted it). Dina doesn't like Nick's disgusting jokes, Eve doesn't like when Nick comments on her eating habits, women think he wears too much aftershave, Annie feels that she got an Ivy League education and Nick has got her picking up his dry-cleaning and realizes that he cannot hear men's thoughts. Nick tells Morgan that he can hear women's thoughts. Morgan warns Nick that he sounds insane and cannot say this to anyone. When he goes to a previous therapist, Dr. Perkins (Bette Midler) (who also disliked him), she realizes his gift: "If Men are from Mars and Women are from Venus, and you can speak Venutian, the world can be yours." Nick eavesdrops on women's thoughts and uses their ideas as his own, but also begin to develop real friendships with his co-workers. He corrects his off-hand comments and starts to appreciate women for who they are. He has sex with Lola, and using he thoughts as a guide, he satisfies her in bed, and she ends up declaring that Nick is a sex God. As Nick spends more time with Darcy, he is attracted to her. Darcy is going after the Nike, women's division account and this account will make her career at the agency. However, when he tries to get closer to his daughter, she resents him for trying after so many years of neglect. Nick learns that Alex wants to go to prom with Cameron, even though Nick knows that all Cameron wants to do is to have sex with her. Darcy tells Nick that going to the prom is all about the dress and asks Nick to take Alex shopping. Nick and Alex start to bond while he takes her shopping for a prom dress. Nick shrewdly suspects that Alex's boyfriend, who is considerably older than Alex, plans to sleep with her and then dump her. He tells her Cameron is not interested in her for who she is, just for what he can do with her in bed. Alex, thinking Nick is being over-protective and trying to sabotage her prom, rejects his advice. Nick steals most of Darcy's ideas and presents them to Dan as his own. Soon, Nick is the darling of the office women. Nick and Darcy begin to spend more time together, and ultimately, they kiss. When he manages to trump Darcy out of her idea for a new Nike ad campaign aimed at women (he had heard Darcy's pitch in her mind, and delivers it verbatim to the client in the meeting before Darcy could say anything), he later regrets his selfishness, especially as it leads to her being fired. Over time, Nick succeeds in repairing his relationships with female acquaintances, especially those at work. Nick loses his gift during a storm while trying to find a company secretary, Erin (Judy Greer), who (as his telepathic ability has shown him) is contemplating suicide. He offers her a position for which he had previously turned her down; she accepts. He is also reconciled with his daughter when her boyfriend rejects her. Nick finally visits Darcy and explains everything. She regains her job and Nick gets fired. But she forgives him, and agrees to save him from himself, to which he responds, "My hero".

At a christening ceremony in a Mexican church, the walls shake and the building collapses when a sudden earthquake strikes. While men clear the rubble, one of the survivors, a 19-year-old Mexican girl named Maria (Elpidia Carrillo), carries her baby and follows her younger brother, Juan (Manuel Viescars), through the wreckage. Meanwhile, in Los Angeles, California, immigration Officer Charlie Smith (Jack Nicholson) arbitrarily arrests two Mexican workers from a factory. Later, Charlie returns to his run-down trailer home where his wife, Marcy (Valerie Perrine), tells him that she wishes to buy a duplex in El Paso, Texas, next door to her friend, Savannah (Shannon Wilcox). Charlie muses over the idea of changing careers and working with park services, but Marcy believes it would be a mistake. As Charlie and Marcy move to El Paso, Maria, Juan, and the baby reach the U.S.-Mexico border. Charlie and Marcy meet Savannah, her husband, Cat (Harvey Keitel), and their young son Timmy (Jay Thurman) at the house. Inside, Savannah and Marcy laugh remembering their days as high school cheerleaders. After Cat has Charlie outfitted for his uniform as a border patrolman, Charlie's new partner, Hawker (Alan Fudge), drives him around the three-mile-long "Tortilla Curtain" border fence, where they encounter a group of young Mexicans sneaking across. Because Hawker identifies them as day workers sneaking into the U.S. for the workday before returning to Mexico at night, he lets them get away. That night, Hawker and Charlie respond to an urgent call, and Hawker is shot and killed by an armed illegal immigrant. The next day at border patrol headquarters, Charlie meets Red (Warren Oates), the patrol supervisor, and attends Hawker's funeral. Later, Charlie walks along the Rio Grande River and becomes transfixed when he spots Maria holding her baby. Charlie returns home to find that, to his annoyance, Marcy purchased a waterbed and opened a charge account at the local mall. In the desert, Cat and Charlie arrest a Mexican man smuggling cocaine and load a group of immigrants into a van to drive them back across the border. Among them, Charlie recognizes Maria, but when he approaches her, she spits in his face. After Charlie locks the drug smuggler in a cell at patrol headquarters, Cat sends the patrol's Mexican contact, Manuel (Mike Gomez), to speak with the criminal. Later, Cat suggests that Charlie participate in his and Red's scheme; smuggling immigrants for extra money, but Charlie refuses. At home, Marcy tells her husband that she wants to work on television and he discovers that she installed a swimming pool. At the Rio Grande river border, Charlie calls out to a woman he believes to be Maria, but is mistaken. He crosses the water into Mexico and walks through a poor village, where he finds the drug smuggling boy with his throat slit. Back in Texas at Red's birthday party, Charlie tells Cat and Red about the body, suspecting Manuel of suspicious dealings. Cat dismisses the idea and Red banishes Charlie from crossing the border again. One night, Charlie and Cat attempt to stop a group of Mexicans, including Maria and her brother, from hopping onto a freight