Warner Bros. Starring: Brandon Routh, Kate Bosworth, Kevin Spacey
Directed By: Bryan Singer
Rated: PG-13
Warner Bros.
I have to admit, I was worried about this film from the moment I saw the costume. I mean, look at it! It looks like rubber. The colors are too muted. The "S" is too small, textured, and embossed with tiny little "S" symbol textures (look at a close-up--it's awful).
But that's a pretty shallow way to judge a film. I mean, Bryan Singer was at the helm and he can do superhero movies (X-Men, X-Men 2). The CG effects are certainly up to the challenge of making a proper Superman movie these days (look at the final fight scene in the otherwise abysmalMatrix Revolutions). And Kevin Spacey is a fabulous actor. Who better to take over as Lex Luthor.
So, obviously, I went to see the film. I'm a Superman fan. How could I not?
And, yes...I was disappointed.
The story takes place five years after the events in Superman II (ignoring the events in III and IV, which is probably for the best). I might as well note here and now that, if you haven't seen the original two Superman films or haven't seen them in a while, you should probably watch them again. Superman Returns relies rather heavily on your knowledge of those earlier stories in some cases.
Anyway, Superman (Routh) has been away from Earth for five years, visiting the site where his home planet Krypton exploded some thirty years previously. He returns to much fanfare from the public in general. There are only a couple of people who aren't happy to see him back--Lois Lane (Bosworth) who feels jilted that Superman left without saying goodbye, and Lex Luthor (Spacey) who...well, he never really much cared for Superman in the first place. Lois is trying to move on with her life with her 5-year-old son and her fiance. Luthor is trying to become ruler of the world again. Angst and mild mayhem ensue.
When the movie started, I got chills. The score (which is easily the best thing about the film) uses John Williams' original Superman theme for the opening titles, and the titles were done in the same style as those of the first film. The John Williams themes are heard throughout the score, and do a good job of tying the films together. (The music does this in a better, more subtle way than the dialog. The filmmakers wanted us to know, without a doubt, that this was a sequel to the first two films. So much so that they pulled at least half a dozen lines verbatim from the Superman: The Movie screenplay.)
After the initial chills subsided, I never felt one bit of the magic and excitement that I had when I saw the first two Superman films in the theater. There is something terribly flat about this film. Routh's Superman is brooding and angst-filled--he doesn't seem to enjoy being Superman anymore (something that always came across in Christopher Reeve's portrayal). Bosworth's Lois seems to have lost her edge and is very flat compared to Margot Kidder's Lois from the earlier films. And Spacey's Luthor has a very "been there, done that" kind of air--his plot this time is not all that different from the one he had in Superman: The Movie. It's a little more creative and destructive, yes, but it's all about taking control of land. Yawn. Plus, Luthor--who had tons of memorable lines in the first two films--has none this time around. He does have a particularly brutal moment when he confronts Superman...but that's as memorable as it gets.
In addition, lots of other characters (and the actors who portray them) are wasted. Martha Kent (Eva Marie Saint) has about a dozen lines total and seems like she's in the film just so we can see that Martha is still alive. Perry White (Frank Langella) is flat and two-dimensional, with none of the character that other actors (like Jackie Cooper in the first films and the late Lane Smith on Lois and Clark ) brought to the role. And Jimmy Olsen has been reduced to the silly, "gee whiz Mr. Kent" Jimmy that we knew from the 50s. What a waste.
And then there's poor Clark Kent. He gets very little screen time indeed. It seems almost an afterthought whenever the film shows him. He's just hanging out waiting to change into Superman for the most part.
There's also an overall lack of Superman antics in the film. There are a couple of spectacular moments (the plane rescue at the start was awesome), but the Man of Steel spends most of his time mooning over Lois (and, rather creepily, spying on her and her kid) than he does doing the cool stuff we came to see. It's perhaps this overall lack of super-action that makes the film seem to drag so much in places.
And please, oh please...somebody write a Superman story that doesn't involve Kryptonite. It's such a cop-out. Give us a powerful villain that is Superman's equal. Don't resort to making him weak and helpless. It's getting old.
It's really hard to put my finger on any one reason why I didn't really enjoy the film as much as I had hoped. I can only say that I came out feeling supremely unfulfilled.
Bottom line: A long and rather disappointing chapter in the Superman saga.