The Modern Day Superman In Film Review Series - Superman Returns (2006)

Written In April 2014

Superman Returns is NOT a crappy movie. It’s arguably overlong, a little bit slow, a little bit boring at times, and does lack any truly great action sequences for a Superhero movie, but it does not lack good action, good performances, or interesting story elements. When I saw this movie in the Winter 2006 (because I never saw it theaters) I thought it was alright. I thought the scenes of Superman lifting things and letting bullets bounce off him were cool, ESPECIALLY this scene here

You can hate this entire damn movie if you want to, but that scene was fucking awesome! But, if I’m honest with myself, and if I’m honest with you, I won’t say I’m this movie’s biggest fan. I never really got why Bryan Singer decided this movie should be set in the modern day. Actually, apperently it’s not even in the modern day, it’s set TEN YEARS from it’s release date. Why? If you’re going to be a sequel to Richard Donner’s Superman and Superman II, go all the way! Pay Gene Hackman through the nose to come back as Lex! Get a lady who looks as much like Margot Kidder as Brandon Routh did Christopher Reeve and then have that lady play Lois! If the movie takes place five years after Superman II, make it take place in 1985! Make it like X-Men: First Class, period backdrops and setting, modern clothing. Instead, we have a movie that looks like 2006 because it came in 2006. We have an actress who looks nothing like Margot Kidder and acts nothing like her Lois Lane did. And we have Kevin Spacey playing a Lex Luthor who… At times plays it as goofy as Hackman did, but even then he’s playing it more wry and smart alecky, and at other times is far more aggressive and violent than Hackman’s ever was. And finally, is having Superman having a bastard child REALLY needed? Good God man. Anyway, let’s get into the plot so I can actually go further into this matter.

Plot Summary Taken From Wikipedia:

By 2016, Superman (Brandon Routh) has been missing for five years, since traveling to the location where astronomers believed they had discovered the remains of Krypton. During his absence, Superman’s nemesis, mad scientistLex Luthor (Kevin Spacey) was released from prison (due to Superman’s failure to appear at Lex’s trial) and married an old rich widow (Noel Neill) to obtain her fortune upon her death. Superman, having failed in his quest to find surviving Kryptonians, returns to Earth and, as Clark Kent, resumes his job at the Daily Planet in Metropolis. He subsequently learns that Lois Lane (Kate Bosworth) has won the Pulitzer Prizefor her article “Why the World Doesn’t Need Superman.” Meanwhile, Lex travels to the Fortress of Solitude and steals Kryptonian crystals, to use for an experiment that causes a mass power outage on the East Coast. The power loss interferes with the flight test of a space shuttle to be launched into space from its piggy-back mounting on an airliner, occupied by Lois Lane, who is covering the story. Clark flies into action as Superman and stops the plane from crashing onto a baseball stadium.

The world rejoices at Superman’s return, but he has difficulty coping with Lois’s fiancé, Richard White (James Marsden), nephew ofDaily Planet editor-in-chief Perry White (Frank Langella), and his 5-year-old son, Jason (Tristan Lake Leabu). With Superman distracted by an out-of-control vehicle, a diversion involving Lex’s partner-in-crime, Kitty Kowalski (Parker Posey), Lex stealskryptonite from the Metropolis Museum of Natural History. Perry then assigns Lois to interview Superman while Clark investigates the blackout. Lois and Jason inadvertently board Lex’s yacht and are captured after Lois decides to investigate the blackout story, which she connects to Luthor’s experiment. He reveals to them his latest scheme to grab land and power. By combining one of the stolen Kryptonian crystals with Kryptonite, Luthor can grow a new continental landmass in the Northern Atlantic Ocean, one that will cause sea levels to rise drastically and have Lex the opportunity to get revenge on Superman, as well as kill billions of people and afford him full control of the only available land for the survivors.

Noticing that Jason experiences a slight reaction to Kryptonite, Lex asks who Jason’s father really is; Lois asserts that the father is Richard. The crystal begins to create Lex’s new landmass, while Lois attempts to escape but is attacked by a henchman. Jason throws a piano at the henchman, killing him and proving that he is actually Superman’s son. Meanwhile, Superman is attempting to minimize the destruction in Metropolis caused by the growth of the new landmass when Richard arrives in a sea plane to rescue Lois and Jason from the sinking yacht. Superman soon arrives to help and then flies off to find Lex.

