Superman Returns
Directed by: Bryan Singer
Starring: Brandon Routh, Kate Bosworth, James Marsden, Kevin Spacey
Rated: PG-13 for some intense action violence.
Parental Notes: For the most part, this is a very comic-book film, with cartoonish violence that should be fine for most kids. However, there is a sequence near the end in which Luthor gets the best of Superman and nearly kills him, which is quite unpleasant and which may be too intense for some youngsters.
The newest film about the Man of Steel, “Superman Returns”, is yet another top-notch superhero movie from director Bryan Singer (“X-Men,” “X-2”). With Singer at the helm and veteran actor Kevin Spacey as the villainous Lex Luthor, it’s hard to go wrong, and newcomer Brandon Routh fills the blue tights and red undies of his predecessors with confidence. This is a great flick for the summer.
The story picks up after Superman (Brandon Routh, “Karla”) has been absent from Earth for several years. When astronomers discovered the remains of his home planet, Krypton, he set out to visit the ruins himself. Upon returning to Earth, he finds that a lot of things have changed. Lois Lane (Kate Bosworth, “Bee Season”) is a single mother and is in a serious relationship with Richard White (James Marsden, “X-Men”), Perry White’s nephew. She’s also been awarded a Pulitzer for an editorial explaining “Why the World Doesn’t Need Superman,” and she seems to have very determinedly moved on from her romance with the superhero.
Superman’s alter ego, Clark Kent, gets his job at the Daily Planet back . Nobody notices that he’s reappearing at the same time as Superman, of course. Nobody notices that one of Superman’s powers appears to be having totally perfect hair regardless of what he’s just been doing, either. It’s just one of those things you have to accept with superhero movies, like the way nobody notices that Clark Kent and Superman are obviously the same person.
Back to the story: editor-in-chief Perry White (Frank Langella, “Good Night, and Good Luck”) assigns Clark to check out an odd power outage — which we in the audience know was caused by Lex Luthor. The bald villain is out of jail courtesy of a technicality: Superman was supposed to show up to testify at a court hearing but was unable to be located. Luthor found his way to Superman’s Fortress of Solitude in the Arctic and stole the crystals hidden there. His plan is to use those crystals to create a whole new continent, drowning half the world and setting a premium price on his new real estate.
“Superman Returns” is a delightful blend of old and new. The sets and costumes are a wonderful mix of the 50s-era look from the older Superman material and modern fashion and technology. The cars people drive look old, but Jimmy Olsen (Sam Huntington, “River’s End”) shoots photos with a digital camera. It gives the film a feel at once familiar and alien; this is our world, and yet it isn’t.
Even better, the actors in the film are a blend of famous and little-known. Routh has a little acting experience under his belt, but nothing of this magnitude. The same is true of Bosworth. Their lack of blockbuster screen time is a definite advantage, allowing them to blend into the iconic roles without their own fame competing with the fame of their characters.
Lex Luthor, on the other hand, is a role best put in the hands of an experienced actor. It would be all too easy for the role to disintegrate into scenery-chewing and idiocy, but Spacey manages to make him just this side of cartoonish. In Spacey’s hands, Luthor is as he should be: vastly entertaining, but utterly frightening at the same time.
The special effects are generally quite good, although there are a few computer-generated sequences which don’t quite work. Computer effects haven’t quite reached the point where they can create the image of a moving human being from scratch, and there are a couple of sequences where that is painfully evident to an effects aficionado. The rest of the effects, however, from the growing land mass of Luthor’s to Superman’s powers, are mind-blowing.
“Superman Returns” is a fantastic summer film, sure to delight both long-time fans of the character and relative newcomers. It’s packed with references to the old Superman comic books and films, but not to the point of alienating those of us who aren’t in the know.