SUPERMAN RETURNS

By: Rachel Reitsleff
Date: Tuesday, June 27, 2006

To see SUPERMAN RETURNS is to see a man in love, and no, I'm not referring to either the flying fellow in the cape or his bespectacled alter ego though to be sure they are both utterly devoted to Lois Lane. The adoration glowing through every frame of the movie comes from director Bryan Singer, who has done something that most filmmakers wouldn't dare he treats his new project as though it's a continuation of 1978's SUPERMAN and 1980's SUPERMAN II, both starring the late Christopher Reeve. What's even more amazing than Singer taking this approach is that it works so well, up to and including the fact that Brandon Routh takes to Superman and Clark as though born to embody both we don't forget Reeve, but there's a real sense of rightful torch-passing here.

In SUPERMAN RETURNS, Kal-El has been gone for five years in what's proved a futile quest to find answers in the remains of his homeworld Krypton. He comes back to find his beloved Lois (Kate Bosworth) has a young son (Tristan Lake Leabu), is living with Richard White (James Marsden), nephew of Daily Planet editor Perry (Frank Langella), and she's won a Pulitzer for an article about why Superman is unnecessary. However, with Lex Luthor (Kevin Spacey) out of jail and up to his old world-imperiling tricks, Lois and everybody else may find that they need Superman after all ...

What's both dangerous and great about SUPERMAN RETURNS is the way Singer and writers Michael Dougherty & Dan Harris (working from a story all three created together) anticipate an almost Pavlovian response from the audience. John Williams' score for the earlier SUPERMAN films is utilized liberally here (with proper credit), and damned if there isn't a thrill when the main Superman theme heralds our hero's arrival and a dreamy feel when Superman and Lois float to the strains of "Can You Read My Mind?" (sans vocals). There are also clips of the late Marlon Brando as Jor-El (from the '78 film) and even a picture of Glenn Ford, who played Clark's adoptive father, on the Kent mantelpiece. All this perhaps shouldn't work, but it does it's not just that we're all familiar with Superman, but that we're familiar with this particular take on the mythology. For one thing, it's a huge time-saver a lot of things that would otherwise require explanation are rightly taken for granted and for another, it's affecting in ways that something brand-new cannot accomplish.

The perfection of Routh as both Superman and Clark cannot be overstated. He looks great in the cape and tights, but much more important, he absolutely gets the concept of someone who really is fighting for truth and justice, uncynically willing to put his life on the line and yet is able to marry this persona to the shyly goofy Clark. There's one small moment, when Clark waves at Lois across the office of the Daily Planet, where you can pretty much feel the theatre react to the realization that this guy is the real thing.

Most of the supporting cast are extremely fine as well, with Bosworth a gutsy, lovely Lois and Spacey a gleeful Lex who is nevertheless capable of scary seriousness.

So yes, we're aware of readers who are fascinated by the Cinescape movie review grades why doesn't SUPERMAN RETURNS get an A?

For one thing, Singer and the writers create a number of sequences that are confusing as they're happening, only to be explained later. Once or twice, this is intriguing, but eventually, it simply interrupts the narrative flow we're trying to figure out exactly what it is we just saw so that we can't fully enjoy the following sequence, let alone figure out how it all fits together, so that often the movie has a stop/start quality. On the flip side of this, Singer sometimes overdoes the emotion, lingering on moments so long that they start to lose potency. Finally, the Christ analogy gets hit hard one (or maybe more) too many times. In Singer's X-MEN films, the social commentary worked because the metaphors to real life were clever and applicable. In SUPERMAN RETURNS, there's sometimes a sense that the filmmakers feel our natural responses aren't to be trusted and we need a nudge to remind us that our protagonist is heroic and selfless and generally good. Really, we believe you, he's Superman you don't need to remind us quite so often.

SUPERMAN RETURNS is not perfect, but it has a true sense of wonder and earned reverence. There's a feeling of real rediscovery here that's truly magical.