Superman Returns (2006) 4/10
Superman (Brandon Routh) returns to Metropolis after a five year absence, to find that Lois Lane (Kate Bosworth) has a son and a fiance (James Marsden), and that Lex Luthor (Kevin Spacey) is out of jail. Directed by Bryan Singer.
Superman Returns is a ponderous, overlong, uneventful bore of a movie. It reminds me a great deal of Ang Lee‘s disasterous Hulk; the same deadly sense of self-importance, preventing it even from being “so bad it’s good,” the same obsession with fathers and sons, the same occasional reminders that a usually talented director is at the helm.
Perhaps the worst flaw of this film is it has no idea what it wants to be. Singer never decides if he is continuing the Christopher Reeve Superman films, or remaking them, or perhaps doing a homage. If it is a continuation, then the many repeated scenes from Superman: The Movie are inappropriate. If it is a remake, then why the painstaking effort to fill in the gaps between the two films? And if a homage, we got it at the first repeated line, 10 minutes in, and we didn’t need the bludgeoning.
Brandon Routh in the starring role is absolutely dreadful. I mean awful. I mean he makes Andie McDowell look like she can act. It’s scary how bad this guy is. He spends a lot of time doing Christopher Reeve imitations, and he’s passably good at imitating Reeve as Clark Kent (although he has none of Reeve’s gentle dignity as Superman), but he brings nothing of his own to the role. I watched the movie with my sister, and she pointed out that they needed to trust the character, not the actor who played him definitively. Routh’s imitation kills the series in the same way that a Sean Connery imitator would have killed James Bond. Christopher Reeve remains the biggest crush I have ever had in my life, from the first time I saw Superman in 1980 in a drive-in until today, I have never loved an actor half as much. But I don’t want to see Routh or anyone else playing Reeve’s Superman, if the movie is worth making, they have to make the character their own. So maybe this one wasn’t worth making.
Kate Bosworth must be thanking her lucky stars she’s acting opposite Routh, because only in such a pairing is she the talented one. She’s all wrong for Lois Lane, a character who is angular and sharp. Her character is actually well-written though, and has more to do than most iterations of Lois, but Bosworth isn’t persuasive.
From time to time, Superman Returns has flourishes that remind you Bryan Singer really can do good things behind the camera. There’s a lovely bit where he’s flying and rolls onto his back to use his heat vision while continuing to fly. It’s the sort of clever and inventive use of character and plot that I admire in a film. If all of the little good bits were strung together with, I dunno, a script, and a cast, well, they’d really have something.
Okay, there is a cast. At least a supporting cast. Spacey is absolutely fantastic. He brings real conviction to the part. And I’m a little freaked out by how sexy I find Frank Langella. But I do, and also he can act. Sam Huntington is charming as Jimmy Olsen.
But make no mistake: None of these charms make the movie worth seeing.
It was SO bad.
Excellent review. You should watch really crappy movies more often.
As a child of the 1980’s, the only Superman I’ve ever known and loved was Christopher Reeve. When I heard this movie was coming out, I wanted to see it, but didn’t want to see it. I only just saw it in April.
I thought it was too long, a little slow and dull, and agree that it does kinda lack an identity or a purpose. I hated Kate Bosworth; she was so wrong for the part (not that Lois Lane has ever been one of my favorite characters). Kevin Spacey was great as always and I liked Brandon Routh, but I do hope his Superman is better developed in the sequel. My favorite thing about the movie is superficial; it’s the special effects. We’ve always known Superman could do really cool things and the old movies were good, but we have awesome special effects technology today. I really enjoyed seeing more of Superman’s super powers.
It wasn’t my favorite, but I didn’t hate it. I just love Superman (my favorite superhero ever) and as long as it doesn’t turn into something along the lines of the late Batman movies, I’m happy.
How can you possibly give an unbiased review of this film when you openly admit that Christopher Reeve was one of your biggest crushes ever, even to this day?!! This instantly makes you prejudiced towards not only the actor but also the concept of a Superman film as a whole as no one in your eyes will ever be able to fill Supermans boots as well as Chirstopher Reeve!
Instead of watching the film with an open mind, you clearly watched it wondering if this new incarnation of Superman would knock Reeve of the pedestal you have put him on. Clearly it was too high to reach even for Superman.
Now I’m not a massive Superman fan, I enjoyed the film for what it was, but reading this clearly biased ‘review’ I doubt you will be overwhelmed with offers from national publications soon.
Oh please, why would having a crush on an actor and liking a movie deem you unable to review a different iteration? (The woman is on a camping trip and can’t defend herself, and I watched the movie with her.) I think her Bond analogy is perfect… (and I am NO Bond expert, but I get it)… if a franchise is good, if a film honors and does right by the story it is telling, it’s a success.
The original Sabrina: Audrey Hepburn. Who out there can say she wasn’t the greatest thing that ever lit up a screen? No way could the remake bring that to us… and yet the remake was lovely.
Deborah’s criticism was not ‘he was good, but he was no Christopher Reeve’, it was ‘this movie is doody’. Loyalty did not taint this review, only bad filmmaking.
It seems as though there are two camps here. There are the ‘professional’ reviewers in the newspapers, magazines, websites etc, (aint it cool news, rotten tomatoes, hollywood.com to name a few) most of who either loved the film or said it was beautifully made and directed – or both. There are also the ‘normal’ folks like us who gave the film a more of a mixed reception.
Now could this be because the ‘professionals’ look at things like camera angles, lighting, score, direction etc, but we just want to go and loose ourselves in a good film for a few hours? Possibly. I absolutely love Bryan Singer’s film The Usual Suspects, probably one of my favorite films, yet all my friends either dont get it or plain hate it. Are they wrong because they disagree with me? Of course not (although I no longer associate with them) 😉
Personally I really liked the film, it was the perfect re-introduction of a superhero and a tip of the hat to the previous incarnations of the character before moving him forward in new directions.
Horses for courses my friends, horses for courses.
I’ve never actually met anyone who didn’t love the Usual Suspects.
“Now I’m not a massive Superman fan, I enjoyed the film for what it was, but reading this clearly biased ‘review’ I doubt you will be overwhelmed with offers from national publications soon.”
Why do I doubt that you simply disagreed with the review? Nope, you just needed to take a cheap shot. Sadly, you chose a published author as your target, which says something (bad) about your judgment.
Daman, there is no such thing as an unbiased review. Everyone who sits down to watch a movie has preconceptions and expectations. Everyone has actors and directors and writers and musicians they like and dislike in advance. For a long-standing multi-media franchise such as Superman’s, expectations and hopes cannot help but come into play.
The reviewer (that’s me) is obligated to be honest about such preconceptions so that the reader (that’s you) is not misled. The reader (that’s you again) can then choose to be an asshole (as in your case) or engage in intelligent conversation (that’s everyone else).
Daman, I have four, soon five, books in print and have published articles in numerous national and international publications. If my reviews stay at the amateur level, I am content.
(Not to mention one of them books and some of the articles published in numerous and international publications are based on your expertise on a film series!)
(for fucksake!)