Superman Returns
I’m not a fanboy. I don’t automatically love something when it has the logo of a beloved icon splashed upon it. I feel that Christopher Reeve was and always will be the definitive Man of Steel. That said, this movie is truly incredible. Director Bryan Singer takes up the mantle left by Richard Donner (we won’t talk about mid-filming replacement Superman II director Richard Lester) where the story of Superman and Lois left off, including (wisely) the production design and feel. To say the film is derivative is inaccurate. It is both a love poem to the original two films starring Reeve, but also Singer’s very own creation, with his stylistic stamp, modern sensibilities, and his championing of the outsider.
If Singer had big shoes to fill, star Brandon Routh has canoe-sized ones facing him. He’s a smart enough young man to know it, and all we have seen of him so far is a gracious, open-hearted fellow, as if he were Clark Kent himself. Routh acquits himself very well in this film. His voice has the reassuring chocolate timbre of a man who can protect you. His face has the open, guileless, but not gullible, trustworthiness you need in the American hero, and heartbreaking handsomeness as well. It’s clear he knew the burden he was shouldering, and I hope to see much more from him.
Is Superman too old-fashioned an icon? Some might say that “truth, justice, and the American way” is corny, hackneyed, without depth. But they forget that Superman is isolated, an orphan, unique in all the world, and that he selflessly shares his gift with us lesser beings because he’s that great a guy. But he has vulnerabilities too. Routh gives us that depth, he gives us Superman’s (and Clark’s) loneliness and his love and his kindness. He is smart, he is good, and he’s someone who might make us believe, again, that a man can fly.
Heaven knows everyone flies in movies these days; I remember as an (ahem) eight year old, totally believing in Christopher Reeve’s ability to soar over the earth, and back then, it was a cool new trick. My sort-of contemporary Singer clearly had the same experience as a young person, because he has reclaimed that magic from (gulp) 28 years ago and brought it to us again. Whether it’s the delicacy of the wirework or just Routh’s putting his all into making us believe it with his body, I believed again.
Schmaltzy nostalgia aside, this movie is gorgeous. Visually, emotionally, with great jokes (some ruined by the preview) and great performances, and all over, an excellent piece of filmmaking. Longtime Singer collaborator John Ottman takes John Williams’ peerless score and plays with the themes, keeping the pure Williams for when it’s needed and taking off in a whole new direction when it’s appropriate. If you got chills from that first preview, the one with the sunrise and the Jor-El voice over, then you know what I am talking about.
I wasn’t excited about Kate Bosworth, but she was a cracking career gal and a loving mom and a dewy eyed Superfan, and I really enjoyed her performance. Kevin Spacey was having a hoot and a holler with the role of Lex Luthor, though Parker Posey was not used to her utmost. Sam Huntington was such a perfect Jimmy Olsen I couldn’t help but grin every time he was onscreen. The current leads are younger than the actors were in 1980, and it’s hard not to feel the difference; Margot Kidder and Christopher Reeve were so clearly adults (yes, even watching them now), and these lovely people still feel so young considering all the history we are meant to understand between them.
Superman Returns is a great triumph, an ode both to the DC icon and the late Man of Steel who played him before, and it is a terrific adventure all around. I recommend renting Superman II and then running to see this.
MPAA Rating PG-13
Release date 6/28/06
Time in minutes 134
Director Bryan Singer
Studio Warner Brothers
