Super...somebody Returns
(Or: Why the world needs a better Superman movie)
Note to director Bryan Singer: If you’re going to dedicate a new Superman movie to the late, great Christopher Reeve and his wife Dana, you might do them the courtesy of putting the dedi-cation at the top of the credits—rather than having them post-cast at the end, when folks have already started filing out of the theater.
Also, if you’re going to dedicate the movie to them, make sure it’s worthy of their memory—especially Chris Reeves’. Superman Returns, alas, is not.(Quick aside to Brandon Routh: We all saw your brief displeased facial expression on “Letterman” when he showed a clip of the unaired 1950’s Superboy pilot as a joke, after he said a clip from SR was going to show instead. Try and be a better sport about Dave’s pranks, ‘kay?) Now, to forever clarify things: I didn’t not like Superman Returns. It was better than I expected. In fact, it was okay. But that’s all it was—okay.
And that’s just not good enough for a film based on the first and greatest of all super-heroes.
Superman is the founding father or patron saint if you will, of all things super-heroic in American mythology. If not for the intro-duction of Superman, it’s fair to say that Batman, Spider-Man, Hulk and others might not exist right now…or at the least, their arrival on the scene would have happened years later than their initial debut. For the grand-pop of them all, and as much of a fan of the S-man as Singer claims to be, you’d think he would’ve put more effort into it and really come through with a film worthy of the last son of Krypton. Sad to say, the result is almost as painful in some places as a sharp piece of kryptonite shoved into the spine.
WARNING: This review will contain spoilers galore, including the main revelation given out at the end of the film. If you really don’t want to know, you’d better stop reading this instant. Super- man Returns begins with a pre-credit title card explaining that our man of steel left Earth without explanation to anyone 5 years ago, in order to explore reports of scientists finding Krypton, purport-edly intact. Cue up opening credits which mimic the 1978 original almost exactly, along with John Williams’ unforgettable Superman march, this time re-scored and orchestrated by composer John Ottman. Unfortunately, once the titular hero returns post-credits sequence, the mimicking barely lets up for an instant.
It’s often been said that imitation is the sincerest form of flattery. In the case of SR however, imitation is akin to beating a dead horse into the ground. Lines are lifted word-for-word in many cases from the Richard Donner original, in an attempt to plant firmly in the audience’s mind not only that this film is a continuation of Superman I & II, but also to hard-sell the audi-ence on the idea that yes, these new actors are to be taken as the genuine successors to the progenitors of their roles. John Ottman utilizes Williams’ heroic march so often that you manage to actually get sick of it, Metropolis is designed to look so much like New York, Mayor Bloomberg should demand an explanation as to why the heck Singer chose to film a continent away in Australia after all…and relative newcomer Brandon Routh tries so valiantly(yet utterly in vain) to imitate Christopher Reeve as Clark/ Superman in both voice and mannerism, that he at one point apes a patented Reeve facial tick when speaking to Lois(Kate Bosworth). Routh manages to disappear into the role, but not in a good way. There is a sort-of “nudge-nudge, wink-wink” ongoing homily to the original which is trotted out to the point that it doesn’t feel so much as if you’re watching a “sequel” or continua-tion, so much as a rip-off.
While on the subject of John Ottman’s score—exceedingly overrated on Soundtrack.net—it is recommended that upon his earliest convenience, Mr. Ottman open a dictionary and look up the meaning of the word minimalism. There is a choir used to back Superman’s heroics which hits on nearly every single track in almost every scene he appears in. Yes, director Singer gives us numerous visual comparisons of Superman to both Atlas and especially Christ, but thanks to the “angelic” backing of Ottman’s music, my head hurt from the hammer continually pounding me on my noggin.
Back to Routh, whom my friends(and quite a few in the enter-tainment press) have dubbed “SuperBOY”. Routh simply looks far too young to be a SuperMAN, nor does his gal Friday, Kate Bos-worth, look old enough to have won a Pulitzer Prize or to have her position as one of the Daily Planet’s top reporters. To be fair, Bosworth doesn’t do as bad a job as most reviews have stated. However, her agitated, somber, disappointed Lois doesn’t hold a candle to Margot Kidder’s fierce, introspective, outgoing newswo-man. Today’s Lois seems more plucky than intrepid; more likely to be writing for Ladies’ Home Journal than a “great metropolitan newspaper”.
