Source:
THN Date: 30h June, 2006 Posted by:
Aaron Allen
REVIEW:
SUPERMAN RETURNS, BUT WHY?
The much hyped Superman Returns, directed by Bryan Singer and starring
Brandon Routh, Kate Bosworth, and Kevin Spacey, opens in North America this week.
It is the first live-action, feature length film to feature the character in almost
20 years since the last franchise, starring Christopher Reeve as the man of steel,
fizzled in 1987. Produced as a vague sequel to Richard Donner's Superman: The
Movie (1978) and Superman II (1980), the new film ultimately fails
to capture the joy and humanity of Superman because it is burdened by a misguided
and slavish devotion to Donner's work, which proves to be a double edged sword.
On the one hand, the film takes for granted that we may not be intimately familiar
with these characters and their relationships as set up in the Donner films; we
are a largely new audience responding to new actors playing roles in which they
have not previously won our hearts. Superman Returns feels like the third
or fourth installment in a franchise, not a film contained in and of itself, because
it takes no time to reestablish the character's previous relationships. Instead,
it thrusts us into a world where those relationships have been broken. On the
other hand, if the audience is familiar with the Donner films, the unoriginality
of the script becomes painfully apparent in that it plays like a beat for beat
remake of the 1978 Superman: The Movie with largely the same structure
and plot points, not to mention reprisals of character dialogue. The original
ideas that do work are often not given enough time to develop; instead, they are
shoehorned into the picture, perhaps accounting for the film's 154 minute running
time.
The acting is not necessarily bad, but because the film takes place in a world
where Superman has been gone for five years and Lois has moved on, the mood is
glum and lonely. Furthermore, Superman is held at a distance. As both Clark and
Superman, Brandon Routh is given little meaningful interaction with other characters.
Superman doesn't talk much. There are points where the Routh shines in the role,
but he is given little to no opportunity to show Superman's human touch. Spacey
does a fine turn as Lex Luthor, managing to jettison most the flippant camp that
Gene Hackman put into the role and imbue the character with sincere and palpable
malevolence and hubris; however, he is flanked by the annoying Parker Posey as
Kitty Kowalski, his skittish, flamboyantly dressed, and wisecracking moll copied
right out of the campy conventions of Superman: The Movie.
Take into account the very dark cinematic colour palate, drab scenery, and the
fact that most of Superman's amazing feats take place at night or in dim light
-- the whole film seems to plod along without joy, without excitement, and without
much purpose. It never explodes, it never amazes. The rousing optimism and excitement
Superman should inspire lacks momentum, and the coldness of the characters hampers
the drama on which much of the film's momentum is placed.
Instead of reinventing and reigniting the franchise, such as Warner Bros. did
for Batman in Batman Begins, Superman Returns buckles under the
weight of its nostalgia, a weight that was not necessary for the film to shoulder
in the first place.
Grade:
B- (Ambitious but Mediocre and Misguided)
Now that I've got the grade of the film out of the way, the rest of this review
will contain MAJOR SPOILERS....
In Superman Returns, Lex Luthor (Spacey) is freed from prison on the technicality
that Superman is not around to appear as a witness. Superman has returned to Krypton
in hopes of finding something left of his long dead home world. In his absence,
Lex Luthor swindles an old widow out of her fortune and estate in order to finance
the realization of his grand master plan: real estate. Real estate? Yes, the greatest
criminal mind in the world wants real estate! This is a plot point carried over
from Donner's Superman: The Movie where Luthor tried to sink the west coast
of America so his holdings of desert land would become instant and valuable beachfront
property. This time, Luthor ups the ante, stealing crystals from Superman's fortress
of solitude. In Superman: The Movie we were shown that these crystals are
able to be able to create giant crystalline structures. Luthor plans to use them
to grow his own landmass. He laces this landmass with Kryptonite so Superman will
be weakened the moment he sets foot on Luthor's new paradise, an inventive idea
to be sure. This paradise, however, is nothing more than a craggy, splintered
black mass of crystals, rocks, and dead fish. Luthor never seems to consider that
his new continent is entirely uninhabitable and without any life sustaining resources.
In fact, his master plan is so flawed that it rivals the absurdity of his plot
in the first Donner film. Although the malevolence that Spacey brings to the role
really shines, and you can taste his hate for Superman in your own mouth like
venom, his ultimate plan is just too silly to take seriously although it causes
massive CGI-laden destruction on Metropolis that was fun to watch.