train. When Juan falls under the train, Charlie jumps under the train to protect him. While detained in an outdoor holding cell, a woman offers to hold Maria's child and scuttles off to hand the baby to Manuel. Maria realizes the baby is gone and begins to cry, prompting an uprising from the other detainees, who break out of their cage. The patrolmen use tear gas to control the crowd and load the detainees on a bus to drive them back to Mexico. That night, Cat confronts Manuel about the stolen baby and Manuel reveals that he sold the child to a wealthy Caucasian family. As they talk, they see El Scorcho, a man with a burned face who traffics Mexicans in competition with their own arrangement. Charlie wakes up the next morning to the sounds of Marcy moving more furniture into the house. Fed up with her excessive spending to build him the perfect "dream house," he slaps her. Charlie and Cat visit J. J. (Jeff Morris), whose house acts as a delivery station for smuggled immigrants. As Charlie waits outside, J. J. hands Cat a stack of money. During a pool party at the Smiths' house, Savannah drunkenly starts a food fight, prompting Marcy to scream. Amidst the chaos, Charlie dumps a grill full of burning meat into the pool. One afternoon, Charlie catches El Scorcho with a truckload of Mexicans. Cat suddenly arrives and takes El Scorcho back toward the station, but Jack hears two gunshots from the direction in which Cat drove away. At the station, Charlie yells at Cat that he does not want to get involved with murder. Marcy gets her hair done at the salon and worriedly tells Savannah that she does not know how to make Charlie happy. Outside a bar another night later, Charlie pays Juan $5 to take him to Maria and finds her in a strip club, where she works as a dancer for Manuel. When he tries to lead her away, two men beat Charlie up and throw him outside. The next day, Manuel warns Cat that Charlie will get them into trouble. As Charlie chases a driver through the desert, he fails to notice two Mexicans who are being transported. Cat watches the incident from a distance. When the driver confesses to transporting two men, Charlie returns to the site to check again. Inside the driver's vehicle, he finds their bloody bodies, which he swears had not been there before. Cat insists he will cover for Charlie and they sink the car in a nearby pond. Charlie again asks Juan to take him to see Maria and informs them that he will help smuggle them across the border the next day. He insists that she does not owe him anything, and that helping them would allow him to feel good about something in his life. The next night, Charlie watches as Maria, Juan, and a group of others safely cross the Rio Grande. Outside J. J.'s house, Maria's group boards a truck and Charlie and Cat take their payment for the delivery. However, Juan is shot for attempting to smuggle drugs, and he runs away. Two patrolmen notice the truck on the highway and follow in pursuit. Charlie hears the call on his patrol radio and, concerned about Maria, drives to catch up with them. Gaining speed, the truck loses control and crashes on a hillside. Charlie takes Maria home and asks Marcy to tend to the girl while he returns to J. J.'s house to look for Juan. Once there, he overhears Red talking with J. J., explaining how the heist went wrong. Charlie returns home to take Maria back to Mexico, but Marcy believes he is leaving her. Although he and Maria find Juan, bloody and feverish, he dies shortly after. As Maria prays over her brother's body, Manuel and J. J. prowl outside and Charlie shoots J. J. in the face. Charlie finds Manuel at a bar and demands he return the baby, who has not yet been sold, to Maria. At the house where the baby is hidden, Charlie finds the infant buried in a laundry basket, and Manuel calls the patrolmen. On the road, Cat and a few other officers shoot at Charlie as he drives by. Charlie gets out of his vehicle and fires at the officers, exploding their car, and Cat hides under a bulldozer. Charlie shoots the tire, which deflates and causes the oversize vehicle to crush Cat to death. Charlie returns to the Rio Grande crossing and delivers the baby to Maria, who thanks him through her tears.

In 1938, a planet in deep outer space known as "Krypton" is the home world of the "Kryptonians"; a highly-evolved powerful extraterrestrial race of humanoids (resembling humans) and bearing a unique molecular density and structure, a result of the planet's gravitational strength (it is mostly made of crystals) and the radiation of its adjacent red sun. The planet is ruled by a Council of Elders, each representing a particular "clan" and bearing a crest of that particular House. The planet's greatest leading scientist, Jor-El, bears an S-shaped crest symbol, the House of El. He is supervising the trial of three criminals caught attempting to overthrow the planet's government. Using evidence provided by scientist Jor-El (Marlon Brando), the Ruling Council sentences three attempted insurrectionists; General Zod (Terence Stamp) the planet's former defense chief, Ursa (Sarah Douglas) a woman determined to exterminate men other than the man she loves (Zod), and Non (Jack O'Halloran) a hulking killer unable to speak, to "eternal living death" in the Phantom Zone. The vast dome of the planet's capital city opens to the night, and a small extra-dimensional prison - the Phantom Zone - tumbles out of the sky and pulls the three criminals out of the trial room and into an eternity in dimensional limbo through space. While a frightened Ursa begs for forgiveness, Zod defiantly swears that he will have his vengeance on the House of El, no matter how long it takes. Despite his eminence, Jor-El is unable to convince the arrogant Council of his belief that Krypton will soon explode, as his latest studies have found, due to its closeness to the sun causing it to overheat and quake. Jor-El's more pressing concern lies in the orbital shift of Krypton; this shift is putting the planet into the fatal gravitational pull of its central star, a fact blithely ignored by the Council Of Elders. The leader of the Council forbids Jor-El from warning the larger populace