Superman Returns

Does the world need Superman? That's one of the questions posed in Bryan Singer's majestic, and often unfairly maligned super hero movie "Superman Returns".

"Superman Returns" is often cited as a box office failure, with a cool critical reception. It was low on action, and slow on story, in many people's minds, it dies a quick death. For the record, it was critically acclaimed for the most part and did make all its money back. It may not have been the box office darling the studio was hoping for, but let's try to forget for a moment that dollars mean anything.

With this film, Singer goes back to where Richard Donner left off with his original "Superman", (which in my mind is still the best super hero movie ever made). Superman (Brandon Routh an uncanny double for Christopher Reeve) has been gone for five years, abandoning his post as Earth's hero to go out and find any remnants of his home planet of Krypton. When he comes back, he finds the world in rough shape with war, death, and crime still running rampant. As Clark Kent, he comes back to his job as mild mannered reporter to find his sidekick Jimmy Olsen (Sam Huntington) still the same go-getter and his boss Perry White (Frank Langella) still the same hard-nosed boss. However Clark has discovered his one and only true love Lois Lane (Kate Bosworth) has moved on without him. She is now engaged to Perry's nephew, has a new son, and if that wasn't enough, is about to win the Pulitzer Prize for an article entitled "Why the World Doesn't Need Superman".

To top things off, The Man of Steel's arch enemy Lex Luthor (Kevin Spacey) is out and about stealing crystals from Superman's Fortress of Solitude in order to create his own tropical paradise, and just so the man in blue won't be knocking he's sprinkled a little krytonite into the mix.

"Superman Returns" brings a heavy weight on its shoulders, and Bryan Singer must've known this. This film was an attempt to bring the most recognizable super hero back into movie theatres after a long absence. Since the last "Superman" film with Christopher Reeve, the movie climate changed. Tim Burton went on to make the stylistically noirish "Batman" and "Batman Returns". Singer himself, joined in when he made "X-Men", the the ball really dropped when "Spiderman" came on the scene, followed by Christopher Nolan's "Batman Begins" which jump started a new film series.
Super heroes were soon to be seen all over, and they became their own genre. Of course, Superman, the one that started it all could not be left in the dust.

Much of "Superman Returns" is about what makes Superman so great, why we love him, and why he's really the superest of the super heroes. Bryan Singer obviously felt an influence towards Donner's earlier film. Aspects of the original film can be found all over this one, right down to having Marlon Brando come back in a cameo as Jor-El.

Also like the original, the Superman as Christ allegory is used, even more so than before. Superman is often seen high in the sky, looking down as an omnipotent being. One of the most astonishing images is him above the Earth, being able to hear everything and everyone down below. In the film, Superman is often regarded as a "Saviour", so perhaps Singer is asking a more spiritual question than "Does the world need Superman?". Maybe, although perhaps he might not be totally successful, I admire Singer for actually making the attempt to draw on religion in a super hero film.

As I look at "Superman Returns", I see a film that struggles to be something more than what it is, and that takes guts to do. It doesn't become stuck in its conventions of it's genre like so many other less memorable super hero movies are. There are moments of true poetry and majesty in the way we see Superman's world through his eyes, this was something even the Donner film didn't even do as well. Many of the images are vivid such as Superman's spying on Lois as she goes into the elevator. She is elevated in his eyes as the doors are removed with his see-through vision, and it looks as if she is ascending like an Angel, it's quite romantic if you think about it.

Singer tries a lot with "Superman Returns", and I would say most of it works, there are things in it that no one has ever tried in a super hero movie, in my mind, it's the best of the modern ones.

It's a shame "Superman Returns" has gotten the reputation by fans and studio execs as a failure, it's really a great movie with more going for it than most other mainstream films even try to attempt. It's been reported that Christopher Nolan has taken over the "Superman" franchise as a producer, in order to update the character for a new audience. What Nolan and his collaborators have in mind I don't know, but it shouldn't diminish the pure cinematic experience of Singer's version, he had more going on than meets the eye, he attempted something beyond its genre trappings and made a memorable film in my mind.