Of Flawed Ubermensch

The 200th post on Quaestiones Quaedam Philosophicae... and I am immensely sorry it has to be one like this.

Yesterday I went to an evening show of "Superman Returns". I watched in wide eyed wonder as the familiar title sequence streaked in and out of view. I grinned when some iconic moments were doled out. I went all warm and fuzzy as I recognized all the little things... nods that linked this film to the Richard Donner films (Superman 1 and 2 - 3 and 4 were crap)... I almost peed in my pants when the awesome shuttle/ plane setpiece came on... I hyperventilated when Routh channeled Reeve and played a perfect mumbling bumbling Clark Kent. I was looking to be satisfied, the way a haughty kid is when he finally gets long promised ice cream...

But that was all in the first hour.

Half-way through the movie, I began to grow alarmed as the non-geeks next to me lost interest and started to talk and shift in their seats. I ignored them, tried to focus on the movie, mumbling my Superman mantra/ stotra over and over. Then by the time the end credits rolled, I was just sitting there. Dumbstruck. Disappointed. Angrier than Zod on a bad hair day...

Because Superman Returns starts out as a beautifully crafted ode, and ends up a damn squib. But let us not jump ahead - lets start at the start... (no spoilers in this review, so read with abandon)

A long time ago, in a post called Heroes (a review of Batman Begins essentially), here is what I had written of Superman 1 and 2:

Superman (1 & 2)

Richard Donner's "Superman" wowed me (Christopher Reeve + that John Williams theme + Margot Kidder as Lois Lane) and for many many years it was the superhero movie for me. An 'origin story' for those that know the lingo, it set up the blue eyed alien we all grew to love as an icon. I watched it on bad tapes in a bad VCR... around the time I first watched Star Wars. And my complaints now, as a (slightly) more grown up geek with the Superman franchise in no way subtract from my experience of them... I was a kid worshipping a hero... a legend. As for the complaints -

1. Lex Luthor should not be funny, and as the most brilliant criminal mind in the world, should do something with more gravitas than wanting to buy real estate. Gene Hackman was an inspired choice to play him - and was wasted.

2. The producers - Alexander and Ilya Salkind made a mistake. They shouldn't have let go of Donner halfway through Superman 2. Superman 3 sucked hard, and Superman 4 is best forgotten.

3. They should never, ever, ever, have let the franchise die...

Ah well... Bryan Singer is making a Superman movie again. This is the guy that did wonders with the X Men franchise... let's hope he does well. If he does half as well as Nolan did with Batman Begins, he's my hero. Again.

So now, having seen Superman Returns, here's the lowdown: Singer doesn't do a fourth as well as Nolan! And as for point 1 above - well, Sammy boy, "the fundamentals still apply".

The Plot

When astronomers detected the location of the debris of his birth world Krypton, Superman (Brandon Routh) disappeared without explanation from Earth. Now, five years later, he has returned.

But a lot has changed in five years... The world has seemingly moved on.

Lois Lane (Kate Bosworth) is now a mother and fiance to Richard White (James Marsden). She has written an article called "Why the world doesn't need Superman" and won a Pulitzer for it. Lex Luthor (Kevin Spacey) got out of jail because when Superman was a no-show in his parole hearing. He has tricked an aging heiress out of her fortune and is now proceeding wiht another (hairbrained) plot to gain power. Martha Kent has waited patiently, missing her son...

And now he's back. With a loud bang.

Performances

Brandon Routh - A+ (One of the best things in the movie)
Kate Bosworth - B- (Uninspiring in a very Kirsten Dunst as Mary Jane way)
Kevin Spacey - B+ (His Luthor is better than Hackman's... but I hate how Luthor is handled in the movies overall)
James Marsden - A- (I really liked this guy... and I liked how they didn't make him a bad guy. Too bad he was killed off in X3)

What Works

1. Brandon Routh. He is no Christopher Reeve, but he's done as good a job as anyone can be expected to. Like I said, his Clark Kent is spot on like Christopher Reeves' Kent was. He is instantly endearing (if a little less imposing/ broad shouldered than my imagined Superman)

2. The many nods to the old films - the title sequence, the reuse of John Williams' themes, the reuse of footage of Marlon Brando as Jor-El, the Kent farm sequence, the teensy tiny arc about Lois' smoking habit, mention of Lex Luthor's familiarity with the Fortress of Solitude etc. Shiver down your spine reward for fans.