or he will be imprisoned in the Phantom Zone himself. Jor-El promises to be silent and that he and his wife Lara-El will not attempt to leave the planet. To save his only infant son Kal-El, Jor-El launches a spacecraft (made of Kryptonian minerals) containing the child towards the planet called Earth, a distant planet with a suitable atmosphere, and where Kal-El's dense molecular structure will give him advanced non-human superpowers. Jor-El and Lara bid their child goodbye before Joe-El installs a green crystal into the ship, a device containing the very essence of himself and Lara as well as the knowledge of the entire universe. He then completes the assembly of the star-ship. The star-ship is programmed to take the child through a trans-galactic warp to a planet populated by primitive humans whose technological development is Millennia behind Krypton, a planet that orbits a yellow sun. Shortly after the launch, Krypton's sun explodes in a supernova, destroying the planet just as Jor-El predicted. The tiny star-ship passes the Phantom Zone before accelerating on its journey to the planet Earth, with the voice of Jor-El providing the infant, who is aging as the ship proceeds, with knowledge. The ship finally reaches Earth in the year 1951 A.D. and plunges like a meteor into a vast wheat field near Smallville, Kansas. Its landing causes a farmyard pickup truck driver, Jonathan Kent and his wife, Martha, to swerve off the road. The couple approach the downed spacecraft and find the young Kal crawling naked out of the crater, unharmed. While John changes the tire on the truck, Martha tells her husband they should adopt the child to raise as their own. As he works under the truck, the jack slips and the truck falls, stopping short of crushing John. The two are astonished to see that the boy has saved John's life, effortlessly holding up the truck's rear and smiling. Fifteen years pass and Clark Joseph Kent, renamed for Martha's maiden name, now lives at the Kent farm is a student at Smallville High School. He is a water boy on the school's football team, and friends with cheerleader Lana Lang (Diane Sherry), but is frequently bulled by Lana's jock boyfriend, Brad Wilson. Clark knows of the vast power he possesses but is forbidden by his father from showing it - although, alone on a football field, he kicks a ball into orbit, then runs home by outrunning a speeding passenger train (even to delightedly jumping across its nose). He is seen by a young girl who tries to tell her parents; her mother (a cameo by Noel Neill, who played Lois Lane in the original Superman serial), however, scolds young "Lois Lane" about telling tall tales. Jonathan, however, reassures Clark that he is on Earth for a reason and that he should not let others bother him. Clark thus feels better, but as he starts to play with the family dog, Jonathan suddenly stops, having lost feeling in his left arm. He then falls to the ground, victim of a fatal heart attack. At Jonathan's burial, Clark mourns his father saying that he should have used his powers to save his father. At age 18, soon after the death of Jonathan, Clark hears a psychic "call" coming from the family barn. Clark enters the barn and finds the remains of the spacecraft that brought him to Earth, and with it the now-activated green crystal of Jor-El. It compels him to travel to the Arctic Northern Pole, where Clark throws the green crystal into the Arctic ice and it expands. The crystal forms the Fortress of Solitude; a palace-like base resembling the architecture of Krypton. Inside, Clark finds a matrix table of crystals; placing one into an aperture, he activates a dimensional communicator that reveals the preserved consciousness of Jor-El, his true father. Through both spiritual vision contact and recorded messages, Jor-El provides the youth with his true identity of Kal-El and takes his son on a journey through time and space to complete his maturation, educating him on the universe and on his purpose in life, as well as training him to use his powers to become a warrior. When the journey ends, Kal-El has aged twelve years to the age of 30, although in the time-twisting of inter-dimensional travel the Earth has aged 22 years to the year 1978 A.D. After 12 years, with his powers fully developed, Clark leaves the Fortress with a colorful blue and red skintight warrior costume, and becomes disguised as a "mild-mannered" reporter at the Daily Planet news company in the capitol city of Metropolis, USA. He meets and develops a romantic attraction to his coworker, ace reporter Lois Lane (Margot Kidder), but she sees him as awkward and unsophisticated. Clark and Lois work for Perry White (Jackie Cooper) their hot-tempered boss at the Daily Planet. Photographer James "Jimmy" Olsen works with Lois (who despite this status has a problem with spelling, frequently being corrected for misspelled words). Lois is initially puzzled by the Clark's shyness and mild social clumsiness, and is particularly struck when the two of them are held up in a back alley by a gunman. Clark faints when the thug opens fire on Lois (the fainting is cover so Clark can catch the bullet in his bare hand, prompting the gunman to run), and in defending himself to Lois rattles off a listing of all the items in her purse. A man named Otis is tailed by Harry and Armis, two undercover cops. Otis is the bumbling sidekick of criminal genius mastermind Dr Alexander Joseph "Lex" Luthor, and he is on his way to Luthor's secret hideout lair underground. The cops tail him to Metropolis Grand Central Station, where Harry sends Armis to get backup while he tails Otis onto subway Track 22 leading out of the station. Otis eventually finds an indentation in the underground tunnel and waits for a train to arrive. A doorway opens under the cover of the passing train, and after it is gone Harry goes to the doorway to try and figure out how to open it. Monitoring the scene from hidden security cameras is Luthor himself, who activates the doorway and violently pushes Harry into the path of the next train. Luthor tells his moll Eve Tessmacher, that his father (Lionel Luthor; a cruel man who disowned Lex as a