Superman Returns (2006) ***/*****

For me, Superman Returns is like the bi-polar art school girl that you can’t help but go out with even though you know there’s going to be complications later. While the film is visually stunning, and fully realized when it comes to casting, production design, and visual effects, every once in a while it goes batshit crazy on you and makes head scratching decisions that leave you wondering what the hell is happening, and how you got there. When you boil it down to the essentials, Bryan Singer has made a beautiful film with several awe inspiring moments that I have a shit load of problems with as a whole.

In order to properly review this film, its important to understand what, exactly, it is. Unlike the Batman film that came out last year, this is not a slate wiping restart to a Superhero franchise. Superman Returns is fully entrenched in the world of Richard Donner’s Superman films from the late seventies and early eighties. To be more precise, what this film does is ignore the third and fourth installments of the previous film series, and act as an alternate universe version of Superman 3. In this film, Superman has been gone for five years following Superman 2, and he finally returns to find that Lois Lane has moved on and has a kid (and despite the fact that Superman has always been a religious allegory, the only thing Singer could think to do to link this with Jesus returning was have Supes hold his arms out in a crucifix pose a lot).

I can understand having a reverence for the first two Donner Superman films. There are a lot of things that those films did right. I can completely understand using them heavily as influences for a new Superman franchise, I can understand using John Williams’ iconic music in the new score; but what I don’t get is why you would try and make a sequel with a whole new cast and crew nearly 20 years after the first was released. And then, the movie uses all the same story beats as the original anyways, from the crash landing in Smallville, to the move to Metropolis, to Lois being in grave danger while on a story, to the nighttime flying romance, to Luthor’s ridiculous real estate scheme, to Luthor’s skank betraying him because she feels sorry for Superman. This film sets out to make a sequel instead of a remake, and ends up making a remake anyways. Thats just asinine.

The problems that come from doing a sequel instead of a remake are most visually evident in the cast of the film. While I feel that the principal cast was good to great in their roles, visually they’re just too damn young. Throughout the movie Clark and Lois make constant references to stuff that happened “five years ago”, or how Superman has been gone for “five years”. Thats great and all, but I’m looking at your faces, and I’m pretty sure you guys were like 15 and 16 years old five years ago. Quite frankly, I just don’t buy it. But, lets take a look at each of the principle actors separately and see how they did, shall we?

Firstly, I was impressed with Brandon Routh. He clearly references Christopher Reeve’s performances heavily, and often bares an uncanny resemblance to him. More specifically, when he gave the patented Clark Kent clueless grin, I could have swore that it was actually the ghost of Christopher Reeve rolling into the frame himself. Despite this, Routh doesn’t just ape Reeve throughout the film. In fact, he turns down the bumbling comedy of the Clark Kent character a notch or two, giving him the appearance of an obtained maturity, and making him less of a cartoon character. I would have liked to see more of this, but with the introduction of the Richard White character the classic love triangle between Clark/Lois/Superman disappears in favor of a new Superman/Lois/Richard dynamic. Because of this, Clark Kent gets the shaft when it comes to screen time or development. Routh does most of his important scenes as Superman. Speaking of which, as Superman he’s confident and effective, and I think he was overall a great choice to center the new franchise around. Despite the good work he does in the film, however, the dude looks like hes 18. In fact, he might even look younger than Tom Welling does playing a high school aged Superman in that WB show. The idea of this man being a reporter for a big city newspaper five years ago is just ridiculous. Five years ago he probably didnt even have pubic hair.

For me, Kate Bosworth was just as big a question mark going in as Routh. I’ve never seen anything else she’s done, and didn’t know if she was anything more than a pretty face. Luckily for the movie, she does an admiral job with what is essentially a leading role. In fact, for large segments of the film she gets more screen time than Superman himself, and it’s her choices and actions that have the largest impact on the other characters around her. Traditionally, I’ve always hated the Lois Lane character. In trying to make her a modern update of the His Girl Friday archetype she often comes off as an abrasive, motor-mouthed feminazi. Add to that the fact that she’s always treating the good as gold Clark Kent character like crapt, and usually she just comes off as being a kind of bitchy. Bosworth, while maintaining the competent career woman aspect of the character, also infuses her with nurturing qualities and a vulnerability not before seen in screen versions. This is especially impressive as the Lois character has been essentially manipulating both Superman and Richard White with lies, and Bosworth is able to keep the character likeable while struggling with these issues. I’ll just put on the table that I hated Margot Kidder. She played the character as an eccentric twit, and even as a kid I didn’t think that she was stable enough, pretty enough, or nice enough for Superman to get bent out of shape over. What I think Bosworth did best was create a bridge between that atrociously annoying character of the past, and the more mature yet conflicted Lois of the present. So, overall, I think she was a strong choice to play Lois, and the angle that she now has a kid did a lot to make the character more mature and appealing. That being said, despite the fact that I think she played Mommy Lane well, she still looked more like a babysitter than an actual mother. And she sucks at acting like she’s dropped her purse. She should never be allowed to drop a purse in any movie, ever again.

