Super(?)Man

I wasn't sure if I was going to write up my thoughts on the new movie Superman Returns or not. I was really excited about it and leading up to seeing it, I was surprised at how few other people were excited. Obviously, somebody went and saw it, since it made over $100 million in its Wednesday to Sunday opening "weekend." Not bad, but to put that into context, Pirates of The Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest made $135 million it's first weekend, and it started on a Friday, not a Wednesday. But, none of my friends have seen it, not even Max, even though the two of us have been closely following it's production. So, I don't really have anyone to talk with about what I liked and didn't like about it.

Generally, I find that you can discuss aspects of a movie in broad enough terms with people who haven't seen it, that you won't give anything away. However, the make or break, "yay "or "nay," thumbs up or thumbs down of the movie is a major plot spoiler. So, for instance, when I met Max, Ben, and Tim for lunch last week and they asked me what I thought of the movie I sounded like an incoherent idiot. When trying to explain what I didn't like about it, I think I said something like, "Well, there's this thing that happened in Superman II, that if what I have a problem with Superman Returns for having took place during, then it's okay, I guess. But, if the thing I didn't like about Superman Returns didn't take place during the thing that happened in Superman II, then I really have a problem with it." See? If that was the best you could come up with, you wouldn't want to talk about it either.

But recently, I have stopped worrying about ruining the movie for anyone. I don't think anyone that hasn't seen it already is probably going to see it anytime soon. And if you are planning on seeing it, and don't want anything ruined, for the love of God, stop reading this now. You've been warned.

Okay, so I'm going to assume that those of you left have either seen it or don't care. What I'm not going to assume is that you've seen (or if you have seen, remember) the first two Superman movies. This is one of the major problems that I have with Superman Returns. I'm a fan of the first 2 films. In fact, I own them both on DVD and I'm glad that this movie is not only a sequel of those two films, but ignores Superman III and Superman IV: The Quest For Peace. Although, in the interest of full disclosure I loved Superman III as a kid. It's got Richard Pryor, Superman turning evil, and even a scene where Superman splits into two Supermen with the good side fighting the bad side. Fortunately, I haven't seen it since it was first out on VHS, as I hear it's horrible, and I can keep my childhood memories untainted. Superman IV: The Quest For Peace, on the other hand, sucked then and will always suck.

Back to the first two movies, I haven't watched them in a while, and I bet it's been even longer for the average movie-goer, so the movie really faltered by not explicitly mentioning events in the last 2 movies. I mean, is it too much to ask for a little exposition referring to 2 movies that were made nearly 30 years ago?

So, unlike the screenwriter(s), I'm going to do a bit of a recap. First off, I want to say that Superman: The Movie is one of my all-time faves. I like it so much that I can overlook two glaring problems within the movie (a scene where a Lois Lane (Margot Kidder) voiceover recites poetry while she and Superman fly and the climax of the film where Superman flies around the Earth so fast he either goes back in time, or makes the Earth go back in time, either way, it's kinda dumb) and embrace it unconditionally as probably the best superhero movie of all-time. Richard Donner's film is beautifully shot, well-acted, and does a great job of using Superman as a metaphor for America (more on Superman as metaphor later). The movie essentially details the origin of Superman (an underappreciated Christopher Reeve), from his escape from his exploding homeworld of Krypton to his first time donning the tights and cape. From there he does battle with Lex Luthor (Gene Hackman) who is going to use nuclear missiles on the San Andreas Fault to plunge California into the ocean, so all the land he owns in Nevada will be high-priced beachfront property (more on Lex Luthor's real estate shenanigans later). Superman saves the day, of course, and drops Lex off at prison. The End.

Superman II picks up with 3 criminals from Krypton (who were off in their space prison when Krypton exploded) arriving on Earth. The are evil and decide to take over the world. Unaware of their presence on Earth, Superman has revealed his secret identity as Clark Kent to Lois, given up his powers in the Fortress of Solitude (Superman's arctic base of operations) so he can marry her, and finally hooked up with her. After returning from his "honeymoon," the now powerless Superman sees that the world needs his help fighting the evil Kryptonians, so he returns to the Fortress of Solitude and regains his powers. With his powers back, Superman eventually defeats the 3 Kryptonian criminals and saves that day. At the end of the movie, Superman realizes the world needs him and that Lois can't live with always fearing for his safety, so he gives her a superkiss and makes her forget his secret and presumably their subsequent romance. The End. Again, there are some things I don't like about this movie, but overall I love it. I mean, what's not to love about Superman duking it out with 3 other super-people? If you actually answered that question in any other way that by responding, "nothing," well, you're not only wrong, you're un-American.

In Superman Returns, Superman (a commendable Brandon Routh) has returned from being in space for 5 years. He comes back to discover that the world has moved on, with even Lois (a rather flat Kate Bosworth) has turned on him, winning a Pulitzer for an editorial entitled Why The World Doesn't Need Superman. She even went and had a kid and got engaged to Richard White (a surprising James Marsden). Lex Luthor (an awesome Kevin Spacey) is back this go around as well. This time Lex is bent on using technology he stole from the Fortress of Solitude to create a new continent, which will destroy most of North America, and selling the land to the displaced populace (see I told you there'd be more real estate shenanigans). Eventually Superman stops Lex, throws the forming continent into space, almost dies, pulls through, and finds out Lois's kid is his. The End.