child), once told him that even if governments and economies collapse, people will still need land and will do anything to get it, a mantra that has guided his criminal career ever since. When Otis arrives in their underground lair, he is reminded of his clumsiness in allowing himself to be followed again. Thus, he is given the non-glamorous and dangerous task of feeding "the babies", a group of unidentified unseen creatures in a vast pit used to dispatch intruders. Luthor's concern lies in a story in the Daily Planet that two nuclear cruise-type missiles with hyper-sonic speed are to be tested using live multi-megaton warheads soon. Luthor intends to use the missile test to fulfill the greatest real estate swindle in history. Lois Lane is scheduled to fly via Planet helicopter to Metropolis International Airport to greet Air Force One, but on the Planet's helipad she boards the chopper and when the chopper begins takeoff, a light cable breaks free of its bracket and in the updraft caused by the chopper snags its landing skids, breaks, and plunges the chopper out of control through the helipad's control shed and crashing onto the ledge. As police hustle panicking bystanders on the streets below to safety, Lois tries to crawl out of the chopper, but the ledge begins to crack and the chopper sags violently toward the street and Lois falls through, hanging on by a seat belt in the air. Clark Kent emerges from the Planet and notices a yellow rain hat on the sidewalk, recognising it as one Lois was wearing. He sees the stricken chopper, and while those around him run for safety, Clark keeps his head and finds a suitable hiding place to change his clothes into his Kal-El suit. Running to another building down the street, Clark opens his shirt to reveal his emblem and then whirls through a revolving door at super speed to become effectively invisible and changes into Superman - to the awe and confusion of a nearby pimp. Superman takes off, just as Lois loses her grip on the seat belt and plunges towards the street below. Superman safely catches her and carries her upward. The chopper now breaks off the ledge and falls, but Superman safely snags it out of the air with one hand and carries it back to the Planet's helipad to the astonishment of the crowd below. When the awe-struck Lois asks who the stranger is, he merely replies, "A friend" and flies off. She faints from pure exhaustion and disbelief. The rescue of Air Force One and other good deeds make the mysterious "caped wonder" a celebrity, as he begins moonlighting as a vigilante. Perry White, for his part, makes discovering the red-and-blue stranger the #1 priority of the Planet and sends his entire staff scurrying to find any scrap of information about "this flying whatchamacallit." Lois, however, scoops everyone when she gets an anonymous note requesting a dinner date at her penthouse from "a friend." The hero visits Lois at home, takes her for a flight over the city, and allows her to interview him for an article in which she nicknames him "Superman." Lois quietly dubs him a true Superman - and uses the term to identify the stranger in her subsequent front-page story. Luthor reads it and sees his arrival as a natural challenge, considering that Superman would surely have the inclination and the power to interfere with his scheme. Lex remembers a scientific theory; Superman's home world would be of a molecular construction that would be affected by the unique radiation of a yellow sun, and that meteors from Krypton upon landing on Earth would be affected to the point of emitting a radiation that would affect only Kryptonians. Such a meteorite was found in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia. Miss Tessmacher is skeptical, as even with "the rock", Superman could see them coming from miles away. But the interview hints at another weakness: Superman has difficulty seeing through lead. With their plan in place, they plan a trip to Ethiopia. The next morning, Superman returns to the Fortress of Solitude and consults the spirit of Jor-El to convey the emotions he felt upon making his full power known. Jor-El urges him to be circumspect in his power and praises him for what he has learned so far. Lex puts his plan into motion. Halting the transport of one of the nuclear missiles by staging a car crash involving Eve, Otis sneaks up to the missile and hacks into it, changing its flight coordinates; however he faults them, earning a beating and a black eye from Lex. Blocking the path of the second rocket with a semi-truck, Lex has Eve work the coordinates for that missile and the subterfuge is successful. The Planet learns that an unknown figure is buying up hundreds of acres of seemingly worthless desert in the southwest. Suspecting land fraud, Perry sends Lois and Jimmy to investigate. As Perry shares a story about a "worthless meteorite" being stolen from an Ethiopian museum, Clark is struck by a piercing signal, a high-pitched hum followed by the sound of every dog in Metropolis barking at once - it is Lex Luthor on a radio frequency only Superman (and the dogs) can hear. Luthor warns Superman that a poison gas pellet containing propane lithium compound is to be released into the air and kill the city's population unless Superman confronts him alone. Feigning a migraine, Clark sneaks away from his co-workers and jumps out a window (nobody notices; leaving the chief confused), where he changes into Superman mid-flight and traces Luthor's signal to the street. He spins himself around and manages to drill through the ground and storms into Luthor's hideout through the sewers, where he is attacked by the hideout's automated defense system - a wall of machine guns, then a wall of fire, finally a wall of liquid nitrogen that freezes the area. Due to him being virtually invulnerable, none has any effect on Superman other than halting him for mere moments and he emerges unharmed. Once inside the hideout, Superman demands knowledge of Luthor's gas pellet. Luthor lets the truth be known that it is a hoax, it was the only way to gain an audience with him. Luthor reveals his true plans for the stolen missiles; the first will destroy the San