Superman Returns

6.5 out of 10

I understand people finding Superman a pretty lame superhero. When compared to the competition, he's kind of bland. I felt that way for years. Everybody's more interesting than Superman. Spiderman is a geek in a mask, both as Peter Parker and as the wisecracking webslinger. The X-Men have that mutant persecution thing and anti-heroes like Wolverine. Daredevil gets to overcome his blindness. And that Bruce Wayne, if you'll indulge me, is batshit crazy. And occasionally fascist.

But in the last few years, I've come to an appreciation of the Man of Steel. He's still bland, but that's part of being a perfect person. Supes is so boringly flawless that he's got to assume quirks to pull off Clark Kent. There's some natural melodrama in the Lois Lane romance, but that's so played out the comics dumped it decades ago. To make interesting Superman stories, you've got to treat him as an ideal, a powerful embodiment of everything that's good about humanity.

So maybe it's no surprise that the best Superman stories are not, technically, about Superman. Take Kurt Busiek's Secret Identity, about a young man in a world like ours, where Superman is a fictional character, who was cursed with the name Clark Kent. He hates the name and the obvious teasing until he actually becomes Superman. No planet Krypton, just the power of the story affecting the world. This Clark meets his beautiful Lois on a joke set-up and bond over their annoyance. The most ingenious part involves his relation to the government, who are realistically hostile to an anonymous being who could reshape the world. Superman could wipe us out if he wanted, but he could also reshape our world toward utopia.

That's exactly what the title character of Miracleman does with his superhuman abilities. Sure, this is really Captain Marvel (the Shazam! one in the DC comics) with his name changed from the UK version, but writer Alan Moore is clearly working on an ultimate-power model based on Superman. Moore took it even further with a Superman-clone named Supreme, even crafting meta-comics about the golden-age and silver-age Superman archetypes.

But enough about comics. We've finally reached the technology where a superhero movie can be as exciting and over-the-top as a comic book, so why doesn't anyone bother to tell a solid story with a solid screenplay? The bar gets lowered with every Fantastic Four so an adequate Spiderman get hailed as an achievement. Aside from The Incredibles (not based on a comic) the only superhero film I've found to be worth watching more than once is the widely despised Hulk. It's a one-story character, which helps the film to explore the Hulk's full depth. Hulk is just better made than most films, with remarkably innovative direction and editing. Be it gay cowboys or big green guys, Ang Lee is a hell of a director, and there's more stylish visual storytelling in Hulk than in both Spidermans, all three X-Mens, and the two Blade movies not directed by Guillermo Del Toro all rolled into one.

Still, we're making progress. Batman Begins had a number of flaws, particularly Katie Holmes and Christian Bale's Batman voice, but it treated its hero and villains as symbols for fear and justice, a definite step in the right direction. And, despite a number of minor annoyances, I think Superman Returns is another advance down the right road.

As the film begins, Superman has been missing for years, thus allowing him to return for the title. It's a good set-up, mostly because Lois Lane has moved on, sort of, giving a new romantic dilemma. She's got a fiancé, a kid, and a Pulitzer for a column entitled, "Why the World Doesn't Need Superman." (Doesn't she have a point? Human beings shouldn't rely on a semi-magical being to solve all their problems. I hesitate to dwell too much on this, because the film also raises some Christ parallels.)

Despite being a superhero movie, the film is at its best when dealing with the love triangle. Superman left for good reasons and is hurt that Lois has ended up with someone else. He's also a stand-up guy and knows he shouldn't interfere with her happy home. And yet, Lois has yet to actually get married after being engaged for years, so maybe there's still hope.

From her perspective, Lois is finally getting over the great guy who did her wrong. And then he shows up again, to the delight of pretty much everyone on Earth except for her and Lex Luthor. But she can't just avoid him since her boss decides she's the best reporter to cover the story. So she fumes, all the more so because she knows she isn't really over him. When he meets her on the roof to provide an apology and an exclusive interview, she discovers that he still inspires a passion she's been missing. Her fiancé's seaplane can't compete with the thrill of flying in Superman's arms. But she holds back, unwilling to betray a man who's been there for years.

