7/10/06
Versus:
Superman Returns vs. Superman - Birthright
I'm going to avoid using the gimmick of setting up this column fight-night announcer style and just cut right to the chase. This review will examine the first new Superman movie to come out in a long time, Superman Returns. Unlike most movies based on comic book properties, the storyline for this film does not base its storyline from any particular story arc featured in the Superman comics. Therefore, the Superman story I have chosen to base my comparison on is Superman - Birthright, a revamp of Superman's origin crafted by writer Mark Waid and artist Leinil Francis Yu. The last Superman film to come out before Returns was the abysmal Superman IV: The Quest for Peace, which was released in 1987, almost twenty years ago. The last comic book to retell Superman's origin was Superman - The Man of Steel, written and drawn by John Byrne and published in 1986, which is almost twenty years removed from Birthright's original publishing date.
So, with that admittedly weak common bond established, I guess there's only one more thing left to say: "Let's get it on!!!"
What the movie got right
As I stated in my review of X-Men: The Last Stand, Superman Returns is the movie project that prompted director Bryan Singer to jump ship from the X-Men movie franchise. Singer, who has professed his love for the Superman movies, went so far as to seek out Richard Donner, the director of the first Superman movie, to get his blessing to direct Superman Returns. He stated that he would not have directed the film if he did not get said blessing.
The end result of this devotion is a movie that, unlike Batman Begins, honors its cinematic predecessors not just in spirit but in storytelling. Superman Returns uses the first two Superman movies as a rough continuity. It is set a little more than five years after the events in Superman II. Kal-El (played by relative unknown Brandon Routh) has been long absent from Earth, engaged in a vain attempt to locate his homeworld of Krypton, and the human race has for the most part learned to live without him. Even the love of his life, Lois Lane (played by Kate Bosworth), has moved on with her life, with a husband and son in tow. And Lex Luthor (Keyser Soze himself, Kevin Spacey) is fresh out of prison with an ill-gotten inheritance and an even more diabolical scheme to kill millions in the name of landing some prime real estate.
Like it or not, no matter how well the script was written this movie would stand or fall because of the cast. Singer, who is no stranger to getting the best people for the job, be they unknowns or mega-stars, didn't slip with casting this movie. Brandon Routh does a wonderful job of picking up where the late Christopher Reeve left off, at least in his portrayal of Superman. His acting as Clark Kent wasn't as flawless and genuine as Reeve's, but he is new to both roles and displays the potential to get even better at playing both characters. Kevin Spacey, as expected, chewed up the scenery with his portrayal of Luthor. He lacks Gene Hackman's combination of hubris and charm, but makes up for it with a Lex that is a lot more cold and calculating, with a much welcomed menacing edge. As for Lois Lane, I had my doubts about how well Kate Bosworth could pull off the role. I mean, this is a woman supposedly in her late 20's/early 30's, and she is being played by someone much younger. Well, as Michael Keaton did when he put on the cowl as Batman, Ms. Bosworth proved me wrong. It's not that her portrayal of Lois was terrific, but she was effective enough in the role to make me forget how young she really is. Even the supporting cast is well-chosen. Frank Langella wasn't Singer's first choice to play Daily Planet chief Perry White (the role was originally meant for Hugh Laurie, star of the Singer-produced TV show House), but he definitely looks and acts the part. Lois' husband Richard (played by Jason Marsden) is portrayed as a refreshingly sympathetic romantic foil for the Man of Steel, and Marsden ironically shows more charisma in this supporting role than he did as Cyclops in all three X-Men films combined.
The acting was on par (for the most part) with the first two Superman films, but where it really shined was the action sequences. All of the major powers sequences in the film served to illustrate just how deserving the Superman franchise is of modern special effects. From catching a crashing jumbo jet to using heat vision in a wide arc to vaporize falling glass, all the powers sequences were perfectly executed.
In comparing the movie to Superman - Birthright, which is now considered the definitive origin of Superman, I would say that Birthright could have benefited from having a little more action in it. As long as the story was (the original series was 12 issues long), some of the time devoted to establishing how Clark Kent didn't fit in with the rest of the staff at the Daily Planet could easily have been replaced by seeing more of Supes in action. Don't get me wrong, I'm a big Mark Waid fan and I thought Leinil Yu's artwork was well-done, but Birthright moved at a somewhat slower pace (out of necessity, since it's an origin story), emulating the TV series Smallville in its storytelling style & pacing. It's hard to strike a balance between action and characterization, but Superman Returns gets it right.
Where it went wrong
As much as I enjoyed this movie, it has a problem, one so glaring that when I heard about it before the films release I almost didn't even go to see the movie and it involves a couple of plot spoilers, one of them major. For the gentle readers that have not seen this movie yet, consider yourself warned and skip the entire "Where it went wrong" section of this review (by clicking Skip the Spoilers!).
Spoiler Warning part I
As I mentioned earlier in the review, Lois has a husband and a young son. In Superman II, Superman gave up his powers for a brief time so he could be with Lois Lane. Well, even de-powered as he was his little soldiers must have still been pretty darn potent because that kid is…wait for it…SUPERBOY! That's right, F'n Superboy! On the one hand I can admire the boldness of the script in attempting to pull this off, but on the other hand it came off (to me at least) as rather contrived. It was rather touching to hear Superman rattle off the same exact line to Junior that Marlon Brando said to him, but the movie would have been just fine on its own without this little "twist", and it would have cut down on the almost three-hour run time to boot. As to what this means for the future of the franchise, I think my wife summed it up best: "Great, now Superman is going to be a weekend dad!" God I love my wife, I couldn't have said it any better myself.
Spoiler Alert part II
An area of the film where logic seems to fail is when Superman hauls the "Kryptonite Continent" into the outer atmosphere. He's got a slab of earth protecting him from the Kryptonite as he moves it upward, but the Kryptonite starts to fall through and get seemingly as close as 5 feet away. I wouldn't have thought anything of it, but I found it hard to swallow that he got his arse kicked by Luthor and his goons earlier with it much further away from him, and yet he was still able to throw his load into orbit with the Kryptonite much closer to him. A little consistency please!
The major problem I had with this film characterization-wise is that the dynamic between Lois and Clark reverted right back to where it was in the Chris Reeve films, where Lois floats between mild amusement with him and total lack of interest in him. I'm not saying they should get hitched, but even before they got together they had a wonderful professional rivalry going in the comics. Where Superman Returns chose to ignore this, Superman - Birthright embraced it wholeheartedly. The rivalry established when John Byrne revamped the character in 1986 is taken to the next level, and Lois' verbal jabs at Clark almost make you want to go "Oh snap!" and "Oh no she didn't!". We haven't lived in the 80's for quite some time, so I would expect that their relationship could have been shown as at least a little more mature.
When the smoke clears
Well, I was fairly harsh on this film in the last few paragraphs. But despite the flaws, Superman Returns is still well worth going to see at the theaters. It is a well-executed throwback to the Chris Reeve movies, and has the same sense of wonder and excitement. Between that and the use of the same John Williams opening theme in the credits, I felt at times like a young child again watching this movie (the writer of the PvP comic strip felt the same way, if a recent strip of theirs is to be believed: http://www.pvponline.com/archive.php3?archive=20060702). And I haven't felt that way about a comic-book movie since…well, since Superman II. The franchise is finally back. Now if only Supes would use that amnesia touch on all of us so we can forget the "twist" mentioned earlier.
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