Mini Review - Superman Returns

I know it’s been a while, but we’re back to Superman.

2018 was a year I decided not to cover 2 movies because of the unfortunate and horrific things levied against Kevin Spacey (which continued after I finished writing this, seriously, f*ck Kevin Spacey). But there is a time to separate the art from an artist and refusing to cover them because of one actor is insulting to everyone else involved, so I’ll be doing mini reviews of Superman Returns and Baby Driver over the coming weeks.

Superman returns was intended as a sort of tribute to the Christopher Reeve Superman era, as well as an attempt to breathe new life into the franchise after the horrendous performance of Superman IV: The Quest for Peace. It didn’t work out very well, it made only $390m on a $200m budget, thanks to a dismal performance overseas.

Whilst critics tend to like it, most praises came with a few caveats, so let’s dig into the… 2 hours and 37 minutes!!! Holy sh*t, this is a long movie!

After 5 years exploring the remains of Krypton, hoping to discover life in the barren, lifeless, radioactive chunks of his home world. Superman (Brandon Routh) returns to a Metropolis that… really hasn’t changed that much whilst he’s away. There are still random disasters happening, Lois Lane needs rescuing at least twice and Perry wants photos of Superman.

Oh and Lex Luthor (Kevin Spacey) is still about, having escaped from prison, conned back his fortune and has a new ridiculous scheme that takes most of the movie to come to fruition, and no hair.

But enough about him, what about some drama. Do we have some for you? Yes we do. You see Lois Lane (Kate Bosworth) is now the girlfriend of Richard White (James Marsden) and they have a son named Jason (Tristan Lake Leabu) who seems to be one of those guys who’s asthmatic and allergic to pretty much everything… and not very good at sports. So what will come when it’s revealed he’s actually the son of Superman?

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ABSOLUTELY GODDAMN NOTHING! There’s so much potential for ripe delicious drama here, but the focus is on Lois resisting having Superman back in her life, which is fine, and makes logical sense, but there’s so much more that could’ve been explored. Jason’s powers just kind of spring out of nowhere and he has perfect control in their limited use.

Superman does find out but doesn’t really react to it in any way. OK, what about over at Casa del Luthor? Well, you know how Lex in the Reeve era always had some idiot to bounce exposition off and look smart, well, in this one it’s a woman named Kitty (Parker Posey) and she begins to express doubts about his evil schemes. It doesn’t really matter because she doesn’t do a complete 180 and Luthor doesn’t disregard or mistreat her.

Not following through with the drama set up so blatantly is a recurring problem in this movie. Let’s talk about the other important person in Superman’s life, Clark Kent. Clark Kent has next to nothing to do in this movie. He doesn’t do any investigative journalism (I’ll give Batman vs Superman credit for actually trying with that) despite being repeatedly assigned it. He does get some interaction with Richard but since at this point neither know much about the other, it holds very little weight. 

Clark’s attempts to go on dates with Lois, knowing that she’s in a relationship with someone else come across badly, even though I presume that’s not his intent.

With regards to Superman, I’ll give the movie credit that the effects are actually pretty good, a massive step up from the last 2 movies (considering the nearly 2 decade gap, it's kinda given though). There may be a slight over-use of slow motion during the robbery scene but I enjoyed watching Superman in action. Brandon Routh is a decent actor, and clearly looks a bit like Christopher Reeve, even if his performance here is… trying a little too hard.

The action we get is good, but it’s little and far between as Superman has no physical nemesis to battle. It’s much like the original Superman in that respect.

So, what is Lex’s plan? He plans to drop a kryptonian crystal into the ocean and create a new continent and…

  

Yeah, this isn’t Luthor’s finest hour. But for sh*ts and giggles, he laced the crystal with the fakest looking kryptonite I’ve ever seen, so Superman can’t land on it. He shouldn’t be able to get near it but fixed the issue by lifting the entire island up into the sky and throwing it into the sun. This is a bit of a let-down climax. I’d rather see Supes match his wits against Luthor, or use a lead suit against the Kryptonite like he did in the animated series or something like that.

Instead we get the hospital scene, there to make the ending that much further away. Oh, and Luthor ends up stranded on a desert Island… I’m guessing this is supposed to be funny. Ha…

Superman Returns looks like a Superman movie should, and has some good performances, notably (and regrettably) Kevin Spacey as Lex Luthor. But the main plot-thread is thin and the drama that’s set up doesn’t have enough of a pay-off to be worth it, which makes the long as hell run time hard to justify. I can see why audiences may have been underwhelmed.

Rating 60/100