Superman re-runs They did it with Batman last year. They did it with James Bond last week. These days, it seems Hollywood is gong back to basics with its top franchises, showing us new sides to our old heroes. This summer it was Superman's turn, as X-Men director Bryan Singer flew the coop to bring us this new tale of the Man Of Steel.
Superman appeared in a string of big-budget (for the time) movies in the late 70's and 80's, played by Christopher Reeve. After a couple of popular outings, the series went downhill with the largely comical Superman III (starring Richard Pryor) and the laughable Superman IV: The Quest For Peace (which featured our hero throwing all the world's nuclear weapons into the Sun).
For Superman Returns, the makers have wisely decided to ignore the last two episodes and take up the plot after the second, most interesting movie. In that story, Superman abandons his powers to marry Lois, revealing his identity for the first time. After that episode concluded, we are told, Superman left Earth to try to find the remains of his home planet, Krypton. As the title would suggest, Superman Returns begins just as Superman returns from his trip. In the five years while he has been gone, the world has moved on without him. Lois has a new partner and a child, while Lex Luthor is out of prison and plotting again.
In many ways, this is just like the movies of the Reeve era. Unlike what Christopher Nolan did with Batman, Singer has been very careful to remain true to the previous films. John Williams's music makes a welcome return, with variations on the original themes. Brandon Routh is uncannily similar to Christopher Reeve, especially when playing Clark Kent. And structurally, everything is exactly as it was before. Lex Luthor surrounds himself with muscle-bound henchmen and a dumb female. Even his evil plot involves the selling of real estate, just like the first movie.
The film is more brutal in places. Superman does receive an ass-kicking unlike anything we saw before. And the CGI obviously gives far better results than the old bloke-on-a-wire-in-front-of-a-green-screen technique that impressed us all 20 years ago. But this is essentially the same film we have seen before: there are earthquakes and explosions, heavy things topple towards groups of screaming people, Superman swoops in at the last minute and saves them. There is a LOT of swooping in at the last minute in this film. At one point I thought it was going to get very interesting, as Superman seemed to be trying to save everyone from dying all over the world. I would have liked to have seen that pursued further. After all, even Superman cannot be everywhere at the same time. Think how many people must have been dying in accidents on the other side of the world while Superman wasted time flying around romantically with Lois over a moonlit city. By the way, he does this AGAIN in this film, with similar musical accompaniment to before.
Also, I have never really warmed to Superman as a hero. He is too powerful. With Spiderman, he has well-defined powers. He is strong. He walks on walls. He shoots webs. Oh, and he has senses danger with his "spider sense". The X-Men have their own, limited specialities. Superman, on the other hand, does everything. He flies, he's super-strong, super-fast, bulletproof, he has super-breath, he can go into space, he can make time run backwards, he can see through walls, he has super-hearing, he shoots frickin' laser beams from his eyes... the list goes on. Unless he's hit with kryptonite, everything is easy for Superman. He isn't vulnerable. That's no way to make a good drama.
All in all, this will probably kick-start the franchise for some more films which may turn out to be very good. But I wanted more from Superman Returns than just Superman Re-runs.