Bryan Singer’s “Superman Returns” is a movie that reaches out for greatness, but never quite achieves it. Where it should be soaring it remains earthbound. Ultimately, this is a movie that is more disappointing than a film like “X3-” that film was just a pure disaster that didn’t come close to telling the great story it was attempting to tell. “Superman” comes close enough that watching it fail is that much sadder. It was so close to greatness that seeing the places it fails are that much more distressing.
Superman is not my favorite superhero by any means. I am a much bigger devotee of Spiderman, Batman, and the X-Men. Those are all characters who are flawed, vulnerable, and human. I have a lot more admiration for the Superman mythos than I have love for it. But in a way, more than any other story produced by this country, I believe Superman is our American myth. Superman is how we see ourselves- powerful yet incorruptible, always out to the right thing, no matter what the odds are. In this way, what makes Superman interesting is also what makes him boring- he’s so perfect and flawless that it’s hard to find him compelling as a character. Superman is also the classic story of the immigrant, in a country made up entirely of immigrants or the ancestors of immigrants. Superman came to America from an alien place, found himself a home here, and thrived, becoming our greatest hero, while remaining an outcast and outsider at the same time.
These are all themes that Bryan Singer has on his mind in “Superman Returns.” Here’s another one that is easy to find if you look for it: 9/11. I’m throwing down the gauntlet and saying it- this is a post 9/11 Superman.
The premise of the movie is that Superman left us five years ago- easy math will deduce this would be a few months before the twin towers tumbled. When he comes back. Lois Lane has won a Pulitzer for an article entitled “Why the World Doesn’t Need Superman,” and when she sees him again, she tells him “the world doesn’t need a savior.” Later, Superman tells her “you say the world doesn’t need a savior…but every night, I hear millions of people crying out for one…” (I’m paraphrasing, but you get the gist.) These are the moments in the movie that really, truly work. When Singer explores these ideas, he really nails why Superman is our most enduring pop icon. We love the idea of Superman, the unbeatable hero who won’t let anything bad happen to us. He is a beautiful dream, the dream we lost in September of 2001- and the idea of that dream’s “Return” is very appealing.
Even more ambitious is when Singer attempts to explore how it must feel to be Superman, to have that kind of burden placed upon your shoulders. Superman is an alien who can never truly be one of us- he uses his power to constantly save us, to keep us out of danger, but he can’t fit in as one of us. When he dresses up as Clark Kent, he is trying to pretend to be a man and live as we do. But he stumbles awkwardly in his vain hopes of fitting in- he is a god living among mortals and can never fit in amongst us. His burden is to save us and never truly be one of us. There are some heartbreakingly lonely moments throughout the film- the scene in which he flies to Lois Lane’s home, and sees her with her new family, then flies above the Earth, alone, is breathtaking.
But that same scene transitions awkwardly into an okay bank robbery scene with a bit too much slow motion action. And that awkward transition really illustrates the movie’s main problems and weaknesses. Singer and his screenwriters have a tough time juggling their ambitions to tell an epic love story, explore the themes of our greatest, Christ like pop-hero’s return to a troubled world, and to manufacture a thrilling adventure spectacle all in the same two and a half hours. “Superman Returns,” for it’s immense budget (they’ve called it the most expensive movie of all time,) is not very exciting in the action/ adventure department. The best action sequence- Superman desperately racing to save a plane from crashing that was unable to detach from a space shuttle that was supposed to launch off of it- is contrived at best. The whole situation makes no sense other than as a crisis cooked up by screenwriter’s for Superman to deal with. Despite the bizarre logic of the sequence, it is well executed and exciting. But the movie’s action peaks with that scene- no sequence later in the film lives up to it.
The struggle with any Superman story is to give him an enemy that can really create any sort of threat to him- he is so powerful, afterall, that it takes a very clever writer to come up with a villain that can even make Superman break a sweat. Singer’s solution to this problem is to basically sidestep it for the whole movie. Superman and Lex Luthor are only in ONE SEQUENCE together. Yes, Lex wields the dreaded Krytonite, and when he comes face to face with Superman, his actions are rather brutal- in fact, the scene becomes akin to a bloodless “Passion of the Christ.”
*SPOILER WARNING*
But after Lex leaves Superman for dead, that’s it. Superman does not come back and defeat Lex- since all he has in his bag of tricks against Superman is Kryptonite, once he uses it, there is not much Lex could do to deal with Superman. SO THEY JUST DON’T DEAL WITH EACHOTHER AGAIN. It’s a huge letdown, but so is the entire film’s treatment of Luthor- Kevin Spacey is perfectly cast, and does what he can with the role. But there is simply not enough for him to do for him to become a classic villain. His entire evil plan- grow a new continent near North America using crystal technology from Superman’s home planet- is pretty damn lame and nonsensical as well.
*END SPOILERS*
Luthor is by far the biggest disappointment of the film- he just simply has nothing to do. When the movie cuts between Superman’s story and his, it doesn’t feel like the film is building to something- it almost feels like two separate films entirely. And that is the movie’s main problem- the film is aiming to be an epic story, but it just feels so disjointed. The individual moments that are so powerful, and so right, do not gel with the film as a whole.
The casting is problematic too- Kate Bosworth is a pretty Lois Lane, but she’s not terribly compelling. She’s not awful, but she doesn’t leave much of an impression. Brandon Routh, on the other hand seems like a good choice for Superman/ Clark Kent- but for some reason the movie never really lets us get close enough to really care about him or get to know him. As much as one of Singer’s themes was how disconnected Superman feels from humanity, he makes us as an audience feel too remote for him- I really never feel like I was ever able to get a good impression of how I felt about Routh’s performance. I hope I get to know him a bit better in the inevitable sequels.
There are a lot of great ideas in the film, and a few bad ideas, and some just really bizarre, what were they thinking ideas. I admire Singer’s ambitions and I think his heart was in the right place. But in the end, he didn’t quite nail the landing. The idea of doing a return story was a good notion- it would get rid of the origin story that hampers most first films in a superhero franchise (but did make “Batman Begins” that much more potent,) yet the movie still stumbles in the storytelling just as much as all those first films have in the past. I’d like to see what Singer can do if he returns for the sequel.
“Superman Returns” is a good movie that is frustrating because it’s not a great one. It’s definitely worth seeing for the great moments, because they soar in a way a story about America’s most enduring myth should soar. The problem is that those moments don’t come often enough during the film’s two and a half hour running time.
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