Andreas Fault, which will collapse the Western coastline of the US (namely California and its major cites) into the ocean and thus make the seemingly worthless desert of the west into multi-billion-dollar windfalls, which he plans to build his own cities over. The second missile is designed to be a cover. Luthor boasts that nobody, not even Superman, can bring down both of them. Lex boasts that he can stop them both with a detonator he has hidden. Superman notices a box made of lead which he assumes hides Luthor's detonator. But when he opens it, he is struck by a massive weakness, for the box contains the Ethiopian meteorite - radioactive Green Kryptonite, fitted to a chain necklace that Luthor drapes around him. Beginning to feel weak and already losing his powers, Lex drops him into his lair's swimming pool and leaves. As Superman weakens, Luthor taunts him by revealing that the first missile is headed to Hackensack, New Jersey, in the opposite direction, knowing that Superman cannot stop both impacts. Miss Teschmacher is horrified because her mother lives in Hackensack, but Luthor does not care and leaves Superman to a slow death. Teschmacher rescues Superman on the condition that he will deal with the New Jersey missile first. Before removing the kryptonite, she kisses him. When he asks why, she says simply that she did not think he would let her before she saved him. Superman flies off to deal with the Hackensack missile and redirects it into space but runs out of time to stop the second impact, causing a massive earthquake which he battles to correct. He stops a flood threatening a small valley down village after the Hoover Dam bursts; he uses his body to repair a railroad track that has broken with a train on the way and he flies down into the collapsing fault itself and is able to stabilise it subterraneously, stopping the quake. While Superman is busy saving others (such as those crossing the collapsing Golden Gate Bridge, and Jimmy Olsen), a fissure opens up and swallows Lois's car in an aftershock. It quickly fills with dirt and debris and the fissure begins to close again crushing her vehicle, suffocating her to death. Superman finds her but he is too late. Distraught and heartbroken at being unable to save Lois, Superman lets out a primordial scream of pain and flies miles above the Earth where he is confronted by an image of Jor-El, warning him not to interfere with human history; preferring to remember Jonathan Kent's advice that he "must be on Earth for a reason". Superman flies in circles around the Earth at super speeds and reverses its rotation, causing time to alternate. The effect reverses Luthor's plan and Lois is saved. Superman later finds Luthor and Otis and delivers them to a penitentiary via the president directly. He flies off above the Earth and into space; smiling with relief but triumph as he knows his adventure has only begun.

One of comedies true originals - the master of wit and good, mean fun, the curmudgeonly, and very original, the legendary W.C. Fields' is wonderfully portrayed by Rod Steiger in this off-beat biopic.

In an interview, Honey Harlow Bruce (Valerie Perrine), ex-wife of stand-up comic Lenny Bruce (Dustin Hoffman), recalls her life with him: In 1964, Lenny shocks his audience by stating that Eleanor Roosevelt gave Lou Gehrig "the clap," but then says the real point he wants to make is about the suppression of words. Venereal disease he says, is an epidemic because people will not talk about it. Honey then recalls seeing Lenny for the first time in Baltimore, when he was a comic impersonator: In the early 1950s, Honey, a stripper known as Hot Honey Harlow, is eating in a cafeteria when she sees Lenny watching her from across the room. The next time Lenny and Honey see each other, they go off together to have sex. Afterward, the smitten Lenny calls Honey his "shiksa goddess" and follows her to Miami. In another interview, Artie Silver (Stanley Beck), Lenny's manager, discusses the delicate balance of involving himself in both Lenny's professional and personal life: Shortly after Lenny and Honey meet, Artie warns Lenny that Honey, who had done jail time as a teenager, would be trouble. Despite Artie's misgivings, Lenny marries Honey, then takes her to meet his mother, Sally Marr (Jan Miner), and her sister Aunt Mema (Rashel Novikoff). Later, Lenny, who is uncomfortable with Honey's stripping, adds her to his act. They are hired to perform in the Catskills, where, during a show, Lenny makes an impulsive, crude joke to the band that is overheard by the audience. After this incidence, Sherman Hart (Gary Morton), an established comic, advises Lenny not to use "dirt" in his routines, but, at his next performance, Lenny intentionally insults his audience, thus losing career opportunities. In a 1960s performance, Lenny asks his audience, "What is dirty?" He says he would rather his child watch a stag movie than 'The King of Kings' , because nobody gets hurt in porn. In a flashback to 1950s, Honey is seriously injured and, while in the hospital, guesses that Lenny has an affair with her nurse. This incident becomes the source of a routine Lenny performs a decade later, in which Lenny advises men to deny their indiscretions at all costs, even if their wives catch them in the act. Explaining the difference between men and women, Lenny says that a woman is physical with someone she likes, but a man will seek out anything, even on a desert island. In the 1950s, the couple moves to Los Angeles, Honey returns to stripping, Lenny to small gigs and they become involved in the show business drug culture. Lenny pushes to experiment sexually, but then accuses Honey of enjoying the other woman in their ménage a trois "too much." In her interview, Honey recalls that after their daughter, Kitty, was born, she and Lenny parted. During his stand-up act in the 1960s, Lenny says that "divorce is great at first, but then you realize the women you meet are also divorced and burdened with children or poodles". He claims the only satisfaction is the revenge of gaining child custody, but then you are responsible for getting up in the morning to raise the child. In her