The rest of the populace is either miscast(Kevin Spacey), underutilized (Frank Langella), or just flat-out unnecessary (Parker Posey and Kal Penn). The only exceptions, surprisingly, are James Marsden as Perry White’s nephew Richard, Sam Hunt-ington as Jimmy Olsen and Tristan Lake Leabu as Jason White, Lois’ son. Sam Huntington is so likeable as Jimmy, I would actually have preferred to see a Jimmy Olsen movie than this one. Tristan L. does a fine, perfectly performed and never-annoying turn as Jason. And Bryan Singer must have made a promise to Marsden that he would utilize him better than he ever did in the first two
X-Men films. Marsden gives a fine performance as a man torn between the love and loyalty he feels for his fiancée, and his per-sonal anguish over how to deal with the fact that her One True Love has swooped abruptly back into her life. Aside from that point, Singer must be given credit for not thematically copping out on this one specific point: it would have been easy to make Rich-ard White a complete jerk, thereby distancing the audience from him and making it easy for us to choose whom Lois should truly be with. But in making him a genuinely nice guy, and courageous in his own right (he goes back to save Superman at one point!), Singer has boldly given us a degree of moral ambiguity, wherein our hearts are as uncertain as Lois’. Well done. The most bold story point within the movie will be told soon: it is the true revela-tion of the film.
As for the other actors…it is an unpardonable cinematic sin of the highest degree to have as talented a performer as Frank Langella in a film such as this, and give him nearly nothing to do(“Sacrilege! SACRILEGE!” he might shout in his most famous role as Dracula). True, Perry White was never the linchpin of the Superman universe, but whenever Jackie Cooper was onscreen in the Donner original, you damn sure knew Perry White was in the room! Langella is an actor so talented that he could have done so much with this role—the one true actor who might have outshined the role’s originator—and thereby elevated the entire production. Sadly, he is given nothing more than the opportunity to spout article assignments to his reporters and be placed in unnecessary jeopardy to await rescue by Superman.
Kal Penn(Harold And Kumar Go To White Castle) is also bafflingly underused. He’s one of Luthor’s chief henchmen, yet barely has any screen time or dialogue. I’ll freely admit that I’ve never seen one of Parker Posey’s films, but why even bother having her in this one? She provides no moral sounding board of any type to counter Luthor’s evil ways, and is less memorable than the Pomeranian dog which steals a scene early on in the film. The only conceivable reason for Posey’s presence is more than likely due to the ridiculous internet gossip which began when it was announced that Singer—an openly gay director—would helm this film, and that perhaps Superman himself would come out of the closet during the course of this picture. Psychologically speaking, Superman and Luthor enjoy the same semi-homoerotic yin-yang duel epitomized by Batman and the Joker. It’s very possible(and this is only my speculation, mind you) that to count-er any rumor on Luthor’s nature(all his other travel companions in this film are gents), it was decided a female character was needed.
On the subject of the K-man, I don’t know who Spacey was playing, but it clearly wasn’t Lex Luthor. He seemed more to be channeling Keyser Soze, if he came out of retirement and had a couple of tokes on a joint before planning his next criminal setup. Spacey’s rendition of Luthor—thanks to writers Michael Dougher-ty, Dan Harris, and Singer more than his own acting—is never quite the criminal genius Lex Luthor has been these past 60-plus years, in either four-color form or on celluloid. Luthor’s game on some level has always been of one-upmanship. Yes, mind over muscle, but backed up with raw power to seal the deal. When Gene Hackman’s Luthor failed at his land fraud deal in Superman I, he immediately set out to acquire more power to do in Supes, in the form of the three Phantom Zone villains. Aside from krypton-ite, Luthor never went to the same well twice. Why in the world, then, would he go to the trouble of trotting out his land fraud on a somewhat grander scale, whether utilizing stolen crystals from the Fortress of Solitude or not?
And as for the use of said crystals—and a myriad of other points—Singer might wish to read a couple of books on physics before committing himself to filming what’s in his script…even if it is only for a “comic book movie”. Any world created within the realm of science fiction/fantasy must still adhere to its own rules of internal logic. At one point, Luthor merges the stolen crystals with a hunk of kryptonite to forge a newer, deadlier material. Logic problem #1: the crystals from the fortress are PURE Kryp-tonian tech, completely untainted. Even the least knowledgeable S-fan knows kryptonite taints anything from Krypton…so Luthor’s material wouldn’t work. Logic problem #2: During the film’s(only)big rescue scene, Superman must separate a malfunctioning space shuttle from the airliner it’s strapped to—and which Lois is aboard. While moving the shuttle away from the airliner, the plane manages to hit Earth’s mesosphere, where air has expanded, cooled, and temperatures reach -100 degrees! Everything aboard, people and objects, become weightless on the plane…yet there’s no depressurization from the height(an airplane’s win-dows are nowhere near as reinforced as a space shuttle’s), nor does anyone become even the slightest bit more cold! People aboard the shuttle have “gosh, this is amazing!” looks on their faces! And I don’t care what kind of Godlike powers Superman has…SOUND DOES NOT TRAVEL IN A VACUUM! When he is in space(not the upper atmosphere…he is clearly in space in one of Singer’s many Christ-referencing scenes), he would not be able to hear anyone crying out for help. Pavarotti’s lungs couldn’t expel enough air to reach the kid from Krypton.