Meeting Lex, Superman discovers the landmass is filled with Kryptonite, which weakens him to the point that Lex and his henchmen are able to beat him. Lex stabs Superman with a shard of Kryptonite and pushes him into the ocean. Lois makes Richard turn back to rescue Superman, whereupon she removes the Kryptonite from his back. Superman, after regaining his strength from the sun, lifts the landmass after putting layers of earth between him and the Kryptonite. Lex and Kitty escape in their helicopter; Kitty, unwilling to let billions of people die, tosses away the crystals that Lex stole from the Fortress of Solitude. She and Luthor are stranded on a tiny desert island when their helicopter runs out of fuel. Superman pushes the landmass into space with the crystals trapped on the landmass, but is weakened by the Kryptonite and crashes back to Earth. At the hospital, doctors remove more Kryptonite from Superman’s wound, but their surgical tools and hospital machines are either damaged or destroyed when they try to revive him. While Superman remains in a coma, Lois and Jason visit him at the hospital where Lois whispers something into Superman’s ear and then kisses him. Superman later awakens and flies to visit Jason, reciting his father Jor-El’s (Marlon Brando) last speech to Jason as he sleeps. Lois starts writing another article, titled “Why the World Needs Superman”. Superman reassures her that he is now back to stay, and flies off to low orbit, where he gazes down at the world.

PROS:

• Brandon Routh as Superman. He does the best Christopher Reeve impersonation anybody ever could, I wish this movie had done better because he was terrific and is a terrific actor. His IMDb deserves to be longer.
• Kevin Spacey doesn’t play it the exact same way as Gene, and in my opinion, that’s an improvement! He’s terrific as Lex here! Especially, in the scene he stabs Supes in ribs and hisses “Now fly!” Very bitter, very evil, very awesome. Although I’ll admit, it was a little weird hearing him talking in his normal speaking voice after watching all 26 episodes of House of Cards, haha. Speaking of which, I won’t say they had a missed opportunity HERE, but I think he could’ve killed it in the Man of Steel sequel. But I, like Kevin, think Jesse is going to “f***ing own it!”
• I think between Kate Bosworth, Amy Adams, and Margot, Kate is probably the weakest Lois we’ve had on the big screen, but she’s far from bad. I think she works as this sort of working mother/businesswoman type of gal. I wouldn’t have called her, but obviously I’m not Bryan Singer, she was pretty good.
• Frank Langela kills it as the classic Perry White! Absolute pure perfection!
• Sam Huntington is also terrific as Jimmy Olsen! I especially love his first scene where Clark arrives back at the Planet and accidentally knocks his camera off the desk and only barely catches it. Jimmy objects to this (because it’s expensive as hell Clark! You superjerk!), without knowing who it is. So he turns to confront the douche who almost broke his camera, then upon seeing it’s old friend from work screams out “MR. CLARK!” then tries to fix it, because it’s improper to refer to his superior by his first name. That nothing short of fantastic!
• I’m not the biggest fan of James Marsden, I can’t really say why, there’s just something about the guy that gets on my nerves. But I liked his character here, especially in the scene where he asks Lois if she was ever in love with Superman. You can see it in his expression, he’s got a mixed curiosity. He’s in awe that his girlfriend may have at one time been Superman’s flame, but at the same time he feels kind of territorial because what guy has a fucking chance against someone like fucking Superman!
• The few scenes where Superman actually gets to use his powers are amazing! Especially the aforementioned bullet to the eye scene!
• The scene where Superman is dying on the hospital bed is very effective, especially when the doctors are trying to stick him with a needle, and the needle just bends against his skin. It was really heartbreaking and really begged the question, how do you care for an invincible man when that man becomes ill?
• If you’re a fan of really, really, really old Superman stuff, there’s a couple of terrific cameos in the movie! There’s a bit where the actor who played Jimmy Olsen, in the George Reeves series, cameos as the bartender where Clark and Sam Huntington’s Jimmy are drinking. And the elderly woman that Lex apparently seduced and married after being released from prison is actually played by the actress who portrayed Lois in the 1940’s serials and again in the George Reeves show. How cool is that?
• Parker Posey makes for a pretty fun Lex Girl, as Smallville once called it. I really love the scene where she’s screaming at Lex because the son of a bitch actually cut the breaks on the runaway car she was driving to distract Superman.
• The wonderful Eva Marie Saint makes good use of her few scenes as Martha Kent, real nice work ma'am!
• John Ottman does a terrific rendition of John Williams’s score, and even has some dazzling pieces of his own in the mix.