interview, Honey at first accuses Lenny of stealing Kitty, but then admits she had a problem with drug abuse: In the late 1950s, Honey, an emotional wreck from loneliness and drugs, calls Lenny collect from Hawaii, where she has been arrested for possession of marijuana. In a 1960s performance, Lenny explains that the problem is that we live in a "happy ending" culture instead of a "what is" culture. He thinks that true human responses are denied and lied about, causing people to feel guilty when they act in a natural way. In an interview, Sally says that she moved to California to help with Kitty, and that Lenny had by then given up impersonation and begun to improvise: In the late 1950s, Lenny works in strip clubs, content that no one censors his act. Eventually, Artie and Sally convince him to take engagements at college and political venues, where his irreverence soon becomes trendy. During a performance, Lenny risks audience alienation by boldly referring to individuals using racial epithets. Then, explaining that suppression gives words power, he advocates using offensive words until they can no longer cause pain. When a Time magazine reporter suggests that Lenny's act has social impact, Lenny denies it, saying he likes attention and wants to "make a buck." Now, Artie commands high fees for Lenny's appearances. During one performance, Lenny says that he has been accused of making "sick jokes," but that a true sick joke is that Zsa Zsa Gabor earns $60,000 a week in Las Vegas and a Nevada school teacher's top pay is $6,000 a year. After wisecracking about masturbation and integration, Lenny says his financial success is based on violence, segregation, disease, despair and injustice, and if the world suddenly became pure, he would be unemployed. When he visits Honey in prison, he shows her an album cover of a recording of some of his performances. At an appearance in San Francisco, Lenny protests the dismissal of homosexual teachers, saying the men were considered good at their jobs and their actions occurred far from school grounds. Because of one of his crudely worded comments, Lenny is arrested and charged with the use of an obscene word in a public place. During his interview, Artie recalls that Lenny became obsessed with his legal battles and would read court transcripts to his audience: At Lenny's trial without jury in San Francisco, the judge orders a continuance and cautions Lenny not to repeat any of "those words." At Lenny's next performance, after pointing out to the audience several uniformed and plainclothes policemen posted around the room, Lenny talks about his arrest, substituting the sounds, "blah blah blah," for provocative words. When the trial resumes, the humorless judge finds Lenny guilty, after which his counsel requests a jury trial. In his interview, Artie states that Lenny began to study law books and record his trials: During the appeal trial, his lawyer forces the arresting policeman to admit that one of the words that Lenny is being charged for saying in public is often used at the police station, which also is a public place. Then his lawyer suggests that Lenny's work is found in the social satire of Aristophanes and Jonathan Swift. A professor of religion testifies that Lenny's routines convey a sincere message that exposes hypocrisy. A recording of a performance is played, one in which Lenny riffs on the phrase, "to come," and arranges his words into a kind of beat poem. Although the judge is offended, the jury votes for acquittal. Lenny, however, is dissatisfied, feeling that he won because of the jury's idiosyncrasies rather than the acknowledgment of First Amendment rights. According to Artie's later recollection, Lenny, who added jokes about the Pope and other religious leaders to his routines, developed a following, although some people attended shows just to see if he got arrested. After Honey is released from prison, she and Lenny spend time together taking drugs. Artie and Sally try to cancel Lenny's Chicago performance, but when the manager refuses, the drug-addled, coughing Lenny goes onstage. After an attempt at coherence, he apologizes, admitting he is not funny. Backstage, the police arrest him. In the present, Honey recalls that Lenny was arrested a total of 13 times, and Sally states that he suffered from pleurisy. Artie says Lenny dealt with depression, and was going broke from lawyer and doctor bills. In a performance at the height of his career, Lenny tells the audience that there has been an "obscenity circus" for years, starring the district attorney and the lower and Supreme Courts, and that he is the "schmuck" who fell off the high wire into the ring. As he wonders aloud why it is permissible to show photographs of maimed breasts injured in war, but not the beautiful breasts of a lovely woman in the audience, a policeman rises to arrest him. At the trial, words Lenny has spoken are presented out of context and a gesture he used is incorrectly stated to signify masturbation. Increasingly frustrated, Lenny speaks out, asking to talk to the judge and jury as human to human, but his interruptions anger the judge. Expecting a guilty verdict, his defense team plans to appeal to a higher court, but Lenny, no longer thinking clearly, is uncooperative. He tries defending himself, but the judge declares him in contempt of court. Lenny states that he has no money left and his cabaret card, which allows him to perform, has been confiscated. As he is removed from the courtroom, Lenny claims he hurts no one and pleads that they do not take away his words. In her interview, Sally says the New York court found Lenny guilty, but an appeal was being planned by his defense team. When the interviewer suggests the possibility of suicide, Sally denies it. Honey describes Lenny as funny, and Artie, pleased that Lenny's records are selling again, states that he is negotiating a film about his life. Intrigued, the interviewer mentions that Lenny's speeches are now-after less than a decade-considered harmless. Back in 1966, when Lenny is found dead in his apartment, naked, with drug paraphernalia nearby, the police allow news photographers to film his death scene.

