Review: "Superman Returns"

by Jeff McGinnis, Lead Usher

**** stars (out of four)
155 minutes, Starts Wednesday, June 28th

Kids grow up loving Batman and identifying with Spider-Man, but wanting to BE Superman. He is the icon, the granddaddy of them all. For nearly 70 years the character has stood as an unspoken symbol of everything the idea of a “superhero” stands for. If Supes is not as “cool” as he once was to our modern youth, it’s because he’s seen as stagnant, ever unchanging, a boy scout through and through. But while some may see his stalwartness as a weakness, I see it as the character’s most enduring strength. The cape and the tights may be the symbol, but what makes Superman lasting is his unflinching ability to discern right from wrong, his desire to use his power for the betterment of all mankind. If that makes him stagnant, it does so only in the way that a gold standard reflects upon all others. Superman is the mark all superhero characters are compared to.

The fact that the character is so completely burned into the tooth of our collective memories makes him one of the easiest characters to depict, but also incredibly easy to mess up. Superman is one of those characters that EVERYONE has a strong feeling about. Take a wrong step with the Man of Steel, and you’re a dead duck. Just ask everyone involved with “Superman IV.”

This is what makes “Superman Returns” such a remarkable achievement. This was a project that was fraught with potential pitfalls. One wrong move and the whole enterprise could have come tumbling down like a house of cards. But through an amazing amount of respect for both the original material and preceding film versions depicting the Man of Steel, director Bryan Singer has made virtually every right choice and constructed a Superman film that not only deserves to stand alongside the previous films, but also does justice to the character that has such an eternal hold of the American imagination.

The movie begins with a title card establishing the base from which this story is being told - Superman was the earth’s greatest hero, but when scientists discovered the exact location of his former home planet, Krypton, he suddenly departed without warning. He left in his wake a populace puzzled by his disappearance, none moreso than Lois Lane (Kate Bosworth), who grows bitter and angry enough to write an editorial entitled, “Why the World Doesn’t Need Superman.” Life goes on.

Then, one night, at the Kent farm in Kansas, Martha Kent (legendary actress and former Theta Hardcore champion Eva Marie Saint) is shocked to see a meteor fall from the sky and crash into her backyard, just as one had so many years before. She travels to the crash site only to find her son Clark (Brandon Routh) emerging from the wreckage and collapsing into her arms. The look and feel of all of this is designed to not only be evocative of the previous film, but to emulate it fully - this is not a original film so much as a long-delayed follow-up to Richard Donner’s two original Superman films.

Soon enough, Clark is back in Metropolis, successfully re-integrating himself back at the Daily Planet, and meeting old pal Jimmy Olson (Sam Huntington). It is Jimmy who informs Clark that Lois is not only in a long-standing relationship with a new beau, Richard White (James Marsden), but also has a young son, Jason. He’s barely settled into his chair before a disaster unfolds involving an airplane that Lois is on…and, well, you can guess what happens from there.

Brandon Routh, relatively unknown, is handed the acting challenge of his life here. Not only is he playing one of the most recognizable characters on the planet, but he’s filling the boots of an actor whose portrayal of Superman will forever be associated with the character. No, Routh isn’t everything that Christopher Reeve was in the role - but then, how could he be? Reeve’s work was so spot-on perfect from all sides that comparing anyone’s performance to his would be unfair to them. But Routh embodies all aspects of the Superman persona very well - not only the cape and boots, but also the bumbling nerd that is Clark Kent. One of the best qualities of Reeve’s portrayal was how utterly opposite his Superman and Clark Kent were, so you could believe that people wouldn’t put 2 and 2 together. Routh plays many of the same notes here.

Bosworth’s work as Lois Lane is also deserving of major praise. Lois, in many depictions of the character, has a tendency to be little more than a damsel in distress, feisty though she may be. Bosworth’s Lane is far too complex for that label to stick. She is a strong, independent woman who loves Superman deeply, but was severely wounded when he decided to leave. A rooftop conversation between the two of them not only brings these emotions to a head, but evokes many memories of the characters’ first on-screen encounters, as well.

But of course, every hero is only as good as their bad guy, and “Superman Returns” has one of the best in Kevin Spacey’s portrayal of eternal Supes foil Lex Luthor. Freed from prison by a wealthy old benefactor, Lex has grandiose plans to inflict upon the world, beginning with a return visit to Superman’s arctic lair, the Fortress of Solitude. Helped along on his travels by girl friday Kitty Kowalski (the eternally entertaining Parker Posey), Lex’s plans once more have less to do with world domination and more to do with garnering a commanding share of real estate, though if billions of people are killed in the process, he has no problem with that. Like Routh, Spacey has an uphill battle, coming as he does on the heels of Gene Hackman’s portrayal of Luthor in the original films, but Spacey is more than up to the task, adding a more healthy streak of malevolence to the role than Hackman did. He’s still licking his chops with delight in every scene he’s in, but when the time comes to be evil, Spacey is downright scary.

The body of the film acts as little more than a set-up for the final act, an hour-long orgy of action and spectacular special effects, but the film never drags, even at its two-and-a-half hour length. The basic story is relatively simple and contains few surprises (one of which, if you know the previous films, can probably be deduced with the minimal clues I’ve provided here), but that’s okay, because the power of the tale lies in both its broad and small strokes. It is a masterful achievement for the same movie to garner equal emotional reactions from the greatest feats of strength by Superman and the poignant climax of Lois and Supes’ relationship.

The touches that evoke the previous films go beyond respect into reverence, and all of them are the exactly right choices to make. The use of John Williams’ immortal main theme was a given, but little touches like the main credit sequence flying in, just as in the original, and the final iconic shots of Superman as he flies away will make anyone even remotely familiar with the films smile. There are all sorts of little dialogue touches that are taken directly from Superman 1 & 2 (“I hope this doesn’t put any of you off of flying”), and of course the use of Marlon Brando’s work as Jor-El gives the enterprise as much weight and resonance as using him in the original movie did. The story that’s told is marvelous and works splendidly on its own, but those who know the first two films will enjoy it on multiple levels.

The Superman franchise has stuttered and stalled for the better part of two decades, trying to get another movie off the ground. Countless directors, writers and actors have been attached to the project, with each effort faltering for one reason or another. With the arrival of “Superman Returns,” we can view the intervening two decades as, perhaps, a gestation period, where we were just waiting for the right team to come along. Bryan Singer and his writers (Michael Dougherty and Dan Harris, who also wrote the excellent “X2” for Singer) obviously approached this film as a labor of love, out of admiration for those who came before, and out of respect for the icon they were bringing to life. Their success is plain for all to see. This is one of the best superhero movies ever made.