Stolen Glory: Day #178 - Superman Returns (2006)
Viewed June 27, 2006
I put Superman Returns at a big disadvantage before I saw it. I watched Richard Donner’s 1978 film Superman right before going to the theater. Now, normally I wouldn’t place that kind of pressure on a film. I didn’t watch any of the 90s ‘Batman’ movies before seeing Batman Begins, for instance. But director Bryan Singer is practically demanding that I hold him to the high standard of Superman by co-opting not only the theme music of the classic films, but footage of Marlon Brando shot by Donner. Singer also attempts to supplant Superman III (an underrated film, actually) with his alternate continuation of the story of the first two films. So I went into Superman Returns fully aware of how good a comic book movie in general and a Superman film in particular can be. Did he live up to the films he so obviously wants to equal? Not on your life.
WARNING: I’m not holding back in this review. If you don’t want the plot details to be spoiled, stop reading right now. You can scan down to the final paragraph, if you want. I promise it will be spoiler-free.
It all falls apart right at the get-go with that connection to the old films. Superman Returns inhabits a universe that follows on from the events of Superman II. The problem is, nothing in Superman Returns connects properly to the original films. Lois, Superman, Ma Kent, Jimmy, etc. etc. are all younger now than they were “five years ago”. Their personalities have changed, particularly Lois and Perry White. (I’m not going to hold the fact that they are different actors against them, of course.) Now, Singer has said that Superman and Superman II act as a “vague backstory” to Superman Returns. I could buy this claim if it weren’t for things like Brando’s appearance and the odd sight of Glenn Ford’s picture on the mantle of a different Martha Kent than they last one we saw.
Let’s take a look at the characters one by one and how well they stack up to the originals:
Brandon Routh probably has a really good Superman inside him somewhere. Unfortunately, since he has apparently been directed to simply pretend he’s Christopher Reeve, it never gets a chance to come out. Now that they’ve fundamentally altered the status quo of the Superman Universe (Lois out of the picture being the biggest transgression), he most likely never will get the chance, even if there are more films. He should have been allowed to stand on his own, like Christian Bale in Batman Begins.
The problems with Lois Lane are manifold. First off, Kate Bosworth (fine and beautiful actress, though she is) is completely miscast. She is far too young to be the experienced reporter she is meant to be (and that Margo Kidder was) and is quite obviously wearing fake hair. (I mean, she’s the quintessential California blonde. You can’t just cover that over with a wig.) On top of that, Lois, herself, is reduced to a whining weakling, whose Pulitzer Prize winning article (”Why the World Doesn’t Need Superman”) is just the pining of a heartbroken woman. Regardless of whether she is being held up against the (still) quintessential Lois, Bosworth’s is without value.
Lex Luthor comes off better than most. While Kevin Spacey’s portrayal is the sort of thing he does in his sleep (and he often seems to be doing that here) at least it’s somewhat in line with Gene Hackman’s iconic performance and entertaining in its own right. He does seem to have become far too bitter over spending a measley five years in prison and his credibility is also hurt by the fact that his scheme is so similar to the one from Superman, but that’s par for the course in this film. (I mean Singer even re-uses the “Lu-ther” / “Lu-thor” pronunciation bit from the original films.)
Much less successful is Parker Posey (who I want to make clear that I like as an actress), whose Kitty Kowalski attempts to be both a Miss Testmacher (Valerie Perrine) and an Otis (Ned Beatty) to Spacey’s Luthor. (Hey, if it’s only five years later, where are those two, anyway? Oh, yeah. “Vague backstory.” Right.) She is capable of filling neither role. Her comedy is mostly one-liners with none of Beatty’s goofy charm and her big, dramatic change-of-heart at the end pales next to Perrine’s dramatic turnaround in order to save Hackensack, NJ.
Frank Langella’s Perry White is another one that really works, especially if you strive to disassociate it from Jackie Cooper’s. Cooper was a hard-bitten newspaperman, Langella is more of a sensationalist. Two different, but valid, takes on the character. It made me wish there was more of that kind of original approach and less aping of Donner’s work.
Sam Huntington is in much the same boat with his portrayal of Jimmy Olsen, except he lacks the original take that Langella gives to White. There’s nothing really wrong with his Jimmy, it’s just that he brings nothing new to the character, although at least he is more Jack Larson than Mark McClure.