It is about March of 1968. A young lady in her early twenties and her husband pull up in their 1969 Ford Country Squire Station wagon to a lavish upstate New York home on a lake, near the town of Ilium, believed to be the fictional title for the actual city of Schenectady. She frantically knocks on the front door calling for her father and no response. She peers through all the windows of the lavish home and sees nothing. Then she lets herself in the back of the home in the utility room desperately searching for her father. In the basement of his home, Billy Pilgrim, a balding, bespectacled, mild-mannered, and passive man of 45 years of age is typing a letter to his local daily newspaper of his time travels and how he is uncontrollably traveling from one point of his life to the other, being "unstuck in time". While he is typing his letter, he finds himself at the Battle of the Bulge in Belgium in January 1945, at the age of 22 alone and running through the snow. He is not dressed as a soldier at all, no weapon, and wearing a stocking cap, overcoat, sweater, and pants that are nothing suggesting Army attire. He is kidnapped by two brash, uncouth, mean, and very stupid men of his age, fellow soldiers named Paul Lazzaro and Roland Weary. They immediately think he's a German, but he denies it and they soon forget about it, since there's an attack going on. The men's Corporal abandons them and Lazzaro swears revenge. Briefly, Billy finds himself back on planet Tralfamadore in the geodesic dome with beautiful, 20-something porn star queen, Montana Wildhack and she suspects he's time traveling again and wants to give him a kiss to help forget about it. Simultaneously, Billy is back at the Battle of the Bulge and Paul Lazzaro hears him say "a little kiss" and Lazzaro is outraged beyond rationalization and accuses Billy of being homosexual, violently attacking him. Shortly after, two German guards take them at gunpoint tell them to get up and for Weary to give up his boots It is the summer of 1946, at Cape Cod, Massachusetts. Billy and his annoying and overweight new bride, Valencia Merble Pilgrim, are on their honeymoon. She thinks he had girlfriends during the war, but was glad they waited to have sex and that he married her. Billy seems bored by her doting and chit-chatting . Back to January 1945, Billy, Weary, and Lazzaro are marching with many other soldiers throughout war-torn remains of an unidentified town in Belgium, France, or Germany. Billy is flirted with by two young prostitutes while marching and bumps into Weary, stepping on his gangrene-riddled feet from wearing no combat boots. Lazzaro is furious and beats up Billy for it. Two German officers spot Billy for his clumsiness and bring him over to pose for a photo. Simultaneously, the portrait flashes forward to 1955-1958 with Billy and his family dedicating a new Ilium Optometry Center. Afterwards, an ill, senile, and shell-shocked Colonel named Wild Bob is escorting the men onto the train bound for a POW camp and fails to realize his men are not there. Billy enters the boxcar and goes to sleep. After pulling the covers on his head, it is the Spring of 1946 and he is in a veterans hospital being treated, allegedly for shell-shock or a nervous breakdown. His southern-accented and sweet-natured mother is talking to fellow patient, Elliot Rosewater of Billy's experiences. Soon afterwards, Billy is back in the boxcar with fellow soldier Weary blaming him for his death from gangrene. Paul Lazzaro cradles him in his arms and he dies. Billy finds himself back in the veterans hospital being given shock treatment. The steam locomotive train pulls up to a POW camp somewhere in Germany. Billy is given a blue, fur-collared overcoat way too small for him by German soldiers as a joke. The men are processed by a German officer and led into a shower room to be deloused. Afterwards, Billy finds himself as a little boy of about 6 or 7 in the shower at the YMCA and his father takes him out of the shower and throws him into the pool to "sink or swim". Billy and other soldiers are being marched to the mess hall and given a jovial welcome by English officers singing "The Yanks are Here". They are led into a dining room decorated with candles and with a potluck of potato soup, hot bread, pies, and marmalade. The English officer escorting Billy tells him the coat was a joke and to wear it with pride and how to hold his head high, despite the deplorable circumstances. Billy passes out at the suggestion. With the tune of the Andrews Sisters singing Johnny Fedora, Billy is at his new home in Ilium in spring and summer of 1947 playing with his new puppy, Spot, with his wife calling him for dinner twice. There is a party going on at his house a later night celebrating his new baby daughter, Barbara. He's obviously feeling out of place at the party with disinterested attendees and his wife chewing him out for the dog peeing on her leg. He takes the dog outside, sits at the lake, and sees a strange occurrence in the night sky, a beam of light coming to him, then leaving. It's back to the POW camp. Paul Lazzaro threatens Billy for Weary's death, but fellow soldier Edgar Derby intervenes. Derby is a middle-aged man of 44 years of age that gave up his job as a trade school teacher in Boston to fight in the war. He is a father figure to Billy and the two immediately form a close bond and friendship. Derby goes through Billy's coat and finds a partial denture and diamond of at least 2 carats. It is Billy and Valencia's anniversary at their home in the summer of 1964. He gives his wife a ring made by the diamond found in his coat. Billy is bored by the crowd and retreats inside his home. He catches his son in the bathroom looking at a porn magazine and scolds him for it. But afterwards, Billy looks at the magazine himself, smiling with delighted interest at the centerfold of Montana Wildhack and goes to the bedroom with it. Billy finds himself back at the POW camp in the briefing room with the rest of the soldiers to be told about the men's new assignment in Dresden and how lucky they are. Edgar Derby is nominated as their leader. Simultaneously, when Derby gives an acceptance speech, Billy is at a Lions Club meeting at his hometown in 1957 giving an acceptance speech. It's about 1964 or 1965 and Billy and his family are watching a soft-core porn flick with Montana Wildhack in it. Billy's son enjoys it and his wife is outraged at the filth. Billy pays no attention to her and is engrossed in it. Billy and fellow soldiers are in a boxcar on their way to Dresden and Derby is going over with him a letter he wrote to his wife about his service and about his pride in his son also serving in the South Pacific. About 1965 or 1966, Billy and his wife pull up to a cemetery with a police officer that caught his now-delinquent son and others vandalizing the tombstones and offers to pay off the officers for the damages. The soldiers pull up to the train station at Dresden, being led by an elderly German officer and several teenage proteges under his wing. They are marched to their new quarters through the beautiful city. A group of kids surround Billy while they are marching and an outraged elderly German civilian slaps him in the face, believing he is insulting