When Bryan Singer announced that he was to release a Superman film in 2006, fans everywhere flipped. A new Superman film? What a wonderful idea! We hadn’t had a Superman film since the ultra-cheap and much-hated 1987 Cannon film Superman IV: The Quest for Peace. Some were skeptical that an actor other than Christopher Reeve could play the role, but since he had died two years previous, the time had come to pass the torch. Enthusiasm was high, and newspapers everywhere were printing stories about Superman’s lasting cultural impact. The anticipated movie came complete with a similar continuity, the good old John Williams theme song, and a new actor who looked and sounded a lot like Reeve.
Then when the movie hit, enthusiasm died out almost immediately. It still made a lot of money ($200 million to date, according to Box Office Mojo), but fan reaction was warm at best. It wasn’t long before people started referring to Superman Returns as a bitter disappointment, and a legitimate stumble in the Superman movie canon. It would be seven years until another live-action Superman film would be made (and a sucky one at that; those previous appellations would perhaps be more appropriately applied to 2013’s Man of Steel).
Well, here at Trolling, we are here to destroy the beloved and venerate the loathed. And while other Superman films are often referred to as “the bad ones,” Superman Returns is usually held in very low esteem. Which is ridiculous. It’s at least the second or third best of the Superman movies. Indeed, let us postulate that Superman Returns RULES. Let’s look into why…
Superman Returns is way too long, and there are perhaps far too many moments of quiet brooding for its own good. Overall, it plays more like an impressive memorial statue than an actual film. But Superman Returns is maligned unjustly. The film is excellently constructed, feels great, and is great to look at. Plus it helps that John Williams’ iconic score is re-used for us to enjoy once again. SUP-er-MAN!
Until next week, let the hate mail flow.
Witney Seibold is the head film critic for Nerdist, and a contributor on the CraveOnline Film Channel, and co-host of The B-Movies Podcast. You can read his weekly articles Trolling, Free Film School and The Series Project, and follow him on “Twitter” at @WitneySeibold, where he is slowly losing his mind.
Six Reasons Why Superman Returns RULES
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It Got Superman Right
While there are several versions of Superman in movies, TV, and in comic books, I think we’re all on the same page as to what he should be like: Superman is a Boy Scout. He’s capable of unimaginable feats of strength and can fly at nearly the speed of light, but at heart he’s a down-home Kansas hayseed with some ol’ fashioned values about helping people. He may be an alien, but he behaves like the best human being. There was some brooding and longing in Superman Returns, but Superman, it seemed, was back.
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It Got Lex Luthor Right
I did like Gene Hackman as Lex Luthor, but when pitted against someone as moral and as powerful as Superman, his wisecracking casual weirdness seemed a little limp. In Superman Returns, Kevin Spacey played Luthor, and the character was finally given an undercurrent of cynical menace previously lacking from the character. Spacey fills the screen, full of gleeful evil, constantly exasperated at the idiots he’s surrounded by. Lex Luthor actually felt like a proper nemesis for the first time.
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Brandon Routh is Just Fine
Brandon Routh was made to look and sound like Christopher Reeve, and I would say he did an excellent job. He’s a handsome bloke who wears the tights well. He’s sexy, but in an appealing PG-rated sort of way. He was boyish and seemed energetic and upbeat and caring. Despite the few brooding scenes, Routh was able to lend a brightness to the character that is vital to making it work. Sadly, he did not go on to play the character again, which is a pity.
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It’s a Fitting Tribute
Richard Donner’s 1978 film Superman is – in the words of critic Scott Mantz – The Beatles of superhero movies. Everything that has followed it has been an imitation, and no superhero movie since has captured the spirit, the grandeur, and the excitement of the comic book universe. And while Superman Returns doesn’t quite reach the lofty highs of Donner’s film, it is most certainly an ample attempt. The film plays like a tribute to the 1978 film. And while that may make for a longer film with less happenstance than the 1978 original, it at least has the same grand tone and epic, mythic feeling. That mythic feeling has been sorely missing from most other superhero movies. Tim Burton’s Batman perhaps notwithstanding. Perhaps.
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Superman Stuff
Did you see Man of Steel? Y’know how – in that film – Superman didn’t really do any Superman stuff? And they didn’t even really call him “Superman?” And how Superman now-infamously destroyed a big city in his fight? Wasn’t all that disappointing? Where were the scenes of Superman fighting crime, bouncing bullets off his chest, catching falling airplanes, and getting cats down out of trees? Y’know, the things that make Superman Superman? All that stuff was in Superman Returns, and we all love seeing that stuff.
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Subtlety
The word “subtle” is hardly appropriate to just about any film featuring a man in a bright blue body stocking and a bright red cape, but Superman Returns does have a few wonderful moments of subtlety, lending a kind of poignancy to Superman that Zack Snyder attempted and failed miserably at. There’s a scene in Superman Returns wherein Superman holds Lois Lane in his arms and takes her flying. He asks her to listen. She hears nothing. Superman looks out over the world and says quietly “I hear everything.” There is more thought and complexity in that one line than any of the other Superman sequels combined.
