Superman’s Return seems to have been eclipsed by the far-less-delayed reappearance of Captain Jack Sparrow and affected, in Europe at least, by the release date being postponed for no very good reason. This is a terrible shame, as the movie is a thing of beauty, so perfectly judged in tone, production and performance that it doesn’t matter to me a jot that it is, in many ways, an attempt to incarnate on screen a heavily Silver Age dependant version of Superman I generally don’t care for in comics or any other media.
The two Richard Donner movies (both of which I regard as dull, overlong and muddled) are the source not only of the movie’s magnificent opening theme (and less magnificent reused 70s letraset font) but also of a vague backstory that informs the world of the films. Those in the multiplex audience whose main knowledge of Superman consists of faint memories of Christopher Reeve, Margot Kidder et al will find here a movie that they can easily grasp as ‘following’ those they have in their heads. Others will find something they too can easily connect with.
Whether the title or the conceit came first the concept of ‘Superman Returns’ is very strong on both a narrative and meta level. The world’s greatest hero has been away too long in both fiction and in fact. The questions and answers as to where he’s been – and the situation he finds on his return, provide some very strong basic notions for co-writer director Bryan Singer to work with. With any kind of revival, especially of material intended partially for children, the question of ‘Can you go home again?’ inevitably arises. Singer’s movie decides that this isn’t just what happens in the movie, it’s also what it’s *about* and then pursues that theme relentlessly. Where was Superman? Why did he go? Why was he gone so long? How (and more importantly *what*) did his supporting cast do without him?
Superman star Brandon Routh is an unknown, as the late Christopher Reeve was in the 70s. Unlike Reeve he manages to get top billing on his own movie. The man who was top billed on Reeve’s movie, Marlon Brando, actually appears in Routh’s too despite the inconvenience of having been dead for some years. Brando’s performance, culled from unused bits from the Donner movies, so I’m told, is striking, moving and beautifully done. Brando doesn’t just appear, he shines, and his rumbling tones provide some of the film’s greatest emotional peaks.
Brando’s return though, shouldn’t detract from Routh’s debut. For my money he’s the first actor to successfully play both Clark Kent and Superman. Reeve, bless him, never convinced me as Clark, while I could never buy Dean Cain as Superman, only as Clark. Tom Welling only ever plays Clark. Routh absolutely nails it, mixing screwball comedy facial expressions with sad eyed nobility and hokey charm. Superman’s little homilies seem perfectly at home on Routh’s lips and he’s as at home catching a falling plane as he is trying to explain to Lois why he had to go away. I don’t just believe that this Superman flies, I believe that he is.
Everyone else does exactly what is required of them. Frank Langella works perfectly as Perry White, even saying ‘Great Caesar’s Ghost’ with a degree of dignity I’d have put money on being impossible. Kate Bosworth is a spikey, silly, smart and desirable Lois Lane. Kevin Spacey is wonderful as Lex Luthor, balancing the camp and the nastiness out perfectly, creating a Luthor who could be the Silver Age career criminal dullard or the post 80s smoothie brought to life so well by Michael Rosenbaum. Parker Posey makes her third appearance as a villainous assistant carrying a Pomeranian in a comic book movie. It’s an odd niche for such a talented actress to carve for herself but you can’t say she hasn’t made it her own.
Whether Bryan Singer has made Superman his own is more of a moot point. There are times when this seems likes a slavish homage to the Donner films and they were little more than crass attempts to mix the latter years of Julius Schwarz’s editorship of the Superman comics with some really badly handled messianic nonsense. (Singer’s messianic nonsense, on the other hand, is handled rather well.)
However ‘Superman Returns’ is, for all its indebtedness to other screen Supermen, manifestly superior to them in every way. It’s least funny moments are funnier than the funniest bits in any of Donner’s or Lester’s films. It’s cleverer, in its dumbest moments, than their cleverest bits ever are. It’s more exciting than the most exciting bits, better made and better played than the best crafted or acted moments in any live action Superman ever. Ever.
As ‘Kill Bill’ is to cheap cinema, as ‘Raiders of the Lost Ark’ is to ‘Zorro’s Fighting Legion’ so ‘Superman Returns’ is to the previous Superman films. Whether Singer brings anything to Superman other than his love for the character and his obvious skills as a film-maker is perhaps besides the point. Singer makes Superman work on film, not for the first time in thirty years but, for me, for the first time ever.
I finally believe a man can fly.