his people with the coat he is wearing. It is February of 1968. Billy and fellow optometrists, to include his father in law, are about to take a chartered flight to Montreal for a convention. Billy sees visions of skiers in the crowd when waving goodbye and tells the pilots they need to stop the plane, because it will crash. They refuse to acknowledge, but the plane does crash Back to Dresden, the elderly German officer tells them of their quarters, Slaughterhouse Five, where they will be staying and what to shout in German in case of emergency. Billy is buried in the snow in the Green Mountains and a group of skiers find him bloodied and buried in the rubble. Billy's wife frantically pulls her 1967 Cadillac out of the driveway after hearing the news and comes to his rescue. She is so distressed that she misses her turn, backs into a Mercedes, drives the wrong side of the road, and causes numerous damage in vehicle accidents. She escapes the police, gets on the right side of the road, and goes forward, despite the fact the exhaust is ruined and spewing carbon monoxide. There is a brief flashback of Billy giving his wife the car for her birthday maybe a year or two earlier. Then the car pulls up to a hospital in Vermont and she crashes it into the garage, passed out from the carbon monoxide. Two nurses rescue her and bring her inside, with the gurney she's on passing the one Billy is on. Billy is being operated on and simultaneously, he and the fellow soldiers are in their slaughterhouse quarters being briefed about their working assignments by the German officer and daily routine of work. After the operation is over, the doctor that operated on Billy greets his daughter Barbara that everything will be okay. Barbara's husband Stanley comes over to her to give her the news that her mother died from carbon monoxide poisoning earlier. Billy is in his room recovering with an arrogant professor and historian for a roommate named B.C. Rumfoord telling his much-younger wife about being stuck in a room with such a weak and worthless man. He's writing a story on the bombing of Dresden and Billy says in a daze he was there, but Rumfoord couldn't care less. Simultaneously, Billy is blathering in German that he's an American Prisoner of War and Slaughterhouse Five. Rumfoord loses his temper and tells Billy the bombing was justified, while simultaneously, Billy as a young soldier is walking amidst a crowd of cheerful kids just hours before the bombing. The night of the bombing at dinner, an American dressed up in a Nazi uniform with American flag decor named Howard Campbell, is summoned to recruit the men for the Free American Corps, which is an allied unit with the Germans and that the Communists and Jews are their enemy. Derby calls him out on it for what a filthy traitor he really is, but before he can say anything more, an alarm goes off for the city and the men are ordered to evacuate to an underground cellar for shelter. Dresden gets bombed. In March 1968, Billy is taken home by his daughter Barbara and she pleads with him to stay with she and her husband, but he refuses. He is senile, listless, and apathetic at this point. He takes his elderly dog Spot and shuts the door in her face. The bombing is over and the soldiers go up the stairs to inspect the damage. Simultaneously, Billy is walking upstairs in his posh estate to his bedroom with his dog in his arms. The men walk outside. A teenage German soldier guarding their group denounces the bombers as filthy pigs in German and runs to rescue his family, who were already killed and he burns to death searching for them. Billy is laying in bed at his home with Spot and his son Robert has come to visit him. The former delinquent is now a sharp Green Beret in the Army fighting in Vietnam home on emergency leave. Robert is caring of him and trying to have a conversation, but Billy is preoccupied with himself, looking out the window at the night sky, and uninterested at his visiting, but assures him he's proud of him. Right after Robert leaves, the beam of light he saw in the sky while at the lake at his house in 1947 reappears and takes him away. He and his dog Spot are whisked away to a geodesic dome on the planet Tralfamadore. He's confounded as to his appearance there. The Tralfamadorian elder tells him he can't see them because they live in the Fourth Dimension and that he can't leave the dome. No reason why he is there, he just is. Billy and the American soldiers are ordered by the elderly German officer to process the corpses from the rubble of the bombed Dresden city and to collect their personal remains. They are given a direct order that any looting or stealing will result in firing squad. While Billy and the soldiers are collecting the bodies, he's on Tralfamadore telling the elder about the bombing and how it affected him, but he's comforted and assured that everything that happens always has and always will happen and that the past, present, and future are always happening at the same time in their world, which also gets destroyed and destroys the entire universe because of a mishap with one of their test pilots. Porn actress Montana Wildhack has now been added to the exhibit with Billy in the dome and she's scared to death at first not knowing what's happening. The Tralfamadorian elder insists that they mate, but Billy insists on being a Gentleman with her and does not follow the order. But she lets him go to bed with her and they make love. Some days later after the bombing, Derby finds an undamaged figurine in the rubble that is an exact replica of one his son broke before. He's caught by German officers and shot to death by firing squad. Billy tries to stop it to no avail. Billy is back on Tralfamadore with Montana in her new wardrobe. He tells her of his wife, that the thing he liked best about her was her pancakes. They want to have a baby together. It is back to March 1968 when Billy's daughter was frantically searching for him in his house. He, his daughter, and son in law are at the dining room table and she really thinks he's lost his mind about Tralfamadore and his son in law suggests seeing a psychiatrist. He assures them that the Tralfamadorians do not see past, present, and future the way Earthlings do. And also reveals to them the disappeared porn star Montana Wildhack is the love interest there and that he's seen his death. It is an unspecified time, perhaps the early 2000's. An elderly Billy Pilgrim in his 80's addresses a crowd at a high rise in Philadelphia about Tralfamadore and their lack of concept about time. And that a fellow soldier from World War 2 is about to kill him. Paul Lazzaro is now also a very elderly man that lives in the area shooting him sniper-style and instantly killing him. Billy wakes up to find himself amongst the remains to Dresden in April 1945 with Lazzaro and fellow soldiers attempting to steal a grandfather clock. He's assured all the Germans have left, but when in the process of stealing, Lazzaro and the others leave, with the clock toppling on Billy. It turns out the German side of the war is over and Russian soldiers give Billy a drink to celebrate, which he gags Billy and Montana have a baby on Tralfamadore, with the entire planet celebrating with an array of fireworks