Superman Returns

Cafe Society
61

I saw it yesterday, and I loved it. Of course, I haven’t seen the earlier movies or read much of the comics.

As far as continuity goes, I think it’s only supposed to serve partial continuity. So only the events from the previous movies that are shown in the movies should be considered to be in continuity.

It was the first movie I’ve seen in a long time that really awed me. I miss that experience. During the opening credits, I was thinking that it had everything that the Star Wars prequels were lacking.

62

I just saw this a day or so ago and I loved it. But there was one thing that vaguely bothered me:

Was anyone else irritated that Ma Kent’s dog was a yellow lab, and not a white dog reminiscent of Krypto?

I mean, sure, it would have killed the little “go fetch the ball I just basically threw into orbit” bit - but it would have made me smile to see the little feller. I wouldn’t want him to fly or anything goofy - but just seeing a white dog would have made the movie that much better for me.

While I’m talking about it - the baseball diamond, landing the plane segment - freaking brilliant. My whole theater erupted into applause (which I normally hate - but here it seemed appropriate).

The Doctor

63

I have to see this movie again. In one of the opening scenes, Martha Kent is saying good bye to someone. OK, I thought to myself, this is set before Johathan dies. Someone is seen to be driving away as she washes the dishes. A few minutes later the spaceship crash lands in the field (you’d think there would be a better way to land the sucker), she goes out to observe, and there’s the adult Clark/Superman emerging from the wreckage. :confused: :confused: So who was the person leaving the house just a short while before? Has Martha got a (wink, wink) gentleman friend? If so, why wasn’t this explored further? If not, what was the point of showing him in the first place? Still :confused: .

64

The opening sequence was definitely fun to look at, but I became increasingly annoyed at the gratuitous whoosing on the soundtrack.

65

We saw this last night at the drive in (double feature with “Pirates”) and I liked but didn’t love it.

Not impressed with Lois. Not enough time with Clark (who is cute as a button). Not enough evil menacing Lex, though I thought Spacey was really good in the role.

And I was glad the kid didn’t end up saving the day. I hate super precocious kids in movies, but he wasn’t.

66

Ok, let’s not fuck around. I give superman returns 4/5. It’s not perfect, but it is brilliant. Like I said, the pace is off. It feels like there is a lot of story missing, because such a simple story (Lex steals crystals, builds new island, superman saves) should not take over two and a half hours. Several story strands needed more time, and weren’t given it. Superman returns, not with a bang, but a whimper. Martha inspects the crash site, next thing Supes is there, collapsing. No big entrance, just there he is. He fucks about on the farm for a day, then off to the city. Hi mom. Bye mom. That’s kids for you. No real should-i-or-shouldnt-i return. Bang. He’s in the daily planet newsroom. Bit iffy. Next, the shuttle is in trouble, again, no real lead-up or dramatic entrance, just HERES SUPERMAN, in his new suit. No soul searching from Clark, as to whether or not he should help… just jump back in. Save the day, everyone’s happy. And this is the thing that got me the most; everyone (Bar Lois) was delighted to see Superman back. I was lead to believe that Supes would be facing a backlash for buggering off for so long. Would the world be glad to see superman if he returned after 9/11? Not really. There would be a few sour faces. I hoped there would be a few scenes in which people who lost loved ones that Supes could have saved confront him and tell him to fuck off. Anyway. His whole reason for leaving was badly explained. Astronomers thought they found krypton, so he buggered off for five years. No time to tell Lois, but plenty of time to ensure his Daily Planet job was still waiting. Hey, I went to krypton, it wasn’t there, I’m back. I was hoping for better than that, like maybe Lex Luthor paid off some astronomers to SAY they found krypton, to get Supes to fuck off. And if I’m being really anal, in the comics Superman can see to the edge of the universe, so he wouldn’t have had to go anywhere. More pacing and editing problems include: Young Clarke sequence, the mystery as to what happens to the crystals at the end, which superman was so concerned about, lex’s final scene, which just seems like it was tacked on to hurry up the ending, and the whole superman in hospital thing was unnecessary and far too long, killing the breathless momentum that the film had built up.

