Marval Movie

This is the way the world ends, not with a bang , but a whimper

T.S. Elliot 

Bryan Singer had made huge headway with the first two X-Men movies propelling the superheroes into the twentieth century. Now that he had a lot of reputation under his belt he decided to undertake one of the greatest superheroes of all time, Superman.

The big buzz about this movie was that Singer was going to make it canon with the previous Donner and Lester movies (assuming three and four are taken out of the equation) and continue the story from there.

Superman Returns is about a Superman that went away for five years and then returned to a world that might not have needed him and a world that had also gained more problems that he knows how to deal with.

Brandon Roth is our Superman this time and he does a pretty good job, he is clearly channeling Christopher Reeve but does it well to the point that you can buy him as Superman. Bryan Singer made a huge effort to find someone to fill the boots of Reeve and one of the things he wanted was someone that looked like Reeve and Roth does do that, its almost a little creepy seeing him at some angles because he really does look so much like him. However the channeling also weighs him down sometimes, you can tell that Bryan Singer was probably telling him to be more and more like Reeve and his performance comes off just a little bit stiff, trying to be like Reeve and not giving us Roth's Superman.

We also get to see what Lois Lane has been up to in the time that Superman has been away, shes a mother. Wait what? That's right, Lois Lane the hard nosed reporter now has a four year old son as well as a partner named Richard, played by James Marsden.

James Marsden has built a career of being the rejected love interest, think about it, Cyclops in X-Men, the prince in Enchanted. Its hard to watch here because he's not a jerk or a coward or even does anything wrong. His only sin is that he got in the way of Lois and Superman. Perhaps that's why, its certainly not his fault, its just that he was the unfortunate one that got in-between two people that were meant to be.

A nice added touch, is that Bryan Singer used Marlon Brando's footage as Jor-El. Its good too see that Singer wasn't as cheap as Lester and even though its not never before seen footage that was in The Richard Donner Cut, its still good too see Brando as Jor-El. It is getting weird that Brando just like Jor-El is projecting himself long after his death.

For all its faults Superman Returns is well shot, the cinematography is nice and well lit. We do get the image and the grandness that Superman should come with and it does come with ambition. The persoalan is the same persoalan that made Star Trek the Motion Picture so hard to watch, its so ungodly boring!

Superman Returns is two and a half hours long, that's a long time for the average movie goer. I am for movies being longer because it means that the audience develops patience, the persoalan with Superman Returns is that it doesn't need to be a two and a half hour long movie. Shots drag on for too long and there are some shots, even some whole scenes that could be cut out of the movie and not be missed.

Another aspect of the movie that I admire about it is that even though this was the first Superman movie to come out in a few years and it wasn't the origin story told again, it was the next story. Whenever a superhero film franchise takes a break and comes back the producers always feel the urge to tell the origin story again and again. They must think that the public has a very poor memory, or they themselves have very poor memory.

Lex Luthor returns in this movie and he is played by Kevin Spacey. Like most of the movie he channels Gene Hackman's performance of Luthor. But here he gives himself more freedom and lets him play Luthor as Kevin Spacey would play Luthor i.e. like Kevin Spacey.

Perhaps the greatest flaw is that this is a continuation of the Donner/Lester movies and Singer and the writers get dragged down with the references and trying to tie this movie into the previous movie continuity and not allowing them to tell their own story. However its not bad looking, and if you have seen the previous movie then its still good for at least one watch.

Rating: 2 1/2 star out of 4