At one point, talking to Superman about the new continent, Luthor calls it a cold,
distant, alien thing, lacking the human touch. His comments are meant to be taken
as a manifestation of how Luthor views Superman, but Luthor might as well be describing
Superman Returns itself. Unfortunately for us, the audience, the whole
movie feels cold, distant, and lacking the human touch. Cinematically, it is darkly
lit and slowly paced. A lot of action takes place at night or in dim light, and
Superman tends to bleed into the background instead of stand out like the marvel
he is. In terms of character, we are never given much of a chance to get to know
Superman and see his human side. The film tends to play up his divine distance
from humanity, as he monitors the earth from space, descending from the heavens
to do good deeds and disappear again. He is a real deus ex machine, the solution
to averting all kinds of tricky disasters in the nick of time, but never a fleshed
out character we can love. He seems to pine for a lost love but we were never
shown the extent of that love. Did he miss Earth while he was gone? Is he happy
to be back? What was it like being so far away? Does he have a new perspective
on life after his five years away? Your guess is as good as mine because the film
never really addresses these points.
Bosworth as Lois Lane is not necessarily bad either, but, again, she is given
little to do that might show any kind of range. As a reporter, mother, and lover,
she is perfunctory. Even Frank Langella's Perry White lacks the feisty boisterousness
for which the character is often known. Surprisingly, the character I find myself
liking the most is Richard White (James Marsden), Lois Lane's husband. He shows
devotion to his family, humor, and a passionate heroism - all those qualities
Superman seems to lack. Superman may be more a hero of action, but Richard White
is a hero with heart.
That is not to say that Superman does not have his human moments, but they tend
to be shown in his physical weakness. There is a great scene where, weakened by
Kryptonite, Luthor and his goons totally and completely beat the hell out of Superman.
Routh gives a great performance here – his pain is believable and hard to watch.
One of my favorite additions to the film is that Superman has to be taken to a
hospital, brought low to the condition of the common man. At the same time, it
is revealed that Superman has had a son with Lois, and while a neat plot idea
in theory, the ramifications are never dealt with. You'd think that such an important
development, and a perfect way to reconnect Superman with humanity, would have
been more of a focus? The film tries to make a point about paternal legacy, but
like so many things, it is under developed and abrupt.
In terms of originality, the film suffers. It takes too much of its cue from the
Donner Superman films. Visually, I appreciate the iconic opening credits and the
preservation of the production designs for Krypton and the Kent Farm (Metropolis
looks inappropriately gritty, though, and more like Gotham City). In terms of
story, however, the film paces to the old dance steps of Superman: The Movie:
Superman returns to earth in his pod (where did his pod come from? Did he take
it with him into space or did he find it out there?), he is reintroduced into
the Daily Planet, he saves Lois from another air transportation accident (in the
original it was a helicopter, in this it is plane/shuttle), he completes a montage
of rescues, he has an interview with Lois Lane after which they go flying, Lex
Luthor is after land again, Lex Luthor steals kryptonite again to incapacitate
Superman, Luthor's moll falls in love with Superman and turns on Luthor, and many
lines of dialogue are repeated from the original film ("Statistically speaking,
flying is still the safest way to travel," "Do you know what my father said to
me... / "Get out?," "You shouldn't smoke, Miss Lane," etc. etc.). It feels like
we've all done this before, and although Superman Returns is thankfully
less campy, it has also lost its magic and sense of wonder in the process.
A big point is made in the film that Lois Lane has won a Pulitzer Prize for her
article "Why the World Doesn't Need Superman". At the end of the film, she begins
to write "Why the World Needs Superman" but fails to write one word by the time
the credits role. It appears that not even the film itself, which seems to want
to tackle the question of Superman's relevancy, is able to figure out Superman's
purpose. That's a bad sign.
Is the best way to reestablish the relevance of Superman in the 21st centrally
really to make him repeat the dated conventions of Superman: The Movie,
which was arguably not that perfect of a film to begin with?
In my opinion, Bryan Singer and the rest of his team missed a big opportunity
to reinvent Superman. Instead, they produced a thinly veiled remake that does
nothing to reestablish the characters. Instead, the film's success is predicated
on the assumption that that we are supposed to know and love these characters
from films over 26 years old. I doubt contemporary audiences are really going
to respond to nostalgia for Superman: The Movie, especially when Superman
Returns feels so joyless by comparison.
NEXT
WEEK: After the disappointment of Superman Returns, I recommend some
other reading and viewing material that does the character justice.
