Director: Bryan Singer
Stars: Brandon Routh, Kate Bosworth, Kevin Spacey, James Marsden, Parker Posey, Frank Langella, Sam Huntington, Kal Penn
Year: 2006
Rating: PG-13
Having been both a fan of Christopher Reeve and the original Superman films (well, at least the first two films), I was kind of both resistant - even as much as I like Brandon Routh - and curious to see Superman Returns. Especially having heard both good and bad things about not only the film, but Brandon Routh's performance.
The performance I had no problem with; Routh very nicely fills the shoes left behind by Reeve, both physically and in acting chops. As written, Clark Kent and Superman are both all-American(ized) boy scouts out to help/save the world, and neither character has really been developed in the same way of those of darker background/origin like Batman or Spider-Man. Superman is a bit of a goody-two-shoes, the supreme boy scout, and he's no less here ...
Once he gets back to Metropolis, that is. See, Superman has been away for a number of years, revisiting what remains of his home planet of Krypton; sort of trying to "find himself" and his purpose in it all. His departure was evidently without so much as a goodbye to the city - or to his one true love, Lois Lane (Kate Bosworth, totally miscast in - and too young for - the role), who gets so hocked off at being ditched by the Man of Steel, she writes an article for The Daily Planet entitled "Why the World Doesn't Need Superman" that wins her the Pulitzer Prize. Indeed, by the time Superman returns to earth/Metropolis - just in time to save Lois' butt again, no less - not only has Miss Lane moved on, she's also the mother of a young son, and has a hunky long-term boyfriend name Richard (James Marsden), the nephew of the newspaper's editor-in-chief, Perry White (Frank Langella).
Superman watches the happy little family from afar, still pining for Lois and trying to figure out how to get her to at least forgive him for leaving her ... even as the evil Lex Luthor (Kevin Spacey), having bilked a dying widow out of her fortune, is now using his millions to invest in a scheme to not only find Superman's crystallised home base on earth - but to also use the superhero's own strengths against him, by using the crystals to form new land masses on earth, rising from the depths of the sea. Land that will push out and destroy the current continents and countries, killing billions of people and leaving Luthor (literally) in charge of a whole new world forged on planet Earth. It's an ambitious plan, and when Lois accidentally stumbles across it and gets captured by Luthor and his gang, Superman's investment in saving not only the world but the woman he loves bumps up the suspense.
Or, at least, it should. While not as "action-packed" as its previous incarnations with Reeve, that's okay; the story and plotlines here are more cerebral anyway, and that's not the film's flaw. But with that mentioned, it has to be said (for me, at least) that this film just dragged on and on for me, revealing too slowly what Luthor's big plot was. I also found myself a little irritated when no major explanation was made for why Superman suddenly left - or how no one thought it was a big deal when Clark Kent was suddenly able to get his job back at The Daily Planet, with no explanation, when he popped back up in town at the same time. Parker Posey, as Luthor's sidekick chick Kitty, is given extraordinarily little to do - and has one nonsensical scene with Superman himself that comes off more silly than funny; other than that, she's relegated to a lot of dramatic looks and whining in the film, and is overall such a passive character you could almost dismiss her entirely.
Luthor's vision is as ugly and brutal as he is, and though Spacey definitely gives the character a lot more dimension and depth than even Hackman did in the Reeve films, it all feels a bit wasted in what results in a ridiculous scheme that, when things finally do start to happen, may well have viewers asking themselves, "He went to all this trouble for this?!"
The film also gets ugly and dark in the last third, both figuratively and literally, and there's a plot point/twist in the film that I won't reveal here - but to me, made me more than unsettled that director Bryan Singer and the scriptwriters took quite that much liberty with such an iconic character (at least, on film).
It was also unsettling to feel as if you've come in on a sequel, when you'd never seen the first film. The opening credits of Superman Returns will have you more than a little nostalgic for the Reeve films ... but as the movie goes on, the pervasive feeling is that you're watching characters (and actors) that have that sort of familiarity to you, because you've seen the same situations before - yet feel totally alien, because you've never dealt with these actors playing these characters before. It's as if Singer was trying to pick up where the original franchise left off, to a degree, without a glitch - yet you can't help but feel the glitch when no one on-screen feels familiar in that character's skin. Sorry, it's hard to explain, but for me that element - the feeling that the film was trying to "pass off" these actors as the same characters played by Reeve, Margot Kidder, etc. - was just jarring enough to make the film seem off-kilter.
Ultimately, after two hours and thirty-four minutes, the film was just an over-long, one-note disappointment that left me tired and feeling more than a little unsatisfied. I know, in the age of the Dark Knight and Spider-man vs. Venom, that superheros on film have turned to their darker roots of origin for a more intriguing and three-dimensional story.
