I was excited when Superman Returns came out. After X2, my faith in Bryan Singer’s abilities as a superhero director was solidified and after 5 years of Smallville, I was ready to see Superman on the big screen again. I was expecting a film that paid tribute to the Christopher Reeve movies, but still managed to be something all its own. What I got was a lazy rehash of the films I’d already seen and a disappointing lack of originality.
Perhaps it’s best to begin with Superman himself. Having now seen him in Chuck and Dylan Dog: Dead of Night, I know that Brandon Routh is fully capable of playing Superman. However (and here I can only assume where to place the blame), it seems that instead, Singer directed Routh to play Christopher Reeve playing Superman. Which we’ve already seen four times already, and after twenty years, one would expect a portrayal of Superman that has evolved and changed. It’s one thing to give a nod and a wink; it’s quite another to outright imitate. If Routh had been allowed to create his own version of the character, it’s possible that we would be going to see him don the cape for his second or even third outing this weekend instead of Henry Cavill.
Much like Superman himself wasn’t updated, so too was Lex Luthor’s dastardly plot stuck in the past. Real estate is, once more, his main motive, and this time around his goal is to create a new land mass in the middle of the ocean so he can build condos for all his fellow villains. Seriously, you’d think that someone who claims to be a genius would have to foresight to know that people might not want to live on an island whose creation killed millions. It’s the same reason they’re not building apartment buildings at Ground Zero. Sure, he’d have his own personal continent, but no one would want to live there. Considering we’d been watching Michael Rosenbaum’s Lex trying to create his own super soldiers and stealing Lana right out from under Clark’s nose on Smallville, Kevin Spacey’s version of the character came off as almost as camp as Gene Hackman’s.
I could have accepted a repetitive portrayal of Superman and an unimaginative Lex, however, if it hadn’t been for that bloody kid. In an attempt to link Returns to the Christopher Reeve films, Singer ignored the latter entries in the series (as most of us do) and turned his film into a sequel to Superman II. As all of you will remember (but Lois conveniently forgot after Clark’s forget-me-now kiss) is that Lois and Clark finally did the do in the middle of the film. And since nothing short of a Kryptonite condom would be effective contraception, Lois got pregnant. No wonder she wrote an article on why the world is better off without Superman…
So basically, Singer just ignored everything that’s been established in the Superman mythos and decided to give Lois and Clark a kid. Why? It does nothing for the plot. I’d believe Lois married James Marsden even without tricking him into believing the kid was his; hell, it’s more believable that way. Okay, so maybe it adds a bit of tension to the climax, but I would have rather seen Lex don that purple and green robot suit of his and duke it out with Superman on the Kryptonite island.
There’s a time for sequels and there’s a time for reboots, and somehow Superman Returns failed to be either. The world was ready for a new Superman, a new Clark Kent, a new plan from Luthor (or even no Luthor at all). What we didn’t need was for Bryan Singer to write a love letter to Christopher Reeve. Considering WB and DC were just coming off the heels of the very first successful superhero reboot, Batman Begins, one would think someone would have had to foresight to say “Hey guys, maybe we should do Superman differently this time around.” At least they learned their lesson for Man of Steel.
– David Molofsky
So, Man of Steel is looking pretty, pretty good, huh? I haven’t seen it yet, but based on the trailers it looks like Zack Snyder‘s taken a page out of Terrence Malick: the shot of a young Clark in a makeshift cape running his hands through the long grass could have been ripped straight from a print of Tree of Life. That’s not to say the action doesn’t look good – it does – or that the cast aren’t superlative – they clearly are -, only I find myself wondering where the fun’s gone.
Remember before Christopher Nolan went all “psychological realism” with Batman, when it was okay for a DC superhero film to have a sense of humor?True, Nolan’s films are widely regarded as the definitive take on the character and his predecessors often overstepped the mark – Joel Schumacher, we’re looking at you. One thing I noticed while watching The Dark Knight Rises was that however dark and sprawling it might have been, it was never a film during which I stopped and thought, “Man, I’m really enjoying myself.” Which was odd – it’s a long film (165 minutes) and there are some slow bits.
Bryan Singer‘s Superman Returns might not have had the weight or ambition of Nolan’s reinvention, but I would argue it served a different purpose. Whereas The Dark Knight looked firmly towards the storm clouds on the horizon – Lucius Fox’s phone-enslaving device seems particularly prescient given current concerns about the NSA -, Superman Returns cast its eye back towards sunnier times, times when it was okay for a film to simply promise “You’ll believe a man can fly!”
Superman, for all he’s been through, has always been an aspirational figure. As Brando‘s Jor-El says of the people of Earth, “They could be great people Kal-El if they wish to be. They only lack the light to show the way, this reason above all is why I send them you, my only son.” He’s Jesus, sure, a big, blue, All-American Boy Scout, but, at the heart of it, Superman is about hope. Batman seems to have taken the monopoly on grit – Christian Bale‘s voice often suggests he’s been gargling with it. Has the world got so cynical we don’t have room for a little innocent fun?
Did Brandon Routh‘s performance ape Christopher Reeve‘s? Of course it did, but given Reeve’s legend had only grown in the 20 years since Superman IV (closer to 30 years if we backdate to Superman II), it made sense to stick to the mould. Smallville gave us an angsty Clark trying to find himself, Batman Begins had already claimed that decade’s origin story for The Caped Crusader: why not give the audience what they want? If that also means a diabolically campy Kevin Spacey over-enunciating the word “krrrryptonite” with gleeful malice, why the hell not? And yes: all this time later, Lex Luthor is still after the ultimate, ill-conceived land grab, but, with everything else that’s happened in the world – the collapse of the Soviet Union, the end of the moral certainties of the Cold War, to name but one -, isn’t that sort of a comfort?
The action sequence with the crashing plane topped anything we’d seen in any previous Superman film (or any superhero film, I’d argue). And yes, giving Superman and Lois a love child was unnecessary, but, you know what, when Lex Luthor came out of his cabin brushing his teeth, I chuckled, damnit! I laughed, I smiled, I enjoyed myself. Am I glad to see a new take on the franchise, sure, but do I regret having one last chance to spend some time with an old cinematic friend before the inevitable Nolanisation? No, I do not. Love letters are something you only value after the fact and Singer crafted a good one.
Goodbye, Golden Age Superman. You will be missed.
– Rob Wallis
So what do you think? Do you agree with David that Superman Returns was a lackluster imitation or do you think Rob’s got a point that maybe that’s what people really want to see?