SUPERMAN RETURNS

Director: Bryan Singer (X-Men I & II, The Usual Suspects)
Starring: Brandon Routh, Kate Bosworth, Kevin Spacey

As a child I was not a comic book fan. I never bought a single pulpy issue. As an adult movie fan, though, there's just no way to avoid the swarm of summer blockbuster superhero flicks. Some I've liked, most I've tolerated, and a few I've found so bad as to be insulting to the audience.

Director Singer's X-Men superhero movies were tolerable to likable enough summer entertainment, although nothing special. His Superman superhero movie lives in the same rather unexceptional place.

Superman Returns follows in the footsteps of the earlier Christopher Reeve films despite the new actors. The plot involves Superman "returning" to Earth after a 5 year hiatus while he searched the cosmos for his missing home world, Krypton. Lex Luther (Spacey) has been released from prison by a rather unbelievable legal point, and is intent on creating a new continent so that he can control the real estate market there. Yes, this follows in the tradition of over-the-top schemes of Lex Luther past, but for whatever reason I simply found this plot dumb, rather than cute and comicly overdone.

Superman saves the day, while continuing to ineptly chase Lois Lane (Bosworth in a wig). This despite Lane becoming a wife and mother while Superman was absent.

In tone and atmosphere this Superman was created to be as close to the Christopher Reeve version as possible while perhaps still being recognizable to the Smallville audience. Brandon Routh seems to have been chosen for his physical resemblance to Reeves, and there's no doubt Routh used him as a template for his role. Truth be told, however, Reeves was the far superior personality. He had a comic wit in his Superman that mostly eludes Routh. Spacey's Lex Luther was probably the biggest difference between the 1978 Superman and this version, however. The humor seems to elude him as well. Gene Hackman's supervillian was a highlight in the earlier film. There was no doubt his character was a silly, silly role and Hackman played it accordingly. This Lex Luther just isn't as well done.

Overall there is a so-so positive vibe about this picture. It tried for the overdone whimsy of the earlier Superman films (which generally worked, but less effectively than before), but couldn't quite keep the overly dramatic "fate-of-the-earth-hangs-in-the-balance" tone out of the film. In the earlier films we all knew Superman was going to save the day. Here they really want to show the weaknesses that he has, and that maybe, he just might not save the day. Frankly, Superman not saving the day would be a travesty of epic proportions. So why bother pretending.

Standouts: Nothing much really stood out, but little was horrible either.
Blowouts: Too long by 20 minutes. Routh and Spacey didn't compare to Reeves and Hackman.

Grade: C+