Saturday, July 15, 2006
Review: Superman Returns
It’s hard to separate objectivity for nostalgia, especially with sequels. I don’t see nostalgia as that much of a bad thing, on the contrary, it’s refreshing to look back over the years and see what inspired you, what you loved, and how it’s changed. A lot of movies are built on nostalgia. Dazed and Confused for instance, an incredible film which has nostalgia at its core, while telling a brilliant self-contained story. Superman Returns is also built around nostalgia, both in the filmic world and in every aspect of its creation. Bryan Singer’s film has taken 1978’s Superman: The Movie and used that now-classic portrayal of the Man of Steel as a template for the pseudo-sequel. I can’t really blame him, to be honest. That film has been indelibly imprinted into the hearts and minds of people for generations, and not paying tribute to it would be like a Led Zeppelin compilation without ‘Stairway To Heaven.’ Sure, you can do it, but it would never feel completely right.Many have called Singer’s film a remake. I wouldn’t go that far. It definitely shares a lot of things, and Singer homages Donner many times, from specific lines to parts of the structure. But as far as I’m concerned, Superman Returns is its own beast. But is it any good?
Superman Returns opens with a pre-credit title card that explains in a nutshell what has happened. How he came to Earth, how they accepted him as their champion. And how, unexplainably, he left six years ago. Now he’s back, after searching for Krypton’s remains, and his world here is just as destroyed as his homeworld. The world has moved on, and so has Lois Lane, now a mother, who recently won a Pulitzer Prize for her article ‘Why The World Doesn’t Need Superman.’ But while Lois has moved on, Lex Luthor hasn’t. Released from prison because Superman failed to show to give testimony, Lex is determined to get back into the world of real estate and continue his crusade to take over the world. And he isn’t going to let a little thing like Superman get in the way of his dream.
There’s one little moment in the film that really captures something I’ve always wanted to see explored with Superman. He’s hovering high in the atmosphere, and all you can hear is the wall of noise that comes from below. Screams. Police sirens. Gunshots. Cries for help. What follows is him singling out one sound to follow, which eventually leads to a foiled bank robbery, but that’s not important. It’s about Superman’s role in our world. In one scene, Clark sits in his Smallville home flicking through the channels, seeing news story after news story, all presenting the horrors that news television thrives on. Murder. Disaster. War. It’s a sobering image, one that conjures up our thoughts of how much our world could do with a Superman, and inevitably, it’s impossible not to think of September 11th in that context.
This is where people are probably going to be split into two camps (I don’t know if they have already, I’ve been avoiding all reviews and interweb chatter). I’ve heard it described as ‘emo Superman,’ and that’s probably not far from the truth. But I don’t mind that, in fact, I embrace it. Don’t get me wrong, I’m pushing for the sequel to be an all-out giant robot-fighting superhero epic. But that’s because the soul-searching story has now been told, and it’s that story I really wanted to see. I don’t know, it’s probably down to my own personality. When I write myself, I tend to write a lot of emotional turmoil, a lot of soul-searching, as opposed to a great deal of action. Maybe that’s just the person I am, but it’s what I’ve wanted to see from Superman for a while.
This is also the first portrayal I’ve seen of Superman since the first two movies that has really nailed down the fragile side of his soul. The human side. There are few things in the world that are worse than discovering the person that you loved - that you still love – has moved on. And despite the fact that in the end, we know she hasn’t moved on completely, because Lois and Clark are always going to be connected in some way, it’s still a painful experience, for Clark, and for the audience. This is a Superman who still has no trouble pulling planes out of the air and flying faster than a speeding bullet, but whose inner soul is fractured. As we see Clark watching Lois outside her house, it should be creepy, it should seem like a stalker moment. But it doesn’t. Like John Cusack in High Fidelity, who also spends lots of time outside his lost love’s home, this is a man who has lost his heart. He knows where it is, but he can’t get it. But it doesn’t stop him dwelling on every little moment. And all of us who have love and lost have done that.
However, there’s one aspect of Clark’s new life that I’m conflicted about. And this is where spoilers will apply, so if you haven’t seen the movie, I’d skip the next paragraph if I were you.