Kevin Spacey, similarly, does a pretty good job as Lex Luthor. Like the previous two characters, it’s easy to see that Luthor is the same character as in the first two films; but now more mature, serious, and less cartoony. So yeah, passable job, and I dont have all that much to say about it. I still wish the cheese of the Luthor in the first two films was washed away completely and that this was an all-new Superman franchise with the high-powered businessman Luthor of modern times, but what are you gonna do? Oh, and Spacey, this does nothing to wash away the past 7–8 years of shitty movies that you’ve made. Go back to your corner.

The supporting roles, overall, were played pretty well. I liked Frank Langella as Perry White a lot. Sam Huntington came close to making Jimmy Olson over the top annoying, but ultimately he didn’t plunge over that edge he was skirting. Parker Posey was alright as an annoying character that had no business being in the film other than as a throwback to the Donner original. The kid was pretty good, better than kids usually are; and I liked James Marsden as Richard White. Yeah, James Marsden, who I wanted to punch throughout all of the X-Men movies, was actually pretty good. In the end, his character gets a pretty rough deal, and Marsden makes him so likeable that I, and I believe many others, was rooting for him to get Lois over Superman.

So, yeah, the cast was pretty good overall. Like I said before, I believe they would have been better suited to be in a rebooted Superman movie rather than a pseudo-sequel to the first two, but what are you gonna do? Whats done is done. In addition, before I get to the bitching, I’d like to reiterate that this thing is filmed beautifully throughout, and there are plenty of iconic Superman images that are just great to look at. Similarly, the special effects are pretty seamless, and Supermans powers and all of the action scenes are rendered more than effectively. That being said, lets get to the bitching.

Ultimately, I came out of this movie feeling very empty and unfulfilled. Initially, I couldn’t really pin down why this was, but after some reflection I believe that I’ve nailed it down. Ultimately, the heart of this movie is the drama that unfolds between Superman/Lois/Richard and the kid. I can understand why this is, as Superman is such a powerful and indestructible character that the only way to create any tension with him is through emotional rather than physical conflict. The trick though, is to infuse that emotional conflict with the physical stuff that is happening in the narrative. In this film, Lex Luthor and his machinations have nothing to do with the conflict that Superman is going through. What this does is push Lex to the side, making him and any of the action in the film secondary to what we’re focusing on. In addition to this, Lex’s scheme is completely absurd. It falls apart under even the least severe scrutiny and its just impossible to suspend belief and care about. I much prefer the cold, calculating Luthor of the comic books over this window licker. Everything that Luthor does is simply a side-plot, and not really essential to the movie.

I have issues with the end of the movie as well. Superman Returns suffers from Return of the King syndrome; where the main action of the film has climaxed, yet the falling action just keeps going and going and going. In addition to this, after such a drawn out denouement, nothing is even resolved. Luthor, while foiled, remains at large, the love triangle remains unresolved, and the viewer is left with having stuck with a movie for two and a half hours for no resolution. Thats just rough. When reflecting on why I found the film so unfulfilling, I realized that the Luthor portions of the film were unimportant and didn’t work, that the film was too long and too slow paced, and that the end was ambiguous; but I still couldn’t quite point out why it was that I was so empty. Then I had a revelation. At no point in this entire movie does Superman punch anyone or anything. In my mind, there are two things essential to a Superman story; he’s got to save people, and he’s got to punch out the bad guy. Superman, as a hero, is the ultimate man of action. Guided by the most unflappable moral compass in the world, and an unstoppable heroic desire to help people, Superman dedicates his life to doing the right thing. This is the attractive thing about Superman as a character. He is the ultimate symbol of good. There is no grey in the world of Superman. In our world there are shades of grey, and often none of us have the power to stand up and correct wrongs. Superman, conversely, is never wrong, always right, and has power that none of us have. He works as a fantasy because he is strong enough and good enough to smash evil in the face, and make it go away forever. Superman, as an iconic hero, is defined by his strength. In every great Superman story there is that one triumphant moment where he gathers his strength, stands up, and says, “this shit is BULLSHIT!”. And then, WHAMMO!@..!@ This film lacks such a moment. Instead, what we get is two and a half hours of Superman navel gazing and crying because he’s lonely, a Luthor scheme that is more stupid than evil, and no repercussions for the evil doers. Superhero stories work best when the action and conflict is infused with personal and emotional issues for the heroes. Instead of infusing the action with these elements, Singer puts the focus squarely on them, and what he ends up making is a decent movie, but not a Superman movie; or at least, not the Superman movie that I wanted to see. However, despite the fact that it was ultimately as unfulfilling as a quickie with an art-school floozy, the acting was good enough, and it was pretty enough to earn the film a middle of the road rating.