Now.

The good news is that Routh was brilliant. Despite having maybe at best 60 lines of dialogue (if we checked, I’m sure jimmy Olsen would have more lines than superman) he shone through. I’m not sure at what point I became aware, but I realized that I wasn’t watching Routh play Clark Kent, or Routh playing Superman, or Routh playing Christopher Reeve playing Clark Kent… I was watching Clark Kent. Simple. I was watching Superman. Not an actor, just Superman. Been a long time since anyone convinced me of their character so much. Having said that, when Routh as Clark makes his first appearance, bumbling through the newsroom, when he turns to face the camera for the first time I nearly dropped my popcorn. The likeness to Reeve was astounding. Maybe it’s a tribute to reeve, or that reeve’s superman is so engrained in my consciousness, but Routh nailed reeve, so he nailed Kent, so he nailed Superman. I would say that he was better as Clark then as Supes, but then he didn’t have too much to do as Clark, unfortunately. Kate Boswell did her best as Lois, convincing me most of the time. The scene on the rooftop was beautiful, and very well done as anyone who has lost someone only to have them come back into their life will attest. Jimmy Olsen as comic relief was good. Any more, he would have been annoying, any less would be not enough. He got it just right. Frank Langella was great. Eva Marie Saint would have been great if she had more to do. Or anything to do. James Marsden was great… it’s tough to dislike him because he was such a good guy. The kid was good. He didn’t piss me off, so that’s a start. All lex’s goons were excellent, very menacing when needed to be. Parker Posey played her part very well, as in she was very annoying.

Kevin Spacey as Lex Luthor was brilliant. Just the right size of crazy. His annoyance at Superman was well played. He wasted no time giving Supes a good kicking when he had the chance. No big speeches. No “here’s my plan, before I kill you”. Just stab Supes and throw him off a cliff. That scene was chilling, and reminded me of being small running out of the room when evil superman was fighting Clark in the junkyard.

The special effects were exactly as I wanted them. It felt like he was flying… that sounds dumb, but what I mean is that it looked incredibly real, it was something you could believe. You could feel the air in your lungs get colder when he flew higher… you could feel the clouds brush your face, leaving moisture on your clothes. You could feel the warmth of the sun on your face as you went higher. The heat vision, well, it was very good, even if I did want light sabers coming out of his eyes. The x-ray vision was brilliantly used. Artic breath was excellent, all the more so because his artic breath was usually the most laughable, obviously fake thing about the old movies. Everything blew up and crumbled as it should. The plane rescue was scarily well implemented, and parts of it were very reminiscent of Superman trying to stop a nuclear rocket in Millers DKR novel. Which is good. Some things I though could have been done better, with a better style, or framed in a better way… I have a slight problem with some aspects of Singers direction, not just in this, but in many of his films… he’s not as adept with a camera as say David Fincher… A lot of shots were very static, whereas a more visual director would have shown more flourish. Still, No real complaints.

Lastly, I want to talk about Superman’s son… I felt that this was handled a bit wrong… We get our first impression that things aren’t right when Lex waves the kryptonite at him, to no effect. Minutes later, he kills a baddie with a piano. For the last hour of the movie, he shows no powers at all. I felt this was badly handled… Jason’s identity should have come to light at the very, very end of the movie, instead of being touched on too early. I have no problems with Supes having a son (it’s perhaps the only original idea in the movie) but I felt it could have been handled better. Maybe if Jason had a bigger part in saving him at the end, like a blood transfusion… I dunno. And don’t get me started on Superman in hospital in his hospital pajamas… Christ. What an embarrassment. I really thought that maybe they would have killed him, and then the next movie could be Superman Reborn… Ah well. A scene between Lois and Martha Kent at the end would have been nice too.

All in all, its a great movie. I have no problem reccommending it to anyone. Its not without its flaws, thats for sure, and as with the Lord of the Rings, i watched it safe in the knowledge that a longer, better version would hit DVD before too long.