And then there's her fiancé, Richard White. Making him the nephew of Daily Planet Editor Perry White seems a bit meaningless, but Richard's got a real dilemma here. He's a good guy and a little frightened by the return of his fiancé's old flame. Why shouldn't he be? Lois claims that nothing happened, but if goofy photographer Jimmy Olsen can tell she's putting off marriage because she's carrying a torch for the man in the blue tights, surely Richard has noticed something. How can he possibly hope to compete with Superman? Richard isn't bulletproof, has no heat or x-ray vision and needs a plane to fly. This doesn't rule him out completely: after all, Ilsa loved Rick as much as Nazi-escapee Victor Lazlo. So, like every other American tough-guy, Rick and Richard hide their breaking hearts behind a stoic façade and set aside their personal desire for the greater good.

Lois's offspring is a bit harder to discuss without stepping into spoiler-country and that warning might even ruin it for clever readers. I will say that his plotline is interesting but heavy-handed. With a few cuts to leave things more ambiguous it could have been far better.

Of course, the romance is only half the film. While everything else is going on, evil bald mastermind Lex Luthor is plotting to take over the world. Typical. Kevin Spacey rampages as a supervillain and Parker Posey is good arm-candy, it's just too bad they've got such a lame plan. It starts well, with Luthor sneaking into Superman's Fortress of Solitude and steals the archives of Kryptonian technology. This could illustrate Luthor's hubris, unleashing something he can't control (Brainiac perhaps?) but instead he just wants to use crystals to build a new continent in the middle of the Atlantic. This will put most of North America underwater, but Luthor doesn't care and that's what bothers me. Why doesn't he grow his continent in the middle of the Pacific (other than its remoteness from the rest of the film's action) and make money off Americans instead of killing them? Lex Luthor is greedy and evil, but he's not out to destroy the world. Again, a bit of trimming would have made all the difference, leaving Luthor recklessly curious about Kryptonian technology but not out to rule the world.

The film reverses the trend of most modern comic-book films by being more successful in the emotional elements than the action sequences. The first one is perfect Superman rescue, a struggle against gravity and momentum to save people by disconnecting a new space shuttle from the plane carrying it, then bring the plane full of reporters (including, of course, Lois Lane) safely back to the ground. Unfortunately, that's about all we get until the final act where he finally confronts Luthor. They exchange maybe three or four words before Luthor delivers the end-of-act-II setback with a Kryptonite shiv. It's like they knew the film was running a little long (it is 2 ½ hours long, but so what? I sit through Laurence of Arabia without blinking) so they rushed the final scenes and ruined the pay-offs. All of the action scenes, plane rescue included, add one or two too many unlikely developments to the scenario and destroy the Suspension of Disbelief. You would think SoD would be limitless in a Superman film, but then the seaplane takes off just above a waterfall.

I would also be remiss if I didn't mention Bryan Singer, perhaps the second best director making superhero movies. Sure, Nolan (Memento, Batman Begins) has got potential and Raimi (Evil Dead and Spiderman franchises) has got charm, but Singer's got technical chops beyond them. Superman Returns shows me the man who directed The Usual Suspects and Apt Pupil. (I should probably watch that one again. Ian McKellan was great, but that's about all I remember)

The best comics about Superman aren't really about Superman but stand-in characters, and the best movie about Superman isn't Superman Returns or Superman or Superman II. Superman III and Superman IV don't even come close. No, in my opinion, the best film about Superman is Quentin Tarantino's Kill Bill. Volume 2, if that's important. With a short speech from Bill, Quentin shows more understanding of Superman's struggle than any film explicitly about the hero. It isn't just a digression; it actually informs and explains the characters we've been watching for nearly four hours by the time the speech occurs. Compared to Kill Bill, Superman Returns is forgettable fluff. Compared to the other four Superman films made in modern memory, it's deep and substantive. We have yet to see a perfect comic-book super-hero film. Superman Returns succeeds where most others fail, albeit while failing where most others succeed. I just hope and pray they'll get everything perfect on Watchmen.

Directed by Bryan Singer; Written by Michael Dougherty and Dan Harris with Bryan Singer (story); Superman created by Jerry Siegel and Joe Shuster; Starring Brandon Routh, Kate Bosworth, Kevin Spacey, James Marsden, and Parker Posey; MPAA # 42582

Viewed on 27Jun2006 at Century Eastport #10

posted by Jesse Zander Corum @ 2:11 PM