Superman Returns(Delayed review/comments)
I buried my initial (spoiler-free) reactions to the movie back in The Ol' Switcheroo post on the 29th because a key group of regulars (Tammy, D, Tony, Mark & Lisa) here weren't going to see it that early... not until today, in fact. Come to think of it, no signs of a viewing from Tim or Dwight so far, and I'm not sure which one surprises me more. Probably Dwight, because I'd not only expect him to be out to see it fairly early but because he's been posting often through the past couple weeks (Which I'd been too occupied to notice until today, though I hope to get around to making some comments over there on a couple of them before the weekend's out), while Tim's been too pinned down.
I'm going to quickly cobble together... somewhere between a scattering of comments and a review from the brief post I made the morning after seeing the movie and various other comments I made off-site.
I caught it Wednesday night, June 28th - the nominal "opening day" despite reports from some locations that showings were beginning as early as 10 pm Tuesday the 27th. Uh... how early can they get started on the "opening weekend" box office figures? (It's done fairly well at the box office, though at a little under the two week mark it still hasn't reached its production budget of $260 million -- a solid $40 M of which was holdover debt from various false starts over the past decade or so. I'm sure it'll make a profit for the studio in the long run, but it's going to take a while.)
An enjoyable film.
If you enjoyed the 1978 movie you'll almost certainly like this. It takes most of that film's best elements - to a degree that approaches embarassingly slavish in some respects -- and does them better. Nothing in the film was in the least bit surprising, which isn't necessarily a problem. Many little nods to elements in the first film and and, and overall it is almost certainly the launch of a successful franchise.
From here on down I'm going to presume you saw the movie or don't care about details being spoiled.
The Super Stalker bit was rather creepy, wasn't it? Superman floating outside the suburban mansion sitting along the waterfront where Richard, Lois and her son live, using his x-ray vision and super-hearing to spy on them definitely raised matters to an uncomfortable state, reminding us of the potential dangers of a superman who might be a little too human. One can't help but wonder how much he would have hung around had he arrived at a less family hour moment.
That the kid ended up being Superman's bothered me more because it made the situation of Lois' new relationship versus the one Superman walked away from less interesting. If the boy was really Richard's - and I give them credit for making Richard (James Marsden -- who we last saw as Scott Summers, about to be incinerated in X-Men: The Last Stand) a concerned, loving, heroic guy rather than some self-centered ass who caught Lois on the rebound and is someone to "free" her from - then Superman's attentions would have remained fully creepy.I avoided reading director and case interviews prior to the film because I was avoiding spoilers, and simply haven't bothered looking for them afterwards, but it struck me that while they were avoiding specific mentions to confirm it we were supposed to accept that not merely the events of the first film but some version of those in the second were also part of the backstory. For one thing there's the wry smile Lex gives the audience instead of an answer when Kitty (Parker Posey) asks him if he's ever been to the Fortress of Solitude before.
Also, it was in that second film when Supes decided to have his powers cancelled and subsequently bedded the abrasive, chain-smoking hag that was the Kidder version of Lois. (Okay, she didn't necessarily look this bad in the film, but the spirit of it certainly came through in her character.) His altered state at the time is likely the reason they were able to conceive a child, perhaps even why the kid's having all these medical issues and why his power's emerging as erratically as it is. (Yes, I know the piano hurling was triggered in a burst by the trauma of seeing his mother about to be killed and worse, but still...)While I enjoyed many aspects of the 1978 original, to be frank much of that film drives my finger to the Fast Forward button. That "Can you read my mind?" segment, for an egregious for instance, may as well have had "Intermission" flashing on the screen along with a helpful countdown clock. While some may discount Kate Bosworth's version of Lois for various reasons, most often her age, at least she gave us a Lois I could understand Clark/Superman falling in love with.
This latest film took the best thematic elements and, yes, somewhat slavishly, brought them into the here and now. I was pleased to not see the self conscious, play-it-for-laughs approach that was such an integral part of even the highly-lauded first film (an element that became worse almost by the movie) as people behind the camera and several of those in front of it seemed more worried about their reputations -- you know, if someone thought they were taking a comic book-based film seriously -- than they were in trying to make the movie work on the core concepts. Fortunately for us the subject matter's become so much more mainstream - so much more part of our popular culture - that we're finally seeing some quality work.
The selections from Marlon Brando (lines and scenes that were filmed originally for use in Superman II, btw, but legal problems due to a lawsuit at the time from Brando saw them cut and replaced with scenes of Kal El's mom) in particular laid on heavy Christ/savior themes that seemed a bit much to me.
