Superman Returns
(2006 review)

3 out of 5


Absent from the silver screen for decades, Superman flies back with Superman Returns.  The movie is well meaning and earnest, just like Supes. Returns is a visual feast, wonderful to watch, and has FX moments that will leave your jaw on the floor.  But it trips up a few times with a storyline and pace that takes forever to get moving, and a few too many wrong-headed plot twists. While sometimes Superman Returns will grab you, other times it bores you.

After over a decade of production woes and a revolving door of directors, stars, and scripts, Warner Brothers tapped Bryan Singer, the director who shepherded X-Men to the big screen, to bring back the Man of Steel.   Singer and his writers have concocted a story about a Superman who left Earth for 5 years, and then returns to the life he left behind to continue his heroic deeds.  Waiting for him is Lois Lane, now a mother, and Lex Luthor, out of prison, angrier than ever, and looking for revenge.

Singer’s skills as a director are unparalleled.  Visually speaking, his take is spectacular, befitting a hero like Superman. Singer always has an eye for a nice shot and small moments, and his handling of the effects sequences are top notch.  If Superman flying was pulled off adequately in the 70s, than Superman flying in 2006 looks amazing.  Singer’s Superman, realized with state of the art CGI, is a force of nature (or, uh, Krypton.).

Looking at the movie in small doses, Singer works some magic.  But put it all together, he’s a bit too in love with the subject matter and inconsequential moments that the audience can’t get into. Sometimes, it feels as if we’re being dragged by Superman, instead of soaring alongside.

Stepping into the considerable red boots of Christopher Reeve is Brandon Routh as Superman.  He does an uncannily close job to Reeve’s performance.  His Clark is bumbling and goofy, and his Superman can be determined and ticked when called for, and Routh exudes a quality of goodness that is integral to the character.  One of his best lines is after he saves a plane from crashing, he cheerily tells the passengers, “I hope this doesn’t sour you on airlines, statistically it’s still the safest way to travel.”  Very Reeve, and very goody-goody Superman.

Kate Bosworth is the intrepid Daily Planet reporter, Lois Lane, and she captures the determination and bull-headedness of Lois that makes her so oddly endearing.  More problematic is the inclusion of her young son. The kid is decent and the part is interesting, but this is a franchise movie with an eye towards sequels . . . the inclusion of the kid throws a rather significant monkey wrench into the series storyline.  It doesn’t get in the way in this movie, but you could see it turning into a problem later on.

Kevin Spacey, reunited with director Singer for the first time since The Usual Suspects, plays a much darker Lex Luthor.  His performance has a few touches of Gene Hackman’s bombastic scenery chewing, but Spacey’s Luthor is angrier and deadlier than before.  While he’s fun to watch, unfortunately, Lex is apart from Superman for most of the movie, leaving us testily wanting more of a showdown between the two.

One of the biggest problems is central to the plot, and the movie never overcomes it.  As a Superman fan, I believe the premise of the movie is based around a fallacy: that Superman would just abandon all his responsibly and say “Seeya!” to Earth for 5 years.  Considering how Returns is a direct sequel to Superman II, the movie where Superman said that he would never leave again, it makes swallowing the idea that he would run even more absurd.  And when you learn what happened while he was gone from Earth for those years, makes him seem less Superman and more SuperDeadbeat Jerk,.

Another major problem is one of pacing.  Its 155 minutes – over 2 and a half-hours and it really, really does not need to be this long. Early on there is a moment where Clark is reminiscing about how he first learned to fly – its nicely done, but serves zero purpose to the overall narrative.  This scene is just a few more minutes that the movie didn’t need.

And that’s just one example. Not only are there quite too many shots of Clark pinning and moping over Lois, but individual scenes are just a hair too long.  Whenever a catastrophe strikes, the build-up before Superman sweeps in and saves everyone seems to go on and on.

There are also way too many scenes of Superman ever-so-slowly catching a large object, or slowly lifting a large object while John Williams’ classic Superman theme music plays.  The first time this happens is when Superman “returns” to the world with a spectacular plane rescue.   When he stops the crash and the music swells, you feel like standing up and applauding. His return scene is so eye-popping, so well done, that any other scene of Superman slowly lifting heavy objects doesn’t measure up.  By the end, when the climax involves Superman slowly lifting something to save the day, it feels like you’re watching Superman’s Astonishing Adventures in Shoulder Press Exercise.

Overall, Superman Returns reminds me of Peter Jackson’s King Kong, a movie that had singular moments of transcendent movie magic that were offset by lots of bloat and directorial excess.  A movie about Superman, and one that we have waited for so long for, should soar. Instead, Returns takes a much more mundane route.  But, even with all the watch-watching boring moments, there are still other very stirring scenes where you will believe that a comic icon can live again onscreen.