Superman Returns

While doing work on The B/C-L Index—you are using it, aren't you?—I come across reviews that haven't been thrown on here. This one is an oddity. It's the first movie review I wrote after a long time of just letting movies rattle around in my head. It's rough with way Too Much Information about my personal life for me to be comfortable with it, and too much "What I Had for Dinner"-type information that just seems irrelevant to the subject at hand (that being the movie). Still, it was an interesting read (for me, at least). If I haven't improved since then, I've at least learned to stay more on track...which for a blog about movies is important.

You'll Believe a Man Can Float

Driving home from Superman Returns in 4-story IMAX and 3-freepin'-D on Wednesday night, I was listening to KIRO Newsradio. Thousands were evacuating, fearing the cresting of the Delaware River. Andrea Yates was convicted (again) of killing her kids. A public official was lost in the Olympic Forest.

"Man!" I thought. "We could really use Superman."

I knew I needed him. It had been a rough week of moving furniture and hauling myself from The Island to The Redmond. I was swamped at work and I had to take Tuesday off for the transfer of our big stuff from The Place What We're Selling to the current domicile, so my Wednesday started at 4 am (just in time for the sunrise) to get started early on due assignments. After all this, I was looking forward to seeing friends I hadn't seen...in ages, and seeing the new "Superman movie". I was really looking forward to that. I've been pretty discouraged lately, and a new Superman movie...well, that seemed just the ticket. The previews for it were great.

So, how is it?

Good! Not as good as Superman: The Movie. Better than Superman II (which I've never liked) and it's Shakespeare compared to the moronic Superman III: Wasting Richard Pryor and the incompetent Superman IV: The Quest for Peace ("You'll Believe a Movie Can Stink to Highest Heaven!").

But everyone will be comparing it to the first one. As well they should. Superman Returns should be called "Son of Superman" (*ahem* cough!) as it's so closely tied to the first film. It recycles Marlon Brando as Father Jor-El, and recycles whole sections of the first film's Mario Puzo/Robert Benton/David Newman/Tom Mankiewicz script, including my favorite Lex Luthor line: "My father always told me..." "Get out!"

But, Superman: The Movie was really three films: The deadly earnest Krypton section ("This is no fantasy" intoned Brando at the beginning); the equally serious Smallville/Fortress of Solitude section (with Glenn Ford's last great performance, and a farewell to Ma Kent scene in a seemingly endless epic wheat field); and finally, the Metropolis movie, with its antic screwball comedy pace (brilliantly achieved, by the way), it's cartoonish villains ("Otis-burg? O-TIS-BURG???!!!") with their absurdly successful attempts at stealing nuclear missiles, and at its soul the "Superman Meets Girl" romantic comedy story-line. I've always felt that lurching shift in tone was a bit out of step with the rest of the film (though you could make a case for showing that stalwart Superman is needed in such a crazy, zany world). Now, I'm not so sure. Because Superman Returns keeps the earnest tone of the first couple sections of the original throughout its considerable length. More cohesive it may be, but it's not more entertaining. In fact, it tends to bog down the proceedings, which consists of "regrets and things unsaid" which would have made Richard Donner's His Girl Friday pacing inappropriate. Which only points out how large the gulf is between that first film and this one.

Donner's Superman was a frothy entertainment, that, in the days of disco, long sideburns, and flaired pants, winked at the concept of heroics. This one is heavier, darker, meaner and less entertaining. There's less joy to it. And it takes its heroes deadly seriously. You think a guy like Spider-man has great power, thus great responsibility? Hell! Try being "Superman!"

Donner's flying scenes in the first (with a lot of credit going to licensed pilot Christopher Reeve) showed the joy of flight--the freedom of it--the grace. Who wouldn't want to fly after "Superman?" "SR's" flights are rarely graceful, and powered by stress. This Superman is always in a hurry. He doesn't stop to smell the up-drafts or do a lazy roll through the clouds. He's making a bee-line from one emergency to another. There's another quality to the SR aerial scenes--isolation. Superman is often seen as a small speck in a big, empty sky with life going on far below him. He's not a part of this Earth, and Singer drives the point home again and again. It's no fun being Superman.

I'll bet audiences have a problem with that: if they were Superman, of course, they'd enjoy it. It brings to mind the Superman scene I'd like to see. Howard Chaykin, of "American Flagg!" comics fame said in an interview how he'd like to start off a Superman comic. Lots of panels of ordinary Metropolitans going about their day only to have them interrupted by a blue-red streak going by their window. BOOM! Another about to sip his coffee. BOOM! A couple more of those until you get to the "splash" page: Superman, over the ocean, wearing a pair of shades, and popping his fingers, listening to "I Believe in You" (from "How to Succeed in Business (Without Really Trying)) on his Walkman. "You have the cool, clear eyes /of a seeker of wisdom and truth."

Yeah. I'd love to see that Superman.

