| Written by John Shea,
on 28-06-2006 08:59
|
Published in : Reviews, Movies |
How highly you rate this movie probably has a lot to do with how much you love Superman and Superman II.
Director Bryan Singer is clearly a fan because he pulls heavily from those movies. Starting with John Williams iconic score and the funky opening credits, Singer plants this movies flag smack dab in the middle of those first two Superman flicks. From there he adds the unknown Brandon Routh in the title role. Routh bears a distinct resemblance to the late Christopher Reeve and gives a fairly similar performance. Not so close as to be actually aping Reeve but definitely going after the same thing. Singer even pulls out old footage of the late Marlon Brandon from the earlier films for use in this one. So having said all that, I can then toss a curveball and insist that Singer is not slavishly mimicking Richard Donnor's vision of the Man of Steel. Singer learned a lot about superheroes from directing the first two X-Men movies and he puts it to good use here. He is a director that understands that strong characters make for a strong film. Here he and screenwriters Michael Dougherty and Dan Harris take a long hard look at what it means to be the last of your race and living amongst an entirely different race on an alien planet, all while being the most powerful being in existence. There is more there to consider than you might think and the movie does everything it can with it. The movie takes place five years after Superman II. Superman has left Earth entirely on a long quest to find his planet of origin. Apparently human astronomers have found Krypton and so the big guy heads on over to see what's left. Despite being a really popular guy he's pretty lonely and wants to connect with his roots. Since those roots turn out to be charbroiled he comes back to Earth. In the meantime Lois Lane (Kate Bosworth) has gone off and found a new boyfriend (James Marsden) and had a kid, who is intriguingly about five years old. She's pretty pissed off at Superman for leaving without saying goodbye. So pissed off in fact that she wrote an editorial titled “Why We Don't Need Superman” which wins her a Pulitzer. So now there is a bit of a love triangle. Usually I hate these but this one is pretty effective. Particularly because Marsden does a solid job, managing to be a good guy that we like and not ever throwing jealous fits. We can tell what he's thinking but much to his credit he leaves a lot of it unsaid, trusting in Lois to come back to him. This wouldn't be a superhero flick without an evil villain and this one uses no less than Lex Luthor. The previous two movies (we're not going to get into Superman 3 & 4) had Gene Hackman playing Lex as the used car salesman of villains. This time we get Kevin Spacey who takes a different approach, playing Lex as a psychopath with an obsession for beating Superman. Spacey is great, occasionally getting laughs for his manic outbursts, but more often being brutal. This is a villain who wastes no time on monologues. When he gets his chance to stick to the hero, he does it without hesitation, unleashing a fury of abuse. Spacey has been avoiding villainous roles since he exploded on the scene with Se7en and The Usual Suspects but here he reminds us just how good he is at it. Routh and Spacey are good enough that we don't miss the guys who previously inhabited these roles. The same can't be said of Bosworth. She lacks Margot Kidder's brassy personality. Kidder had real personality, making for a very believable high intensity reporter and the sort of woman who could capture the heart of Superman. Bosworth is far too vanilla a personality to give the same impression. And worse she seems far too young to have a kid that old and be that advanced in her career. She looks great but I'd gladly trade that for more personality. The rest of the cast is pretty solid. Frank Langella, Sam Huntington, Parker Posey, Eva Marie Saint and Kal Penn all give us just what we need. Tristan Leabu, as Lois' son doesn't have a lot of dialogue but he makes for convincing kid. Summer movies are expected to deliver lots of action and special effects and this one doesn't disappoint. The eye candy is effective in looks and creating tension. No complaints there. While not quite a home run, Superman Returns is a solidly enjoyable movie, even considering it's lengthy 2.5 hour running time. And while we're on the subject, let me give a big middle finger to Regal Cinemas in Albany for unceremoniously shutting off the projector at the start of the credits. I know most people skip them but I and plenty of other will stick through them. At the very least I wanted to sit and revel in Williams' famous theme but no, those cheap bastards couldn't be bothered. For the kind of money they charge I expect a lot better treatment. They sure weren't in a hurry to turn off their insanely long ads before the movie. Sorry, bit of a tangent there. As I was saying, the movie is good stuff, well worth a trip to the theater. - John Shea
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