Finally, there’s Superman Returns‘ one significant new character (I’m not counting Richard “walking cliche” White.): Superman, Jr. Tristan Lake Leabu plays Jason White with all the conviction and excitement of a three-toed tree sloth on Prozac. I mean, I know they are trying to make his parentage a surprise, but there’s such a thing as playing too much against type. The kid is a slack-jawed simpleton who barely speaks ten words in the whole film. And if you didn’t figure out who he was almost immediately, you’re math isn’t very good. (The kid’s five. Supes has been gone five years. Could Lois have established her “serious” relationship with White that quickly?) And what does it say about Superman that he would have sex with Lois without telling her who he really is? And don’t give me that “erased her memory in Superman II” jive. She knows he’s the father, so she knows they had a relationship. This means that in Singer’s world, Superman isn’t just the kind of guy who would leave without saying goodbye, he’s the kind of guy who keeps secrets from his bedpartners. If there’s one thing that offends me the most about the portrayal of Superman in this film, it is this.
But enough about the specific characters. What about the minor characters? Oh, wait. There aren’t any. One of the things that made Superman such a good film is how alive it was. The worlds that we saw were fully populated. People popped in and out of the story. Every character, from the Man of Steel himself to Rex Reed comes across as a fully realized person (which Reed barely does in real life - hah!). We get a sense of the character of the pilot of Air Force One, the little girl who’s cat is stuck in a tree, the Kryptonian Elder who says “Jor-El, be reasonable.”, the thug who tries to rob Lois and Clark, the cat burglar scaling the skyscraper and even the guy working at his desk in the same scene. Superman Returns is a superhero navel-gazing contest. Every character is self-contained, concerned almost exclusively with themselves and their immediate surroundings. Lois thinks the world doesn’t need Superman because Superman isn’t there. She has no “relationship” with Clark because she hasn’t seen him for five years. Clark and Martha Kent are surprisingly cold with each other. Luthor doesn’t care enough about Kitty to even threaten to kill her when she betrays him. No one else on Earth seems to exist, let alone matter to anyone.
Moving on to more technical issues, the effects in Superman Returns are decent enough, I suppose. But far from giving the film a greater sense of awe, the CGI overload makes the film seem empty, lacking substance. (I mean, really, a bullet smashing on his eyeball?) Compare this to Batman Begins, in which director Christopher Nolan utilized mostly practical effects, making it the most realistic Batman film since Burton’s in 1989. By keeping things real, Nolan made the fantastic aspects really seem to be fantastic. Superman is not Star Wars. I want to believe a man can fly in the world I live in, not one in a galaxy far, far away.
On related note, I saw Superman Returns in an IMAX theater. Previously, I had seen Fantasia 2000 and Star Wars: Episode II - Attack of the Clones at the IMAX and both those films used it to better advantage. Fantasia 2000 was filmed with IMAX in mind, so the crystal clarity of the image was most impressive. Clones was enhanced for IMAX and, since it was shot digitally, was also a sight to behold on the super-big screen. I was struck at how poor the image was for Superman Returns, especially compared to the beauty of the digital projection of Cars I had seen only days previously (for my third viewing so far). Perhaps Superman Returns would also have looked better digitally projected, but I opted for IMAX because of the much-ballyhooed 3D sequences that ultimately amounted to little more than an eyesore. The 3D was no better than anything I’ve seen before and the scenes that utilized it were usually either annoyingly static or so manic that I couldn’t follow the action for all the motion in my eyes.
The music in Superman Returns is a real highlight. At least whenever themes from John Williams’ original score are used. And they are used a lot. Primary composer John Ottman (a Singer regular) is buried under the weight of sharing the screen with Williams’ work. I know he’s capable of emblematic and iconic music cues (even in lower profile films like Fantastic Four), but how is he going to ever be able to come up with something memorable when that theme is waiting in the wings, ready to be dragged out at a moment’s notice. He never stood a chance.
What a disappointment. I’ve been waiting a long time for the next Superman film and after seeing the character have such good success on the small screen in both Lois & Clark and Smallville (and even Superboy, at least to my way of thinking), the fact that 200 Million dollars and fifteen years of pre-production amounts to such a monumental failure is disheartening. I often forget the impact that Superman had on me as a kid. The only films that really matched it are the Star Wars saga. Watching it again, I felt all the old emotions, felt all the old joy and heartache. It made me resent Singer’s bald-faced attempt to ride on the old films’ coattails while simultaneously knocking down everything that made those films great. I suppose people who don’t know the character of Superman or don’t know or remember the original film might be able to enjoy this one on the level of spectacle alone. For those people, I suggest watching the original instead. You’ll never give Superman Returns a second thought.
Note: Apparently, Warner Bros. will be releasing the “Richard Donner Cut” of Superman II as part of a massive “Superman On Film” box set this holiday season. If the storyline of the Donner version is fundamentally restored (and more than two thirds of the film will contain Donner footage that was previously unused, so there’s a good chance it will), this new version will not synch up with Superman Returns at all. (I’ll spare you the details in case you want to be surprised. If not, they’re out there.)