Superman Sort Of Returns
I may not be the biggest Superman fan around (I routinely refer to him as a putz), but I really wanted to be blown away by Superman Returns. Bryan Singer did such a fantastic job with the X-Men movies, Kevin Spacey was an amazing choice for Lex Luthor, Brandon Routh really looks the part, the effects look amazing… well, everyone has seen the commercials by now.
And while all those things held true, the movie just didn’t shine. Even for a comic book movie, there were some unbearably large plot holes that could have been patched with minimal effort. The movie felt too long. Did we really need a half hour of closeups of shocked Parker Posey (who looks far more like Lois Lane than Kate Bosworth) to clue us into the fact that she just might follow in the long, proud tradition of the defecting henchwench? I don’t remember Bryan Singer treating his audience like they needed everything spelled out in his other films. I wonder if the fault lies in the fact that this was a movie based around a single protagonist, while many of his others (The Usual Suspect and the X-Men films) were ensemble pieces with much more to focus on.
Kevin Spacey really stole the show. You could see his Lex Luthor working Very Bad Things out in his head, but he still played it straight. James Marsden made the classic odd man out character both likeable and functional (and you have to feel bad for him, competing against first Wolverine and now Superman for the girl.) I don’t feel like I can comment on Brandon Routh fairly at this point, as I would just end up comparing him to Christopher Reeve. Suffice it to say, I found him to be a fairly fitting choice, and I liked that the contacts and heavy makeup gave him a subtle too-perfect, non-human look.
Overall, not a bad movie, but when you find the retro opening credits to be the most exciting part, it’s not a great movie, either.
Tonight I pulled out my Batman Begins DVD. Now THAT is a great movie. Although oddly enough, I find myself wanting to see a crime movie featuring Lex Luthor and Kaiser Soze…