Review, Superman Returns.
Bryan Singer’s Superman Returns is a film that is reverent to its source almost to a fault. From its incorporation of Marlon Brando’s performance as Superman’s Kryptonian father to Lex Luthor’s entire evil scheme, we are not seeing a sequel in the Superman franchise so much as Superman 1.5, the film Singer wished the first movie had been.
While revisions and remakes are in vogue, and some are ultimately the best expressions of their characters and storylines (see Batman Begins, for even though I love Tim Burton’s original, Nolan’s film is the Batman that was always meant to be), there is a slight feeling of the unnecessary hanging around Superman’s neck. Though I haven’t seen the original films, even I, an ignorant outsider to its cinematic history, left the theater thinking, “That was good… but it didn’t really seem new.”
Of course most of the thematic expressions are ultimately the same as in earlier Superman films and source material, but what we have with this movie that we did not get with earlier work is a polish to a mirror shine. Christopher Reeve’s wire-work cannot possibly compare to the lifelike CGI illusion we see flying, diving, and crashing to earth from space. No technology from the 1970s could have given us the puzzlingly creepy impression of a bullet striking Superman’s impenetrable eye.
What I’m not qualified to comment upon is whether Kate Bosworth’s Lois Lane is in any sense better or reminiscent of Margot Kidder’s performance in the original Superman, but with that qualifier, I’ll bet that Kidder had to have been better. Bosworth is lifeless and unconvincing. Though her child (yes, we’re supposed to believe Bosworth has an attachment to perpetually sticky child her fiancé drags along) doesn’t fall into the too-precious-by-half movie child cliché, he does come pretty close.
The Superman played by Brandon Routh is more golem than Moses; instead of a charismatic leader we have an indestructible servant, silent and solemn, sacrificing for a world that readily embraces his absence (Lane has even received a Pulitzer for the article “Why the World Doesn’t Need Superman”). Though we are battered by the notion that such seflessness is an act of leadership, this Superman rarely speaks, rarely gives any context to his action other than to stand as a beacon of simple opposition. He is an immovable object, a force of nature, not a figurehead or a messiah.
I’m somewhat surprised by the negative tone I have struck here in this review—I did enjoy the film, and it’s nice to see Superman get a modernized treatment. But with the quality of Singer’s prior work, it’s upsetting to see him settle for a mere updating, rather than a true revitalization.