But despite Returns' seriousness, there are joys. Brandon Routh looks and sounds so much like Christopher Reeve that it doesn't take a big leap (or a single bound) to accept him in the role. He exhibits a bit more life as Clark Kent than the more stalwart Superman, breaking into a goofy grin at the slightest provocation, and restraining the klutz routine (he doesn't constantly punch up his glasses the way Reeves' CK did). I also like the fact that his performance doesn't have the same "I'm sharing a joke with the audience" quality that Reeve brought to the role. Kate Bosworth is damned cute as Lois Lane** (as a blonde, she barely registers on the screen, but here, her hair darkened brown, she seems to have a bit more depth) and has little of the Margot Kidder neuroticism and (here's a plus!) I don't remember hearing her scream once. I do miss Kidder's whiskey baritone cracking on "Clark!," however.

There could be a bit more life to Frank Langella's Perry White and Kevin Spacey's Lex Luthor. Spacey's Luthor is self-contained malice and only sparks to life during a confrontation scene with Lois. Gene Hackman expertly tred the mine-field of jokes in the first film, but it was tough to buy him as a real threat to anybody but his cronies. Spacey's Luthor is a villain who does bad things...and enjoys doing bad things. Unfortunately, here, you mostly see him prepare to do bad things, and so there's no real pay-off for the character until 2/3 of the way through the film.

There is one cracker-jack sequence involving a doomed airliner that shows that it's pretty darned hard task to stop a plane in free-fall. It's note-perfect, right down to showing the skin of the craft buckling from a lurching halt. The movie has a good bead on the concept of heroism, too. There are a lot of heroics in this film (not just from der Ubermensch) where people who could take the easy way out, go against their better judgement and do What Must Be Done, despite the jeopardy it may put them in. It makes a statement that heroism doesn't come from powers and abilities far beyond those of mortal men. It comes from the heart, the conscience and the will.

Good movie/bad movie? Thumbs up/Thumbs down? Hard to say at this point. There are some movies that are merely okay while you suffer through them, but are better in memory (Napoleon Dynamite is one of those films: I can laugh at parts of it in retrospect, but I'd have to be kidnapped and a gun placed to my skull to watch it again***). Superman Returns was just the opposite: enjoyable while sitting through it (though I was aware of just how long it was, I didn't quite get to the point of checking the time), but the farther I get from it, I remember what's wrong with it more than what was right. If I had my "druthers," Superman Returns would be lighter than the Batman Begins, the "X-men" films, Spider-man, certainly lighter than Ang Lee's Hulk. At least it wasn't as frivolous as the Fantastic Four. My opinion of it is evolving, and that brings up another issue.

I've noticed an interesting trend in on-line reviews over the weekend. Initially, they're scathing, criticizing every aspect of the film..and harshly, to a ridiculous , often hysterical level. Second viewings produce a more favorable response, even admiration. I suspect that folks go, expecting to see the first film or worse yet, their idealized memory of the first...or second film. In that regards, this one will fail, but it can't help but fail. You can't fight a cherished favorite, or the memory of a cherished favorite. My advice: Go, expecting Superman IV. I know I'm going to see it again. Through the double exposure of the 3-D glasses, I couldn't tell whether the cribbed...sorry, the "homage"...final shot of Superman flying up, up and away past the audience had its Superman smile benignly at the audience. Like the George Reeves wink at the end of some of the TV shows, and Christopher Reeve's shared smile, it would have been nice to see it in this one. The fact that I didn't disappoints me, and makes me wonder why a decision not to include it, was made. Don't we want Superman on our side? I'll have to see it again. *

My favorite sum-up is by The Stranger's Andrew Wright who grumped: "For a movie featuring a hero who can conceivably give God a wedgie, there's precious little zowie to be found." "Zowie!" as in Adam West clobbering Ceasar Romero "Zowie?"

 

* And, sad to say, there is no smile on the final fly-by of 2006 Superman. He merely scans the audience with his eyes on the way past, ever vigilant. He probably isn't smiling because of the relatively few bodies he sees in the seats. And the ones that were there are already heading for the Exits. Not exactly what a super-hero expects when he sets out to "watch your back." 

 

** Hey, c'mon, younger me: Lois Lane shouldn't be "cute".  Lois Lane would curl her lip if you called her that.

 

*** Yeah, I don't know what my problem was here. I watched it a few years later and fell in love with it and regard it fondly.

A bit of hind-sight from here in 2024: James Gunn is making a new Superman movie with a new "from-scratch" cast and I just read the Internet News says that the "CW" is making a Superman series with Brandon Routh playing the role again—although as it's from the Internet, I'll believe it when I see it on my TV screen. I like Routh. He's gotten looser and more charismatic with age and I bet he could do a fine performance as "Supes" these days (as he did on those recent CW shows).

But, my long-distance memory of Superman Returns tilts it to a "bit of a drag" movie. There WAS no "ZOWIE!" to it. It was dark, dispiriting, mean and vengeful. It lingered on the negative and dismissed the positive. It should be bright, three-colored and direct. It should take pride in the right and look down on the wrong, not dwell on it. Bad guys shouldn't be taken so seriously; they should be ridiculed...but not by Superman. That would be mean. But, they should be dispatched so that life can go on positively.

