‘Superman Returns’ an Elegant, Epic Triumph

Think what you will about men in tights who fly around beating up bad guys, but superheroes are our modern-day equivalents of ancient Greek Gods.

With the overlooked movie Superman Returns, director Bryan Singer (The Usual Suspects) abandoned the X-Men franchise after two movies to take the squarest and ironically most powerful of all the costumed outcasts and revitalize his story like Christopher Nolan did with Batman Begins and The Dark Knight.

Those who wanted nonstop action groused nonstop about the movie when it opened in 2006, and despite decent critical acclaim and $391 million worldwide, the movie turned out to be a one-off for Bryan Singer and star Brandon Routh, who aren’t involved in the upcoming Superman reboot Man of Steel, helmed by Zack Snyder and starring Henry Cavill.

But Superman Returns has way more going for it than a simple action movie. By emphasizing Superman’s virtual omnipotence and also his sense of eternal heartbreak and loss, Bryan Singer’s epic and lyrical sequel-of-sorts to 1980’s Superman II has some of the same poignancy of a classic Greek tragedy.

Superman (Brandon Routh) may care deeply for the flawed people of Earth, but he is not human after all, and the script, penned by Singer with Michael Dougherty and Dan Harris, takes great pains to articulate both his “divinity” and the crushing effect on his psyche of a futile search for his past. After returning to his adopted home of Earth after five fruitless years looking for survivors from destroyed home planet Krypton, he realizes now, more than ever, that he is the last remaining being of an extinct alien race.

Alienation is a big theme in Superman Returns, as a word on a Scrabble board in the home of his Earth mother, Martha Kent (Eva Marie Saint), literally tells us.  She welcomes him back with open arms, but it is not long before he leaves the family farm and Superman’s reserved alter ego Clark Kent is back at work at the Daily Planet. The return of the Man of Steel isn’t that simple for the woman that he has left behind, even after his insanely spectacular mid-air rescue of her plane. Career-minded ex-flame Lois Lane (Kate Bosworth) has not only a fiance and a child, but also a Pulitzer Prize for writing an editorial called “Why the World Doesn’t Need Superman.” Talk about awkward reunions.

To make matters worse, arch-enemy Lex Luthor (Kevin Spacey) has been released from jail because Superman was not around to appear as a witness at his trial. The evil mastermind, played by Spacey with a potent mix of sadism and sarcasm, has not forgotten who put him in prison in the first place.

“Gods are selfish beings who fly around in little red capes and don’t share their power with mankind,” he says.

Like many of the ancient dieties, Superman has another weakness besides his affinity for humans. After a visit to his hidden retreat the Fortress of Solitude, Luthor learns all of Krypton’s secrets from a hologram of his long-departed father Jor-El, played by the late Marlon Brando, in a nimble bit of movie trickery featuring unused dialogue from the 1978 original.

As the spectacle factor continues to increase in modern superhero fantasies, so does the care and respect that some filmmakers as talented as Singer put into preserving the mythos of their main characters. With audiences’ easier acceptance of outrageous premises comes the requirement that the superhero’s plight be taken absolutely seriously. In a time when any feat of superhuman strength or power can be replicated by ever-advancing CGI graphics, Singer knows that this treatment is the only way that befits the first comic book legend.

One unfortunate casualty of this approach is the old-fashioned slapstick rapport between Clark and Lois that Christopher Reeve and Margot Kidder shared in the first two Superman films. I wonder if this is because Singer thought modern audiences would find the humor too campy and unfairly dismiss the movie as lightweight, or whether whether the actors weren’t up to it. Brandon Routh is certainly able to deliver similarly, but Kate Bosworth proves otherwise in several scenes. Clark and Lois barely share any screen time together in Superman Returns, and the story’s focus on themes of hurt and regret give the movie an overall somber yet appropriate tone.

The elegant look of the film more than makes up for what the script lacks in sparkling wit. It may be the most expensive movie of the 2006, and every dollar is up on the screen. Amazing images and sumptuous production design populate every single frame. Metropolis obviously resembles New York City, but its buildings and cars run the design gamut from the 1930s up to present day, like the spinning globe perched on the Daily Planet that recalls the old RKO Studios logo. One scene in particular cleverly blends the new and the old, when a young boy takes a photo of Superman holding a vintage car above his head (like the cover of Action Comics #1 in 1938) on his cell phone.

From the most cataclysmic disaster scene (a spreading fault line barreling towards the city) to the subtlest sequence (Lois “floating” to the roof in an elevator as seen through Superman’s X-Ray vision), Superman Returns is filled with detailed and inspired imagination from Bryan Singer. Come Oscar time, its sumptuous art design was unjustly ignored by the Academy Awards because of a simple-minded prejudice against superhero fantasies.

Rather than make our hero an indestructible superhuman with no flaws, Bryan Singer presents a tortured Man of Steel. The innocent spirit commonly associated with the character becomes something that Superman wishes for but can never achieve. Lying on his back in his childhood bed, he stares at a ceiling full of stickers, little glow-in-the-dark stars that he dreamed about when he was young.

Unable to ever truly fit in on Earth, he is more comfortable floating high above the planet with his eyes closed and his cape billowing behind him, listening to all of man’s sins and cries for help.

“You wrote that the world doesn’t need a savior, “ he tells Lois, “but every day I hear people crying for one.”

Such is the dilemma of a cursed God.

We’ll see if Zack Snyder is able to give people what they want out of a Superman movie in 2013 (bigger action set-pieces and bone-crunching violence, perhaps?), but one thing is certain, Snyder’s over-the-top directorial style won’t even come close to bringing the amount of poignancy that Bryan Singer achieved with the overlooked 2006 movie Superman Returns.

Eric Melin

Eric is the Editor-in-Chief of Scene-Stealers.com, a Rotten Tomatoes-approved critic, and contributor for The Pitch. He’s former President of the KCFCC, and drummer for The Dead Girls, Ultimate Fakebook, and Truck Stop Love . He is also the 2013 Air Guitar World Champion Mean Melin, ranked 4th best of all-time. Eric goes to 11. Follow him at:

    

Tagged as: 2006, brandon routh, bryan singer, christopher reeve, dan harris, eva marie saint, henry cavill, kate bosworth, kevin spacey, margot kidder, marlon brando, michael dougherty, Parker Posey, superman returns, zack snyder