Superman floating above the earth. Superman saving a falling airliner. Superman gently holding Lois Lane and giving an aerial tour of Metropolis. Superman taking a bullet in the eye and not blinking.
Yes, we’ve all seen the trailer. In fact, I just watched a newer version—all 157 minutes of it. To be less sarcastic, Superman Returns is full of scenes that tingle the imagination and play well in split-second flashes, but have virtually nonexistent consistency between them. If I were to read that the trailer was written first and the screenplay written expressly around it, I wouldn’t be surprised. The film quickly rushes through every sequence, as if director Bryan Singer was afraid that he may not have time to pack in another ad-friendly moment. Superman Returns might be the first film made that could be classified as a big advertisement for itself. Or the sequel.
Superman has to be one of the most difficult comic characters to write. With godlike near-invulnerability, he can solve problems that would baffle Batman or Spider-Man in mere seconds. Watching him fight the average villain would be like watching Michael Jordan shoot hoops with a senior citizen. Yet, take away his powers, and he loses what makes him special. See the dilemma?
Of course, great Superman stories have been done. Superman II was typically considered the greatest superhero film until Spider-Man 2 swung along, and comics such as Kingdom Come and Superman: Peace on Earth showed a godlike being struggling to do all he could to make the world right. But in Superman Returns, we never see a serious inner conflict, or hardly even a physical one. The film just doles out one falling object after another for Superman to dive in front of.
The plot, if you must know: Superman (Brandon Routh) returns to earth after a five year absence in space, where he presumably played some great counting games to avoid madness. He returns to Metropolis as Clark Kent at the same time he rescues that falling airliner, which luckily arouses suspicion in no one, despite his six word alibi. Lois Lane (Kate Bosworth) has been royally pissed at Superman since he took off, understandably so since he sired a child with her before he left (since Superman is an alien, does that make Lois guilty of bestiality?). She wrote a capsule-description friendly article titled ‘Why the World Doesn’t Need Superman’ which won a Pulitzer, no easy task considering her personality has all the flavor of a vegan diet. Superman and Lois have a few blasé discussions that have roughly the same dramatic tension as when I complain that my Netflix have arrived a day late.
Lex Luthor (Kevin Spacey) also throws himself into the super-mix, with an Evil Scheme so stupid that the microwave-acid trip-plot in Batman Begins seems quite reasonable. Luthor got out of prison after a five year sentence, which suggests to me that Saddam should request a trial in the U.S. Luthor acquires a few Kryptonian crystals from Superman’s icy vacation house and decides that he will use them to destroy half of the earth in order to create a new landmass. Sure, billions will be killed, but the survivors will pay him a lot of money for the land, even though jagged shards of black ice are usually unsuitable for trendy nightclubs or food production.
Article comments
1 - Triniman
I pretty much agree with your views here. United 93 is one of the best films that I've seen this year. Superman Returns will be a huge commercial hit, but it just pales in comparison. And Kate Bosworth's Lois Lane has the appeal of soggy kleenex.
2 - James Frazier
Thanks for the feedback! I agree about Kate Bosworth; what the hell were they thinking? She had no spark, no zest or appeal at all. The handling of virtually every character in this film is a total misfire.