Guess what part of that nearly ruined the movie for me? If you said throwing the continent into space, because it was kind of boring and Superman didn't really fight anyone or anything, you'd be close, but wrong. No, it was Superman having a kid. I mean, I remember talking to people about how I was annoyed when I found out Lois had kid before the movie even came, since that seemed to be unnecessary and out of character. Imagine how I felt when it turned out to be Superman's!

There's a whole bunch of reasons why this annoys me, the first of which is SUPERMAN DOESN'T HAVE A KID. Yeah, I know this is a movie and it's different, blah, blah, blah. But it's totally unnecessary. Seriously, as a thematic device it serves little to no purpose. I suppose that one could make the argument that giving Superman a son humanizes him. However, I would make the argument that Superman already was human enough, having been raised by two loving human parents who instilled in him his values. Also, let's not forget his relationship with, and his love for, Lois Lane.

As it stands, the introduction of a child for Superman only served to confuse and confound not only the message of the movie, but it's audience. Watching the movie, it quickly became apparent that director Brian Singer had cast Superman this time not as a metaphor for America (as Donner had), but as a metaphor for Christ. Seriously, the Christ-like images of Superman occur so often, you could make a drinking game out of spotting them. Does saddling Supes with a kid reinforce this metaphor? No, rather it detracts. If the writer(s) really wanted to reinforce this metaphor, a better tact would have been to play up Superman being raised by his earthly parents when he is clearly more than human, as Joseph and Mary are said to have done with Jesus. Not that I think that the whole Superman as Christ metaphor is a particularly good one (I prefer the Donner metaphor), but for the most part it works. It just could have worked better.

As far as confusing the audience goes, I've got to say that throwing the kid in there initially not only confused me, but actually pissed me off. First off, as I said before, SUPERMAN DOESN'T HAVE A KID. But it went further than that. I mean, Superman is supposed to represent our best ideals, and in the movie he's a Christ figure, so it was completely out of character for him to father an illegitimate son. Not only that, but he flew off into space leaving the mother of the child to raise him on her own. Superman? Try Super Deadbeat Dad. And I'm not even getting into the actual logistics of how Superman could knock Lois up without killing her!

After the movie, I had a bad taste in my mouth. For the next 2 days when people asked me about Superman Returns, I gave a them a thumbs down. Then in sort of an epiphany, I remembered the whole sequence in Superman II when Lois and Superman hooked up while he was powerless. The pieces have since fallen into place and I have now cooled off, but this brings me back to one of my original points, which is: if even a fan of the first 2 movies, could understandably have forgotten some of their details, what about the rest of the audience who may have seen the originals only once or not at all? Normally, I get mad when the filmmakers don't give the audience enough credit, but here they gave them too much. Exposition people!

The beginning of the film even started of with a black screen and white text explaining that Superman had left Earth after astronomers discovered the remnants of Krypton and that he had been gone for 5 years. Is it too much to ask then, that they throw the audience a bone with another sentence like, "After his battle with the renegade Kryptonians and it's repercussions on his relationship with Lois Lane, Superman decides to investigate the scientists' discovery," or words to that effect. Something. Anything! It would not only directly acknowledged the films that came before it, and made a better transition, but it would have cleared up some other questions as well, like Superman's timing. It would be understandable if he left after his battle with the other Kryptonians to lick both his physical and spiritual wounds. It would not make sense for him to leave much later than that, though, because he would have known Lois was pregnant. After all, we're talking about a guy that can hear what's going on down on Earth from space and has x-ray vision. If he left knowing Lois was pregnant, it would be totally out of character, and I'm sure this was not the intent, but since the filmmakers were too lazy to spell it out, it leaves you to wonder: maybe Superman's a dick.

Okay with that out of the way, let me tell you my other problems with the movie. It's too long, the plot with Lex and real estate is a little too similar to the original (especially since it's a sequel, not a remake), and by the end it gets kind of boring. Not overly boring, but Superman doesn't really get to fight anyone, he just throws a small continent into space. So, you probably think I hated it, right?

Nope. It takes a lot to make me hate a film. Yes, I was a little disappointed in it, but overall, I thought it was pretty good. In fact, having only seen it only once, I liked it only slightly less than I liked Spider-Man the first time I saw it. What Superman Returns did well, it did exceptionally well. First of all, the movie looks great. I mean it. Great. If it doesn't get nominated for an Academy Award for art direction, it will be a travesty. Second, Routh and Spacey are great replacements for Reeve and Hackman. Third, the special effects are great and Routh looks great in the suit. Fourth, the tone, look, and feel of the movie are spot-on descendants of the original two. And finally, it has a scene where Superman rescues a plane that is beyond words. It is the best scene of a superhero doing his thing on film so far and it perfectly captures Superman being, well, super. Not only that, but it's quite possibly one of the coolest things I've seen on the silver screen, period.

So, where does that leave us? Well it leaves me shrugging my shoulders and going, "Meh," when people now ask me about the movie. I no longer feel I wasted my money, and it's a far sight better than Daredevil. I remember not really liking Spider-Man all that much until I saw it on DVD, plus having remembered the events of Superman II has certainly taken the edge off my disdain.

So, who knows? Maybe this was just a jumping off point for something better next go around, as was the case Spider-Man. Maybe my questions will be answered and my doubts assuaged. And maybe, just maybe, they'll kill off the kid. Hey, I know it sounds cruel, but that's the only way they can save this franchise. He is only a character after all, and a superfluous (no pun intended) one at that.

The sad thing is, my tickets essentially already been sold, because I can't wait to find out.