I’m talking about Jason, his son. Firstly, I like that it’s never explicitly explained. It seems like it’s such a personal thing between Lois and Clark, and it’s undoubtedly what she tells him as she whispers into his ear when he’s in hospital, but it’s something that’s so personal, especially with Richard and the people around him, that we shouldn’t hear it. Another aspect is how it affects Clark. Here is a man that – despite Lois – has always been an outcast, an alien in both the literal and emotional sense. Jor-El knew this, and Clark knows this, and this leads to one of the most touching scenes in the film, as Clark gives Jason his version of the speech Marlon Brando gave as he prepared to send his son into space. But on the other hand, where does this leave Clark? I hope that Singer and co haven’t painted themselves into a corner with this aspect of the film, but I’m not sure how they’re going to go with it, assuming a sequel follows. One thing that makes me glad is the portrayal of Jason himself. I was afraid that when he and Lois were locked in the pantry, he was going to rip the door off and go all Superboy, and thankfully, that doesn’t happen.The scenes where we do see Superman in action are pretty damn good, with the shuttle/plane sequence quite astonishing, both visually and editorially. It’s here where we finally see a Superman that takes advantage of the huge leap in visual effects, as we originally saw in 1978. The only bit that didn’t really work action-wise was the bullet time during the bank robbery. Again, maybe it’s just me, but that technique always takes me completely out of the movie.
But amongst the action, one of the things that I wasn’t sure I was going to get from the movie is emotion. The aesthetic of the film – beautifully shot on hi-def digital video – has a quality that people could see as sterile, but within that is buckets of emotion. Most of it, as expected, is borne out of Clark’s inner turmoil over Lois, but one of the most highly-charged emotional sequences was – and there’s more spoilers here, folks – when Lex finally gets his way with Superman. What we’re treated to is another portrayal of Clark as a fragile human, albeit via exposure to a lot of Kryptonite. Clark is punched, kicked, thrown around, and every blow is utterly heartbreaking as we see our hero, who we’re so used to seeing go through his enemies like they’re made of paper, ruthlessly beaten within an inch of his life.
Lex himself takes up a huge amount of the film. Spacey’s performance is superb, straddling the line between Hackman’s campy child-like villain and the more menacing and ruthless character from the comics. You got the sense that, even though Hackman consigned millions to die with his plan, he never had the menace and absolutely ruthless streak that Luthor has. Spacey never attains that completely, but brings a nice balance to the character. In fact, the performances are very good across the board. Brandon Routh does the impossible, he gives us a Superman that – while paying homage to Christopher Reeve – never feels like he’s completely emulating him. I think it’s fair to say that, well, the torch has been passed, and Routh is Superman. Kate Bosworth was the person I was most worried about, but she’s a fine Lois Lane. It’s not the same character as before, rather someone who has mellowed a bit through time, but in the context of the film, she works, as does James Marsden as Richard White who, while wasted in the X-Men movies as Cyclops, gives a very good performance here. The same goes for the kid who plays Jason.People always say that music usually provides much of the heart and soul of a movie, and that’s very much true here. John Ottman’s score is brilliant, striking a fine balance between John Williams’ original themes, and his new material, which is very good. The benchmark of a theme to me has always been its hummability, and I’m already humming at least two of Ottman’s new themes.
From what I can gather from the few people I’ve heard from about the movie, the general consensus is that it’s too long, and while it never, ever felt like two and a half hours while I was watching it, I definitely think it could lose half an hour. The flashback to his days as a boy, while fun, is unnecessary, and some of Luthor’s material could have been excised, as could some of the denouement. However, I did like the scenes in the hospital, mostly because it brought the film full circle in proving Lois’ article wrong. The legions of people standing outside the hospital, waiting for any news on their hero, reminds me of the train scene in Spider-Man 2, to an extent. Like Aunt May said, people love a hero.
As I said earlier, a lot of people’s opinions on the film will come down to this interpretation of Superman. And of course, that’s what it is, an interpretation. As much as I like to deny it, it’s the same with Batman Begins. That portrayal of Batman is an interpretation. It’s an interpretation I may not agree with, but it’s still a valid interpretation. Superman Returns is the same. But while I think back at the film, there’s a sense of gratitude inside at this moment, the same way as when you see an old friend for the first time in a long time. Superman is back.Welcome home, son. You’ve been missed.
8 and a half Ursas out of 10
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