Why the world doesn't need Superman Returns
Your first, immediate question: hit or miss? Man, I have to admit, expectations were flying pretty high. This is Bryan freakin’ Singer we’re talking about. He, who directed The Usual Suspects and brought us Keyser Soze. He, who did the impossible and successfully adapted the super convoluted comic book The X-men to the big screen, twice. At worse, Superman Returns could have just been a showcase of inventive and crowd-pleasing action sequences topped with a little bit of self-parodying. But alas, the movie lacks humour, with a pace slower than King Kong, has many hole-ridden plots (the public blindly accepts Supes’ return without any question, and that ‘what the-???’ twist), and some unoriginal action sequences. Could they have come up with something more creative than T2’s Gatling gun shootout and the flying scenes from The Matrix Reloaded? I would have expected this from directors like Brett Ratner (who, ironically, was previously attached to Superman Returns), but Singer? Why???
To give him benefit of the doubt, I replayed the movie in my head over and over again just to make sure I wasn’t just overwhelmed by unrealistically high expectations. But, apart from good supporting turns from Kevin Spacey (a vicious Lex Luthor) and Parker Posey, and a few nice but still obviously CG action (props to the bullet-eye sequence), there was not a single truly standout moment. Brandon Routh? Someone mentioned “mannequin”, but to be fair this is his first– ah, screw it. Mannequin. This version of Supes/Clark is stoic, cold and distant. He speaks so little in the entire movie he could have been a supporting role easily played by any other beefcake. Kate Bosworth? Actually the problem is more on Lois Lane, who transformed from plucky, accident-prone busybody reporter to bland and super-serious Pulitzer Prize-winning career-woman reporter. Yay to realism, but where’s the fun in that? I mean, the script doesn’t even allow her to laugh or even smile throughout the freaking two-plus hour movie!
Did they at least nail the romance part, or at least pull off something passable? Well, that can be summarized in two words:
“Bye, Lois!”
Every time Lois and Supes are alone together, with every opportunity for Lois to question Supes on his disappearance, or even get into some good old-fashioned lovers’ quarrels, Supes just smiles, says “Bye, Lois”, and takes off. And he keeps doing this throughout the movie, ad nauseam! Then, there’s another freaky thing that kept bugging me throughout the latter half of the movie, concerning the aforementioned “twist” which I have to reveal now, so look away.
You see, shortly after Supes left, Lois had a baby. Now, if it weren’t for Lois’ long-term fiancé Richard White (James “Cyclops” Marsden), you would have guessed that the baby’s Supes’. Or not, because you would need to have either watched at least Superman 2 or caught some hints in their few brief conversations that they had made whoopee before (hints that I noticed: zero). Because Superman Returns never indicated in flashbacks or whatnot of the baby-making process (a post-Superman 2 Super Sex Scene, which, to my humble opinion, would have added a much needed sex appeal to the non-existent chemistry between the lead actors, and is also something everybody secretly wants to see), therefore Superman Returns must be the direct intended sequel to Superman 2. But, in Superman 2, Supes erased Lois’ memories of their intimate times together. So, isn’t it more than a little creepy to suddenly realize that your 5-year-old kid is actually Superman’s, even though you don’t ever remember sleeping with that guy? “Oh my God, could it be that Superman like flew through my window one night five years ago and raped me while I was unconscious?” Well, of course not, duh, it’s Supes we’re talking about here, and it was clearly consensual in Superman 2 (ahem). Yet, No explanations were given. This crept me out and made me frowned throughout the remainder of the movie, and I’m sure at least a few other people were experiencing that too. If they had put in the aforementioned Super Sex Scene (post-Superman 2, of course), it would have eliminated the need to link back to Superman 2 and prevented the unintended creepiness. What the heck, just making Supes verbally explain it all at the end would have been enough. But instead, the movie chose to end with the grandest, raddest closing remark in cinematic history.
“Bye, Lois!”
My dream Superman movie would have a still-alive, still-unparalysed 50-year-old Christopher Reeve from an alternate universe reprising his famous role in a movie based on DC Comics’ legendary mini-series called Kingdom Come. Anyway, Reeve or no Reeve, no movie producer would have the balls to adapt it. Some hotshot from TV would probably beat them to it (again). - BMF |
