Superman Syndrome

There is a well-documented and often mentioned phenomenon with the old-school Superman. It's been covered hundreds of times by bad comedians so I'll be short. In the old black-and-white superman shows he would invariably get in a situation where bullets would be fired at him. And seemingly every time he'd stand there and grin while deflecting said bullets off of his chest. Yet when the bad guy finished his 6 shots and threw the empty gun at Superman he'd duck out of the way of it.
You would think that such faux pas would be gone from today's cinema. And yet, while watching "Matrix Reloaded" Friday night I saw it yet again. Just so fellow film buffs can follow along, it's the fight scene against the Merovingian's goons while Morpheus and Trinity chase down the Key Maker. A dozen or so guys with automatic weapons open up at Neo, naturally in slow motion. All Neo has to do is hold up his hand and he can effortlessly stop all the rounds in mid-air. Nicely done in deed. And yet, when guys come at him with swords and spears he has to duck and dodge every attempt. Where did his magic safety bubble go?! If he can stop a bullet in mid-flight why can't he stop people and other objects? I'm sure I'm not the first person to notice this, so feel free to fill me in with any info.
I'd love to continue my musing from the movie and the various curiosities I noticed, but I'm too tired and a bit too warm to muster the effort. Non-air conditioned Sunday afternoons tend to do that to me.

And just because I remembered all the polls I used to include and wanted to start that up again...