3. The spectacle - of course! Superman flies believably. Graphics are excellent. And so on... ho hum.

4. Some nice dialogue. "Its like you've been here before" said to Luthor in the Fortress, or the whole smoking arc with Lois, or "Gods are selfish beings who fly around in little red capes and don't share their power with mankind." said by Luthor (too bad they didn't explore this angle... why DOES Supes not share his tech with the world?)... every line of Brando's that makes the cut...

-=-=-

What Fizzles

1. Lex's masterplan - ill conceived, ill executed, and the final resolution is so anti-climactic and full of plot holes, it hurts. I scream again: LEX LUTHOR SHOULDN'T FRIGGING CARE ABOUT REAL ESTATE! SUPERMAN CANNOT BE IN PROXIMITY TO KRYPTONITE! Sigh...

2. The film's focus on Superman's personal/ emotional life... This deserves a mini tirade.

All right, so directors should bring their emotional baggage to the movies they make so they make more personal movies. But there are limits! There are times in Superman Returns when each scene feels like it has a "Directed by Brian Singer, adopted child, further alienated from the world by his homosexuality" watermark.

Sheesh... you *are* talking about the Man of Steel, remember? The ubermensch! The guy that did not flinch in the face of Zod. The guy that kissed his girlfriend's memory away out of a sense of duty and the greater good (Superman 2). The alpha-male who keeps his emotions sub-surface.

Grumble mumble... Like what Singer/ Ratner did to wild old Wolverine in X2/ X3 respectively, he's turned Supes into a real "sensitive metrosexual" in this movie.

3. The plot holes. I would've ignored these if this had been even a slightly better movie. But now it gets no reprieve. Why doesn't anyone notice that Kent and Superman were missing for roughly the same time? Why doesn't Superman lose his powers in proximity to a fricking CONTINENT of Kryptonite? How can getting rid of it be so easy? Sigh...

4. The Kid. Cannot digest the inconsistencies, Period. Saying more would be a spoiler.

-=-=-

What Bombs

1. LEX LUTHOR SHOULD NOT BE FREAKING FUNNY! He's a genius... he's a maniac! For God's sake, he wants more than real estate - surely he wants something a little more transendental! He hates Superman, yes... and I loved the way he didn't spend time making "Me, Uber-villian" speeches and just stabbed Superman the first chance he could... But really, Lex Luthor as he appears in four Superman movies (1, 2, 4, and Returns) is just a namby pamby version of what Luthor should be. Maybe they'd be better off going with Brainiac as a villian in this flick (maybe he followed Supes home?)

2. THIS ISN'T FRIGGING TITANIC. It isn't supposed to be a love story from start to finish. Focus on the Super part of Superman please! The thing that makes us go wide mouthed. This isn't Peter Parker with his angst for Mary Jane Watson/ Gwen Stacey and so on. It isn't Bruce "someone killed my daddy" Wayne! This isn't a vigilante or an underappreciated hero - this is Superman god damn it!

Superman was never about angst - he was alwaus about truth, justice, the "American way" (a clause edited out of this movie bearing in mind the global marketplace)... He was about duty and the self-moderation of power; about how even the most powerful being in the world can be good and humble and not seek power over the masses - in the comics, Superman at one point told Supergirl that he has built mental blocks within himself to limit his powers so that he can resist the temptation to abuse them! Focus on that... celebrate that! Write a tale about THAT!

-=-=-

So anyway, yeah. This movie was - to use some crude slang - a total KLPD for me. I feel like Morpheus at the end of The Matrix: Reloaded (he is in turn alluding to a quote by King Nebuchadnezzar from Daniel 2:3 of the Old Testament)...

"I have dreamed a dream, but now that dream is gone from me..."

More later when I'm less grumpy. Out.