67

At first I read that as “first $2 snuggle” and was very confused, amused, and other things ending in -used.

But then I looked more carefully. obviously.

Overall, I didn’t think it was a very good movie. I agree 3/4-heartedly with the Superdickery reference; the whole super-boy thing annoyed me to no end, especially when the kid never did anything else.

68

Reviving an old thread. I got the DVD the other day, and finally watched it last night. I think it’s okay - since I don’t think this had ever been bumped.

I really enjoyed the movie. I was minorly disturbed by Super-stalker, but it effectively showed that Superman is, in reality, just a man. You get to see him pining for his lost love, and I think you get a sense that he knows that he screwed the pooch on that.

Superkid - I guess that was as well handled as it could be. Maybe it’ll provide a way to get Bizarro into the story line.

Lex - Kevin Spacey was fantastic. Everything from handing off his wig to the little girl at the beginning to looking at Kitty’s dog at the end was a joy to watch. We need more fun villains like that. One question: Was his scheme actually illegal?

Lois - eh. Better than Kidder, not as good as Terry Hatcher. I did like how her being headstrong and almost foolhardy put her in danger. I don’t think Margot Kidder’s Lois would have ended up on the boat.

Clark - I wish we could have seen more of him.

Supes - As I mentioned before, it’s nice to see him as a man. I did expect him to at least apologize to Lois when he showed up on the rooftop. Dick.

The plane/space shuttle sequence - Amazing. I was smiling like a loon the whole time. I had not felt that excited watching a movie in a very long time.

It did get a little long, but I only felt it at the end.

4.5/5 for me.

69

I wondered about the illegality of Luthor’s scheme as well a few months back – in the sense of wondering what charges he would face assuming Superman bothers to bring him to justice. I’d like someone with actual knowledge of the law (i.e., not gleaned from Dick Wolf shows) to chime in, but it seems to me that he’s definitely guilty of depraved indifference homicide (assuming that at least one person was killed during the catastrophe in Metropolis, whch seems likely). He was entirely aware that what he was planning was going to be horrifically dangerous and would kill great numbers of persons; I don’t think the fact that he committed said act in international waters would be a defense. I don’t believe he’d face any attempted murder charges for trying to kill Superman, but I could easily be wrong. Lastly, I don’t think he’d be on the hook for kidnapping Lois and her son. They were trespassing on his boat, and he didn’t become aware of their presence until after the boat was under way. I’m not sure he had any particular obligation to turn the boat around and return them. Anybody else care to evince an opinion?

70

And, of course even if it somehow managed to not kill anybody it still caused massive property damage.

71

I got the DVD last week & I’ve watched it 3 times already.

It seemed to be a tribute to the first 2 Reeve Superman movies more than a standard sequel or the rebooting of the James Bond & Batman franchises we’ve had lately.

I got the feeling that Routh was playing Reeve as Clark/Superman and got the Clark part down pat. I agree that he seemed a little distant & less friendly towards the folks he rescued compared to Reeve.

I was upset that they cast Kate Bosworth as Lois Lane - she’s too young, too pretty- until i saw the movie. She brought more maturity to the role than I had expected, but hers was a reinterpretation of LL rather than playing Margot Kidder playing the role. Contrasted with Routh’s (excellent) performance it was a little jarring.

Spacey was Spacey in this film. His smarmy, self-centered character (I can’t help see him as anything but Kevin Spacey) worked well as Lex Luthor.

Ovwerall, I’d give it 3.5 stars. A solid movie and it works well coming 25 years after Superman II.

72

Forgot to mention- in the ending credits they dedicated the film to the memory of Christopher & Dana Reeve-- Why not also to the memory of Marlon Brando? They used several minutes of his footage from the first 2 movies and his performance was probably the best in the movie.

73

Because the Reeves died fairly recently and both their deaths are still in the public consciousness much more than the great Brando’s. Also, MB’s appearance even in the '77 ('78?) flick was basically a cameo.