I had no problems with Kevin Spacey's version of Lex Luthor, however, finding him playing the character as focused, amoral, but not played in the comic (in the bad sense of the word), over-the-top degree Gene Hackman took the character. (No knocks intended to Hackman -- it was plainly a decision that he and the directot felt appropriate circa 1978 -- but it aged poorly and in retorspect was a step backwards, as if comics-inspired villains all had to take a page from the 1960s Batman tv series.)Sure, the deathbed signing of the old woman's will (Noel Neill, who played Lois for most of the 1950s tv series and played a young Lois' mother in the 1978 version) so that he was sole inheritor was silly -- as if the estate wouldn't have been tied up in probate for years, especially seeing the hallful of vultures crowding her bedroom door. Still, I'm willing to overlook items at that level. His decision to build the tainted, pseudo-Kryptonia close enough off the East Coast that it would over-run the land mass rather than farther out to sea -- or out in the Pacific, where it would have a much more pleasant climate -- is easily enough explained away between personal vendetta against so many in Metropolis and wanting to attach it to North America in order to make the prospective use of any nukes against him far less likely. Presumably he was counting on other bits of Kryptonian tech to defend the place once he'd gotten Superman out of the way.
Visually -- and even when all else fails, a summer spectacle has to have the visuals to fall back on -- are nicely done, even if it takes a little while to get to them. I particularly liked the visual nods to the Max Fleischer cartoons, seen most fully in the scene below, though this isn't the most representative frame.
So, all in all, while it has its warts it's a nice return for the man of steel. Presumably this is the start of a planned three-picture franchise, and given age of the leads selected (Routh & Bosworth) they have a nice piece of lead-time to work with. Hopefully the need (or so it seems to me) for the next film to give him some more straight-up fights won't find the filmmakers reluctant to do so simply because they'll be afraid of being accused of unoriginality. It doesn't have to be renegade Kryptonians, but we do need to see some super-flashes coming from at least one opponent IMHO.
That's easily two years away at best, though. We'll likely be seeing (from the DC stable of heroes) Wonder Woman and maybe even The Flash - though the latter seems stalled - before Superman comes back. For the moment they've managed a good showing for the man of steel.
Comments
One continuing such 'moment' for me, though, was the fact that I was never, and I mean, not once, not even remotely, convinced that the people I was looking at on the screen were Superman and Lois Lane. In terms of visuals, I think the miscasting was spectacular. I had to just deal with that and move on, obviously, and once I had decided to simply accept that neither Superman nor Lois Lane were actually 17 years old, and hadn't conceived a child together at the age of 12, I could enjoy most of the movie. But I am left to wonder how Jimmy Olsen was allowed to work at the Planet five years earlier than this film's setting, when he was obviously 8 years old.
Certainly there were problems -- much of what was done with the Kryptonite, and how selectively it worked on Superman late in the movie, for instance. I don't know that I'm capable of taking Superman out of the "well, it's magic" category of superfolk (ie take him really seriously), so providing he doesn't fly faster than the speed of light and make time flow backwards, I'm likely to take it in stride.
Overall, the movie was something I could work with instead of the repeated bitch-slapping the folks behind X-3 pushed on me.
That Superman and Lois Lane are more plot points than characters to me, and that I've seen them portrayed in too many ways by too many different people for me to have them firmly set in my mind in a certain way may be a factor. If they were suddenly cast with Black or Asian actors, for instance, that would have been beyond the point of acceptance for me. If they actually had cast them with teenagers, that would have been a problem, too, but the age element (Routh's 25, Bosworth's 23 and the guy who played Jimmy's 24) didn't bother me in the least. People's apparent ages can vary vastly from their actual ones; I've worked with people who were 5 and even close to 10 years older than any person without prior knowledge about them would casually guess. One person I worked with around '87 didn't look much more than 5 or 6 years older than me (at the time, of course) but he had a wife, three kids and had done a tour of duty in 'Nam.
So, for me, they were Lois and Clark/Superman from the moment they appeared on the screen, as they were introduced in context. The only one I had a problem with was Frank Langella as Perry White, mainly because I've seen him in too many roles over the years. My first thought upon seeing him was along the lines of "Damn, Dracula's looking pretty long in the tooth..." Though I've seen Spacey in many, many roles I didn't have any problems with him.
And the only comment I heard Highlander make yesterday was not believing Supes throwing Kkkkyyyppptonite Island into space so easily when less amounts allowed him to get crucified, um, beaten and stabbed.
I'd even commented on your entry back on the 29th, but then I forgot. We'd both held back on making detailed comments so I fixed it in my mind that July 9th was the "safe" date to discuss it here.
Seeing him prevail that way over the kryptonite-laced island was a tough sell, I agree. It wasn't a deal-breaker for me, as I could see some insulating factor coming from all the other crystal (likely enriched with mineral salts), and maybe the veins simulated there were far weaker than the concentrated shiv piece Lex had in his pocket, which desperately weakened him when Lex came close to him.
It still doesn't explain how he so quickly and fully recharged between being rescued, having the piece pulled out of him and going back to even attempt moving the island, but... it's Superman. The "Sense" meter gets recalibrated very low when I consider Superman. I took it that we're supposed to accept that found a desperate strength within at the critical moment -- you know, like the Grinch. ;) It laid Superman out afterwards, after all, while the Grinch didn't even get a hernia...