CONS:

• I don’t understand the point of Superman having an illegitimate son. I don’t understand why this child actor was cast, he’s the biggest deer in the headlights I’ve ever seen a child actor to be.
• The first Transformers movie was one year away at this time, Peter Jackson’s King Kong remake came out the year before. You could show off a character like Superman kicking some serious ass. And Bryan Singer isn’t a complete slouch when it comes to action movies, he did do the first two X-Men films. In fact, X2: X-Men United, has some of the best action ever presented in a Superhero movie in my opinion. So why the fuck would you not show off the fact that “Hey, this is a guy who can shoot beams of heat that are than the freaking sun and could punch a whole in the earth if he felt the need to, let’s show that off a little!” And the movie kind of does, but you never really get to see Superman cut loose! He never gets to see red, as Pa Kent put it in J. Michael Straczynski’s Superman: Earth One. I don’t get this.
• I said it before, and I’ll say it again, why make a sequel to a movie that came out in 1980 that takes place only five years after that movie, if you aren’t going to set in what would be five years after that movie! It doesn’t make any Goddamn sense!
• This movie looks less real at times than the 1978 movie. The overall aesthetic of the movie makes it looks so fake, hell, even Brandon himself at times looks fake! He looks like a digital creation instead of a real person against a digital backdrop. Whoever did his makeup and hair in the movie really did a poor job. Also, if you’re going to cast an actor with a different eye color than your character, leave it be. Any Harry Potter fans or Percy Jackson fans who are pissed they didn’t cast a green eyed actor for the title role, or at least didn’t try to give the Daniel Radcliffe and Logan Lerman color contacts, don’t be. Look at this picture here and tell if it looks natural. 
  Yeah. I rest my case.
• It doesn’t make a large amount of sense to cast so young for Lois and Clark. Brandon was 27 at the time the film was released, Kate was only 23! Christopher was 26 at the time the first Superman film was released, but here’s the difference, his Superman was only just arriving in Metropolis, while Brandon’s is returning to the city after being gone for FIVE YEARS! That means Clark was 21 when he left, and I don’t know of very many professional reporters under the age of 25, let alone only just became of legal drinking age in the US. And also, if Superman was only 21, that means Lois was 18 when they did the nasty. Which, while still legal age of consent, is kind of cutting it close guys. And furthermore, how many reporters got a job at EIGHTEEN! How many women could manage to have a job as a reporter, be a mother, and meet someone within the period of conception to be close enough to believe they were the father, and then stay with that person for five years and eventually be ENGAGED to, all before turning 25? I know Lois is basically the Superwoman to Clark’s Superman, but even this is re-Goddamn-diculous!
• I hate that A. Lois and Clark are written to be an extramarital affair. And that B. This movie continues the tradition, started by the Christopher Reeve series, that Lois loves Superman not Clark Kent, instead of loving both.
• This has been talked about to death, but it’s still a sticking point for me. Clark slept with Lois in the Fortress of Solitude in Superman II, then at the end of the movie when becomes Superman again, he erases her memory so she won’t have to take the pain of knowing who that she and Superman cannot be together. He erases all memory of them being together from the point where she first suspects Clark is Superman to the moment before he kissed her. That means she has NO MEMORY that she fucked Superman. So why the hell isn’t she outraged when she realizes her kid is Superman’s? Why doesn’t she walk strait up to the so-called Boy Scout and demand to know when they slept together and why she doesn’t remember? Why doesn’t she ask if he raped her and then somehow made her forget it? Singer, you just threw grenade at your audience, but I don’t think you expected them to throw it back at you! Because this thing just blew the fuck up in your face!

Okay, now despite my quibbles, I do like this movie. It’s not one of my favorite superhero movies, and it’s not really even my favorite DC Superhero movie or really my favorite just plain Superman movie. It’s a movie that has a lot of issues, but I’d rather come down on the side of supporting than damning it. I’m going to give Superman Returns a 6.2 out of 10.

Join me tomorrow, when I sink my teeth into the delicious feast I call

Boo-Yah!