74

Dana died fairly recently (March 6, 2006), and Brando’s death (July 1, 2004) only preceeded Christopher Reeve’s (October 10, 2004) by 3 months. True, he only gave a cameo performance in Superman & SupermanII while Christopher Reeve was the star and will always be remembered as superman, but they did use his footage from those flicks in this one. I just thought it was kind of negligent to mention Dana Reeve but not Marlon Brando.

75

You’ve got me on the facts. Nonetheless, it doesn’t surprise me that the Reeves were mentioned and Brando was not. Mrs. Reeve’s death was unexpected (particulary since she died of lung cancer without being a smoker) and her husband’s decade of paralysis and public activism brought him a level of public sympathy that Brando didn’t possess.

76

That makes sense to me. Brando made a crazy speech about American Indians in lieu of an Oscar acceptance in…73? but that doesn’t seem to have parlayed into any kind of activism. The re-use of Brando’s cameo was a nice homage in itself.

77

I think they did explore it a little, but it ended up on the cutting room floor along with footage from Krypton. Somewhere I saw some footage that shows Clark meeting his mom’s (wink, wink) gentleman friend:

The fellow is polite a greagarious, and Clark is standing there looking utterly shocked as the man says “So… your mother says you flew in this morning.”

Clark just looks wide-eyed (presumably not knowing if the man is referring to “flying in” or “flying in” and answers “Ah… Yaaaaa.” It looks like it was set up to be a decent comedic scene.

78

I had serious issues with parts of this movie.

Actually, before I go there, let me agree with Maus - I liked seeing Superman with human (though creepy) feelings.

Kevin Spacey rocked. I want to see more of him in this role.

They also handled Superkid extremely well. Except for the “father and son” speech at the end, the only overt super-thing about the kid is the trick he does with the piano, and that was off-screen. Until the “father and son” speech at the end, it really felt like they were trying to keep it ambiguous.

The first big problem I had with the movie, was with the space shuttle/airplane scene. There’s no way that crash didn’t kill someone, somewhere. They made a big deal about the wings peeling away from the plane as it fell, had Supes dramatically punch his way through one bruning in mid-air in order to get to the plane, show it spiralling on fire towards a cityscape…then it disappears. The wings, magically, are no longer a problem. Okay, fine, the wings disintegrate in mid-air without injuring anyone. It’s…possible. So Superman needs to grab a falling jetliner loaded with people and keep it from smacking into Carlson and 3rd during rush hour. Does he grab a part of the plane that is designed for bearing weight, like a landing strut or one of the shuttle mounting brackets, or maybe a piece of wing stump? No… he grabs the fragile nose cone. The moviemakers knew it was fragile, they went through the effort of showing it crumpling. Apparently that section was strong enough to suppport the weight of the entire airplane, though it fell short of suspending my disbelief.

Then there were the bank robbers. The minigun on the roof didn’t make much sense. I found myself distracted by wondering about how the crooks could afford a disposable minigun and that ginormous counterbalanced mount and the helicopter, with the paltry amount of money they carried away from the bank in the duffel bag. I was kind of hoping they’d go way over the top and show cloth bags full of gold coins like in Spider-Man 2. But the scene took itself so seriously that it, too, brought my disbelief crashing down.

And how about Superman floating in orbit, listening to the sounds of the world, with his cape fluttering in the breeze? In orbit. I know this movie isn’t a physics primer, but come on. If you’re going to take pains to show him creating a fireball upon re-entering the atmosphere, you can at least cut down on the interstellar cape-wafting draft in outer space.

My biggest gripe was with Lois. I can’t picture brass-knuckles bossy get-the-Pullitzer-story Lois as a 23-year-old. This Lois had no fire inside her. Lois is supposed to pretty, sure, but she’s also supposed to have grit and determination and experience and humor. They should’ve switched acresses. Parker Posey, in my opinion, would’ve been much more convincing.

79

Much as it pains me to admit it… the movie could have used a fight scene between Superman and a giant mechanical spider.