More than 300 people worked on the effects for SR, and the film cost at least $300 million to make, with advertising factored in. That means the movie has to make $600 million worldwide to make its money back. You would think that with an expenditure of that scale, the effects would be better. But CGI rendered people falling from rooftops LOOK like CGI rendered people, not real ones. There’s a scene where Superman is flying low over Metrop-olis soon after his return: CGI. Unforgivably, during one early, brief close-up pass of Superman in flight, you can glimpse a point just behind his boots where the green-screen match up didn’t quite take. It’s a quick sliver, but it’s there.
Now, to one scene which is forever burned into my brain which I wish I could truly forget, and makes a full frontal lobotomy sound yummy. During one of the first climaxes(there’s at least two, poss-ibly three), Superman tracks Luthor to the new island he’s creat-ed from the stolen crystals. Upon landing, the man of steel quickly comes to realize that the island is partially made of kryptonite. Luthor sets upon him, beating him brutally(and this is a brutal scene—parents are seriously cautioned about taking small child-ren to see it). Then the henchmen join in. At one point, while Superman lies dazed on the ground, one of the henchmen puts his hand over Supes’ face and starts dragging him across the craggily surface—while Superman KICKS, SCREAMS, AND WHINES LIKE A LITTLE GIRL!!! I was appalled, disgusted, embarrassed, amazed and in a word, stunned. In the entire his-tory of Superman—comic and film—even when weakened by kryptonite, Superman would do his best to fight back. Even in the Donnor film, when Luthor weakens him, his first concern isn’t for his own safety, but for the lives of others(“You don’t even care where the other missile’s headed, do you?”) I swear, on my life, I thought I was about to watch a reenactment of the Tim Robbins rape scene from Shawshank Redemption. Seriously.
Yes, my friends—the Man of Tomorrow, the Superman for the new millennium which Bryan Singer has bestowed upon us, when confronted by kryptonite and superior numbers…cries like a cheerleader whose boyfriend has forgotten the meaning of the word “no” on prom night.
In spite of all this, in spite of all the gaffs and(hopefully) unin-tentional story blunders, the first two-thirds of the film are actually serviceable. Say we were on Earth-2, and the Christopher Reeve movies never existed. I would’ve come out of the theater thinking, “Huh. That was a pretty interesting movie about a dude named Superman. Pretty good.” But unfortunately for Singer and comp-any, those movies do exist. And the film falls apart pretty much as soon as Superman confronts Luthor, which simply shouldn’t be. The one shining spot, the one reason for me to come back and see another one—when it gets made, because we all know it’s going to happen—is because of the BIG REVELATION at the end of the film, which is strongly hinted at earlier while Lois and her son Jason are held aboard Luthor’s yacht. Ready?
Lois’ son is 100% unequivocally, accept-no-substitutes…Superman’s son as well.
I will not reveal the scene which hints at little Jason’s power, nor the scene which seems to set up a thematic cop-out…but I will say that at the end of the film, Lois reveals the truth to Superman, and he visits the boy’s room while he’s asleep and paraphrases Marlon Brando’s famous “The son becomes the father and the father the son” dialogue. And he calls him “son”. Kudos to Bryan Singer, on this point more than any other, for not copping out and being brave enough to take the film series in a bold new direction. If only the rest of the story had contained such originality, forth-rightness and yes—courage—this truly would have been the summer movie event everyone would be talking about. This would be a Superman film—no, a Superman EVENT—to see. True water cooler stuff. Kids would be imitating the characters and scenes for years to come. As it stands, we can only hold out some slim hope that if Singer takes all the negative criticism his film has thus far received to heart, he will regroup and focus his efforts more sharply next time out.
And then, we’ll receive the Superman movie we deserve.
I don't know who's returning here...but it sure isn't Superman.
In addition to not having enough commitment to her craft to dye her hair(Bosworth wore a wig), this Lois also looks like she should have a term paper due, instead of being a Pulit-zer Prize winner.
A miscast Spacey and his crew of underutilized flunkies. Note Kal Penn's(right side, second to rear) confused expression: "Dude! Where's my dialogue?"
"I don't know who this guy is...but bullets are bouncin' off his chest like he thinks he's Chris Reeve!"
Director Singer commits an unpardonable cinematic travesty by not giving the great Frank Langella more to do.
James Marsden is one of the few actors Singer uses to any true effectiveness. The tag line for this flick should've been: "You will believe a good actor can be trapped in a bad film!"
The only scene in which Spacey displays true Luthor-like villainy: Lex decides to test young Jason to find out who Lois' baby daddy might be.
Seriously, I would rather watch a full-length Jimmy Olsen movie than another installment of this muck.
In yet another patronizing attempt to win fans' hearts, Sing-er actually rips off the ending of Richard Donner's original(and superior) Superman: The Movie.
