Film: 'Superman Returns' (2006)

(Pre-planned holiday cover post)
I wasn't sure about 'Superman Returns' at the time, but it grew on me. It's an underrated gem, and it could easily be the last good Superman movie to hit theatres ever. Yes, it's derivative of 'Superman: The Movie', too much so, but it is the only one out of 'Superman I', 'Superman II', and the rest, to not have a bodged ending or be sabotaged by producer or studio antics. It's the only one that is complete in itself, unless you count 'Supergirl', another one of my guilty pleasures and one which is criticised by the confused for similar reasons.

'Superman Returns', and 'Supergirl', both capture the essential non-violence of the characters, and tap into something else instead. If we use the dreadful and meaningless term 'action movie' - normally used as an euphemism for 'violent movie' - then Superman should never ever be in one. He's from romantic adventures, not the land of bullets and punches. He's the character so archetypal that he's utterly wasted in anything so superficial as the modern blockbuster. He needs to be in an actualised and coherent film. 'Superman Returns' is that, for all its flaws.

'Superman Returns' is mainly criticised for its lack of action sequences, and an overdependence on reusing elements and patterns from the first film. The second is a valid criticism, and the first is problematic; Superman stops a plummeting jet, saves Metropolis from all kinds of problems due to a tremor and EMP pulse, lifts a small island into orbit, and almost drowns while stabbed with a shard of Kryptonite in this film. There is no shortage of action, only a shortage of fisticuffs and gunplay. You can make a point that it's all drowned out by the meditative atmosphere of the film, though.

Perhaps the story is a problem, or the sheer length of the film, but I love it anyway. Again, as in 'Flash Gordon', sometimes there's not much point in trying to be impartial. The overall concoction works, but it may not be the concoction the modern movie audience, or that of 2006, would expect. It's one of the great pities that Bryan Singer, director, never got to make his planned next film. It might have been extraordinary. Instead, what we get is something far worse, repeated over and over, with less and less content.

What is 'Superman Returns'? An homage too far to the Donner versions of 'Superman I' and 'Superman II', or the culmination of both into something partly new? A strange exercise in odd casting? A rehash, pastiche, or launchpad? It's only for the viewers to say, but I liked it, and it was the last of its breed, which is sad.

O.