There’s a lot to love about Bryan Singer’s cinematic reimagining of the Superman mythos for the modern (read: computer-generated) era, unfortunately none of it is the plot or the narrative. But let’s start with what’s done right. Give Singer all the credit here because everything that’s done well is all in the direction (although you can knock him for the story stuff too cause he’s got a story by credit up there in the same unimpressive electric blue graphics as in the first film).
In fact, the directorial flourishes are really the only things to love in this version of Superman. During one scene, wherein Superman catches the Daily Planet’s globe logo on his back, Singer frames the shot to mimic the famous statue of Atlas. At a couple points in the film Superman is compared to a god (with a positive connotation when Jimmy Olsen says it and a negative one when it’s Luthor doing the talking). And he’s depicted as a messiah in no less than three different shots. And then, of course, he dies and rises again just like a certain other Messiah.
All that god-making effectively conveys just how isolating and lonely it is to be the world’s most powerful being. There’s really no way to get close to anyone and to really feel a “human” connection. You can never tell if the person (read: Lois) wants to be around you because they like you or because they are impressed by you. Further, as Spider-Man found out at the end of Sam Raimi’s first Spidey film, allowing someone to get close to you is a good way to get that person killed. And if you go ahead and let them get close to you anyway, you’re taking on a huge responsibility that you probably can’t fulfill. It’s lonely and isolating being God and Singer’s Superman understands this and really feels the weight of it, which is pretty heady stuff for a superhero flick.
Unfortunately it’s really the only aspect of the movie that seems to have been given much thought because the rest of it makes very little sense. Let’s start with the inconsistency of Superman’s powers. In the film’s one dynamic action setpiece (which comes about thirty minutes in, a crucial pacing error), wherein Superman saves a seemingly doomed 747 (with Lois aboard, natch), he seems to have quite a struggle keeping the couple thousand ton machine off the thousands of spectators in the baseball stadium below. Then, later, when Lois is once again within moments of death, Superman struggles mightily with the larger half of a destroyed yacht as he raises it out of the water. But then, a little while later, he has no problem lifting a piece of rock the size of Rhode Island out of the water and into space, despite the fact that said piece of rock is composed of Kryptonite which had only a short while before rendered Superman human enough for Lex Luthor to stab him in the side (and that’s leaving aside the fact that it’s pretty unlikely that this hunk of rock would remain in one piece with all its weight concentrated in one spot).
I’m not trying to arbitrarily poke holes in the film here. I know it’s a comic book film based on a superhero who was created nearly seventy years ago for a much less demanding audience. But that’s exactly the point. Superman and his ridiculous powers defy all rational explanation. To even attempt to enjoy anything Superman related, a viewer has to suspend a large amount of disbelief. That being the case, the last thing a Superman story needs is anything that doesn’t adhere to the internal logic of the story. The audience is already overburdened with logic defying powers and situations, asking them to accept a story that doesn’t even make sense within this already contrived world is just asking too much.
And it’s not just the superhero stuff that defies all logic and reason. Lois Lane, intrepid (and in this film Pulitzer Prize winning) reporter for the Daily Planet, is played by Kate Bosworth. Twenty-three year old Kate Bosworth. But she has a five-year-old kid (who, of course, turns out to be the spawn of Superman. It’s unclear whether they used condoms in their ridiculous tryst in the Fortress of Solitude in Superman II but I doubt simple latex could have held back the big guy’s little soldiers anyway). This means that she’s become a world-renowned reporter for a major metropolitan newspaper at the ripe old age of twenty-three all while raising the spawn of Superman. Unlikely doesn’t begin to cover it.
But it doesn’t stop there. Lois has a fiancé (Richard White, played by James Marsden who’s making quite a career for himself being the awkward third leg of a love triangle) who believes the cute little supertyke is his. So, unless the half-Kryptonian kid’s gestation period is longer than nine months, the continuity of the whole thing had to go something like this: Superman impregnates Lois and, having finally gotten the one thing he’s been wanting for all of the first two films, promptly leaves the planet for five years. Lois, having just slept with the most perfect being on Earth and terrifically upset by his sudden departure, hops straight into bed with this Richard guy. And I mean straight into bed, within a week or two or else this subterfuge wouldn’t hold up. I know Metropolis is populated by a bunch of morons who can’t see that Clark Kent and Superman are the same person but this is just basic math. Oh, and by the way, they don’t hand out Pulitzers for one op-ed piece, a series maybe but not a single article.
And then there’s the hokey and ridiculous plot that finds the best action setpiece occurring half an hour in and the end basically an episode of ER without the drama (You think Superman’s gonna die? Yeah, sure.) wherein doctors try to stick needles in Supes and defibrillate his heart. Leaving aside the fact that there are undoubtedly biological differences between Kryptonians and humans, it’s just astounding that a medical crisis is the climax of the film. Who the hell, when plunking down their ten bucks to see Superman Returning, thought they’d get this nonsense as the climax to a film about the most powerful superhero of them all? I’m all for subverting audience expectations but if they want candy you can’t give them a fucking banana and think they’ll be satisfied.
I guess maybe there’s something to be said for showing the universe’s most powerful being reduced to just another sad victim in a paper gown (How did they get that costume off him anyway? And where did they put it?). It’s a brave move at the very least as it surely contradicts almost everyone in the audience’s preconceived ideas about the character. And in and of itself it’s not a bad moment. But this is the climax of the film, the climax of Superman Returns. He returns to spend a few days in a hospital bed and then go fly around in the sun for a bit? That’s it? Really?
Superman Returns isn’t a bad film, it’s maybe even better than mediocre but I can’t believe that’s all there is to it. Maybe it’s the fault of expectations raised too high. Maybe it’s the fault of misleading advertising. But as the credits rolled, all I could think was “That’s it? That’s Superman’s big comeback?” If this is as powerful and Super as the Man of Steel can be, he really doesn’t deserve the tent-pole treatment he’s been given.
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