Review of Superman Returns (2006) by Lisa S — 24 Mar 2017

The initial premise of Superman having gone into hiding, withdrawing from the world, is simply brilliant. Brandon Routh is definitely Superman, and Clark Kent. His outfit, with the retro sepia colors, is excellent.

And that´s where my praise ends. Singer gets the hero, the mythos, the fanfare, the hope, but takes a fatal road... For whatever reason, he chose to focus on paying homage to the cheesy 80´s movies (I have yet to revisit Superman, but the sequel has been dated and drowned in comedy and cheese).

The best example of this misstep is having Kevin Spacey play Gene Hackman playing a cheesy, evil-for-evil´s sake villain, instead of just having him play Lex Luthor as depicted in the comics. This was 2006, and Lex´s cold, ruthless business-man/villain persona had been around in the printed world for a while.

What a waste. He pushes the throwback aspect to even more literal degrees by having Mrs. Teschmacher be something relevant again, and even including moments of Lex´s henchmen stupidity. As if he felt the need to associate Lex Luthor, brilliant mastermind, with low IQ assistants.

At least we didn´t get Otis again. The movie then falls on it´s own homage-drenched weight, with help from a dull storyline, again taken from movies written a quarter of a century ago by then. I liked the scene in the Fortress of Solitude where he´s beaten up by common thugs, letting us see him in a human light (albeit if this is just a result of kryptonite exposure), and the overall look and performance of Routh as Superman/Kent.

But aside from that and a general feeling for Superman´s classic heroism appeal, there´s not much here to hold onto.