Friday, July 14, 2006
Superman Returns
Growing up as a kid, the Superman films were something that I took a liking too. There wasn't one childhood friend I knew who didn't want to be Superman. The famous "S" logo on the front of his costume is one of the most recognized symbols throughout the world. I remember going to a Ponderosa Steakhouse in the early 80s and getting a flying Christopher Reeve to put on my basement wall. The whole premise of the first Superman films was one thing: fun. They couldn't quite carry the ball with the horrible parts 3 and 4, and the franchise ended. However, nearly a couple of decades have since passed, more than enough time to attempt to recapture Superman's fame.This is a good film, but certainly underwhelming. We've been treated to some good comic-book movies as of late (my personal favourites are probably the Spiderman films). You have a great hero, a great villain, and you want to see them clash. In Superman Returns, you don't get that. Instead of focusing on the rivalary between Superman and villain Lex Luthor, director Bryan Singer opted to concentrate on the complex relationship between Superman and Lois Lane. As a guy who pays admission to see a comic-book movie, I'm not interested in seeing what will happen when a guy revisits his girlfriend after a five year hiatus. It can be a sidestory, definitely, but I want to have an evil Lex Luthor be given more screen time to relish his role, concocting his evil plot that Superman most overcome. It's a simple idea, good vs evil, but it doesn't happen. Instead, we get a Superman who doesn't seem to like being Superman and a Lois Lane who seems pained by the idea of getting to be with the most powerful man in the Universe.
The introduction to Superman when he saves some airline & space shuttle passengers is well done. I wanted more stuff like this, but we're left short changed. There's a cool scene when a would-be bank robber aims a mini-gun that fires 100 rounds a second at the Man of Steel while he fearlessly walks towards him. He runs out of bullets. He tries one more shot. No luck. AND THE SCENE ENDS!!!! This didn't make any sense. Let Superman kick a** and take numbers. But, we do get a shot of Superman spying on Lois Lane for a few minutes while she's at home with her family. Boring.
I don't want to sound too cranky, it did have good things about it. The characters are well done. I liked Brandon Routh as the new Superman. Kevin Spacey is good when he's given screen time. It made me left thinking so much could be done with the franchise, there's tons of potential and it's not like Singer completely fumbled the ball here. He introduces the characters, the city, the tone of Superman Returns real well.
It's like he's setting up a sequel that will be better than original.
# posted by SBP : 7:23 PM
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gotta disagree with you there... I went in with low expectations and totally LOVED it!! Great re-start to the movies!!
If I *knew* for certain that they were definitely going to make a second one, and it was going to allow Singer to flex his action-flick muscles a bit, I'd have given the flick more of a pass.
The problem, well described by SBP, is that this thing just kinda flops between set-pieces and vignettes, all in set-up mode without much payoff at the end.
*****SPOILER WARNING*******
They dropped the ball with Luthor.
While he was responsible for the EMP that endangered the shuttle, he didn't actually plan that part. Supes never tries to find him to figure out if he's up to something, and Lois does the best investigative work, and then accidentally gets captured. All in all, it's all throw-away plotting. As was all the things Supes did to thwart accidents and aftermaths of disasters.
I wanted everything to be orchestrated chaos (think back to Singer and Spacey with Keyser Sozé), have EVERYTHING planned (other than having Parker Posey's brakes cut) to distract and destroy Superman. Luthor deserved to be more of a mastermind.
The only problem with a sequel would be if they play UP the kid angle instead of just giving a passing aknowledgement.
Say what you will, but they did a great job at making Lois' husband a likeable character.
Another problem is: Raimi stole all the good villain plots for Spiderman. The way to beat Supes (without relying on Kryptonite), is to force him to choose which people to save and come at him sideways.
Scooter: You said it right when you say Great re-start for the movies. But that's assuming there is a second film that'll pay off really well because of this first film's base. However, if it *only* makes $200mil, it might be considered a failure and be hard to bring a sequel to the big screen. WB'll just give that money to Nolan's Batman sequel. which would be a shame. I thought the casting was great. Most of the effects were well done, although some scenes where they had a CGI Superman looked a little rubber-man-ish (Spiderman suffered from that, as did Neo in the Matrix sequels).
Enough Rambling... I give the flick a 7/10. Good effort, but needed to be filmed back-to-back with the sequel and we needed reassurance that they're gonna deliver on all the promise of this first film.
-Stan
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The problem, well described by SBP, is that this thing just kinda flops between set-pieces and vignettes, all in set-up mode without much payoff at the end.
*****SPOILER WARNING*******
They dropped the ball with Luthor.
While he was responsible for the EMP that endangered the shuttle, he didn't actually plan that part. Supes never tries to find him to figure out if he's up to something, and Lois does the best investigative work, and then accidentally gets captured. All in all, it's all throw-away plotting. As was all the things Supes did to thwart accidents and aftermaths of disasters.
I wanted everything to be orchestrated chaos (think back to Singer and Spacey with Keyser Sozé), have EVERYTHING planned (other than having Parker Posey's brakes cut) to distract and destroy Superman. Luthor deserved to be more of a mastermind.
The only problem with a sequel would be if they play UP the kid angle instead of just giving a passing aknowledgement.
Say what you will, but they did a great job at making Lois' husband a likeable character.
Another problem is: Raimi stole all the good villain plots for Spiderman. The way to beat Supes (without relying on Kryptonite), is to force him to choose which people to save and come at him sideways.
Scooter: You said it right when you say Great re-start for the movies. But that's assuming there is a second film that'll pay off really well because of this first film's base. However, if it *only* makes $200mil, it might be considered a failure and be hard to bring a sequel to the big screen. WB'll just give that money to Nolan's Batman sequel. which would be a shame. I thought the casting was great. Most of the effects were well done, although some scenes where they had a CGI Superman looked a little rubber-man-ish (Spiderman suffered from that, as did Neo in the Matrix sequels).
Enough Rambling... I give the flick a 7/10. Good effort, but needed to be filmed back-to-back with the sequel and we needed reassurance that they're gonna deliver on all the promise of this first film.
-Stan
# posted by 
: 2:16 PM, July 17, 2006
: 2:16 PM, July 17, 2006Subscribe to Post Comments [Atom]
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