But there was always something a bit joyous about Superman. Perhaps the Americana he represented, or his innocence at coming from another world and only wanting to save this one. But none of that joy is in this film, which is overall too dark and too bleak ... and, in the end, not all that cerebral. ** - Reel Mediocre
Stars: Brandon Routh, Kate Bosworth, Kevin Spacey, James Marsden, Parker Posey, Frank Langella, Sam Huntington, Kal Penn
Year: 2006
Rating: PG-13
Having been both a fan of Christopher Reeve and the original Superman films (well, at least the first two films), I was kind of both resistant - even as much as I like Brandon Routh - and curious to see Superman Returns. Especially having heard both good and bad things about not only the film, but Brandon Routh's performance.
The performance I had no problem with; Routh very nicely fills the shoes left behind by Reeve, both physically and in acting chops. As written, Clark Kent and Superman are both all-American(ized) boy scouts out to help/save the world, and neither character has really been developed in the same way of those of darker background/origin like Batman or Spider-Man. Superman is a bit of a goody-two-shoes, the supreme boy scout, and he's no less here ...
Once he gets back to Metropolis, that is. See, Superman has been away for a number of years, revisiting what remains of his home planet of Krypton; sort of trying to "find himself" and his purpose in it all. His departure was evidently without so much as a goodbye to the city - or to his one true love, Lois Lane (Kate Bosworth, totally miscast in - and too young for - the role), who gets so hocked off at being ditched by the Man of Steel, she writes an article for The Daily Planet entitled "Why the World Doesn't Need Superman" that wins her the Pulitzer Prize. Indeed, by the time Superman returns to earth/Metropolis - just in time to save Lois' butt again, no less - not only has Miss Lane moved on, she's also the mother of a young son, and has a hunky long-term boyfriend name Richard (James Marsden), the nephew of the newspaper's editor-in-chief, Perry White (Frank Langella).
Superman watches the happy little family from afar, still pining for Lois and trying to figure out how to get her to at least forgive him for leaving her ... even as the evil Lex Luthor (Kevin Spacey), having bilked a dying widow out of her fortune, is now using his millions to invest in a scheme to not only find Superman's crystallised home base on earth - but to also use the superhero's own strengths against him, by using the crystals to form new land masses on earth, rising from the depths of the sea. Land that will push out and destroy the current continents and countries, killing billions of people and leaving Luthor (literally) in charge of a whole new world forged on planet Earth. It's an ambitious plan, and when Lois accidentally stumbles across it and gets captured by Luthor and his gang, Superman's investment in saving not only the world but the woman he loves bumps up the suspense.
Or, at least, it should. While not as "action-packed" as its previous incarnations with Reeve, that's okay; the story and plotlines here are more cerebral anyway, and that's not the film's flaw. But with that mentioned, it has to be said (for me, at least) that this film just dragged on and on for me, revealing too slowly what Luthor's big plot was. I also found myself a little irritated when no major explanation was made for why Superman suddenly left - or how no one thought it was a big deal when Clark Kent was suddenly able to get his job back at The Daily Planet, with no explanation, when he popped back up in town at the same time. Parker Posey, as Luthor's sidekick chick Kitty, is given extraordinarily little to do - and has one nonsensical scene with Superman himself that comes off more silly than funny; other than that, she's relegated to a lot of dramatic looks and whining in the film, and is overall such a passive character you could almost dismiss her entirely.
Luthor's vision is as ugly and brutal as he is, and though Spacey definitely gives the character a lot more dimension and depth than even Hackman did in the Reeve films, it all feels a bit wasted in what results in a ridiculous scheme that, when things finally do start to happen, may well have viewers asking themselves, "He went to all this trouble for this?!"
The film also gets ugly and dark in the last third, both figuratively and literally, and there's a plot point/twist in the film that I won't reveal here - but to me, made me more than unsettled that director Bryan Singer and the scriptwriters took quite that much liberty with such an iconic character (at least, on film).
It was also unsettling to feel as if you've come in on a sequel, when you'd never seen the first film. The opening credits of Superman Returns will have you more than a little nostalgic for the Reeve films ... but as the movie goes on, the pervasive feeling is that you're watching characters (and actors) that have that sort of familiarity to you, because you've seen the same situations before - yet feel totally alien, because you've never dealt with these actors playing these characters before. It's as if Singer was trying to pick up where the original franchise left off, to a degree, without a glitch - yet you can't help but feel the glitch when no one on-screen feels familiar in that character's skin. Sorry, it's hard to explain, but for me that element - the feeling that the film was trying to "pass off" these actors as the same characters played by Reeve, Margot Kidder, etc. - was just jarring enough to make the film seem off-kilter.
Ultimately, after two hours and thirty-four minutes, the film was just an over-long, one-note disappointment that left me tired and feeling more than a little unsatisfied. I know, in the age of the Dark Knight and Spider-man vs. Venom, that superheros on film have turned to their darker roots of origin for a more intriguing and three-dimensional story.
But there was always something a bit joyous about Superman. Perhaps the Americana he represented, or his innocence at coming from another world and only wanting to save this one. But none of that joy is in this film, which is overall too dark and too bleak ... and, in the end, not all that cerebral. ** - Reel Mediocre
No comments:
Post a Comment