And no brooding. Zack Snyder spent so much time having Henry Cavill doubting himself and "his way" that he never got around to showing a good portrait of Superman. And I, for one, am glad he got stopped before he could carry out his "Superman-as-villain" scenario for his planned Justice League series. That would have been just a dreary exercise. As dreary as making Superman a "fair-weather father" as he is in Superman Returns. Not to mention a serial-peeper. The crux of Superman is he's a good guy. Just because he CAN do something, doesn't mean he does. There's a thinking, moral filter there...that the recent incarnations have forgotten about.

Maybe it's because all I see these days (because they're the loudest) are politicians as "anti"-Supermen who don't believe in "Truth" (that's for damn sure!), "Justice" ("Delay, Delay, Delay") and I don't know what the Hell their idea of "The American Way" is (but it probably involves a lead pipe). It would be nice to have that...as an alternative for what America supposedly stands for now.

Dylan Dog: Dead of Night

Written at the time of the film's release...

 

"Stirring Up Old Ghosts"
or
"The Maltese Vampire"

"When a man's partner is killed, he's supposed to do something about it. It doesn't make any difference what you thought of him. He was your partner and you're supposed to do something about it. And it happens we're in the detective business. Well, when one of your organization gets killed, it's bad business to let the killer get away with it, bad all around, bad for every detective everywhere."*

I like Brandon Routh. I think he was given a lot of unfair criticism from Superman Returns because he was picked to be reminiscent of Christopher Reeve—director Bryan Singer wanted a continuation of the first two late-model Superman films and when he thought of "Superman," he was thinking of Reeve's version.  So, Routh, who looked and sounded—with a touch of Tom Cruise's vocal qualities—so much like Reeve was the man to be The Man of Steel. But, his problem was...he wasn't Reeve, and he especially wasn't our idealized image of Reeve. But, he's a pretty good actor, with a casual gravitas and a likeable quality. He just doesn't know how to be a star yet, still underplaying his lines, trying not to get caught "acting," and so robbing himself of any chance to grab a movie or audience and make them his.

Dylan Dog: Dead of Night might be a good vehicle for him. Also based on a comic-book—Italian of origin this time—he looks sufficiently like the titular hero and the matter-of-factness of his playing serves as a fine counter-point to the ghastly ghouly happenings going on. That's the whole joke of Dylan Dog, though it wears thin very quickly. While everybody else is over-emoting, spitting spray through oversized canines (the two primary examples being Taye Diggs and Peter Stormare), Routh gets to be a normal human being, slightly bemused about the war between the vampires and the werewolves (there are zombies, too, but they appear to be playing the role of Sweden, they don't take sides and nobody cares about them). 

DD is a private investigator in New Orleans, and used to specialize in the occult, kind of a niche market.  He carried cards that just had his number and the catchy phrase "No Pulse?  No Problem!" But, like Matt Damon's character in Hereafter, he spends a lot of screen-time saying "Yeah, I don't do that anymore.."

Sure, he doesn't. But a mysterious death of an art collector reported by a pretty blond puts him back behind the wheel of his vintage VW bug (which also shows signs of being undead) to investigate. Getting involved could make things very squishy between The Tooths and the Claws, dredging up some bad blood, so he says "no."

Sure, he won't. Then his partner, Marcus (Sam Huntington, who was Jimmy Olsen to Routh's Clark Kent) gets killed. And...well, you know. 

But, this is Dylan Dog: Dead of Night, so when we say his partner gets killed—he only gets a little killed. Going to the morgue to retrieve him, Dylan has to break the news to his friend gently. "The bad news is you're dead," he says blandly.  "The good news is...it's manageable."

Cute. But, we're talking werewolves, vampires and zombies ('oh, my!"), so cute doesn't exactly cut the artery, if you know what I mean. It should be rip-roaringly funny to off-set the gore and horror, and it just isn't. It's...functional. Huntington is great for a laugh or two, as he plays Jerry Lewis to Routh's Dean Martin, but it's not enough to make Dylan Dog more than just a little silly. And for all the frothing that the ghoulies do, you never really think anyone's in danger, even though the script makes sure a couple of the main characters get dispatched. It all leads to a crisis of apocalyptic proportions. The ideas are there, but the presentation is as clumsy as a zombie with no head. The blame must go to writer-producer Kevin Munroe, whose previous film was the 2007 CGI version of Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, entitled TMNT. This guy knows games and short films, but sustaining even a genre film that follows The Dots of Dashiell seems to be beyond him. This one has its moments, but like the undead, they're mostly recycled...and could stand a bit of rejuvenation therapy.

* Yeah, that's from The Maltese Falcon.

Scott Pilgrim vs. the World

"Getting a Life"

Finally. A comedy that's ambitious, funny, and definitely not "coasting." If anything, Scott Pilgrim vs. The World might be working too hard for its laughs by violating every rule in the book: episodic, fast, edited in a deliberately outre style with images crashing into each other, stepping on and crushing dialogue, seamlessly merging, not unlike "The Archers," reality and fantasy. Indeed, you're never sure if what you're seeing is reality, or merely the Red Bull fueled fantasies of its lead character, Scott Pilgrim (Michael Cera, appearing "scruffy," thin and even more chinless than usual) young adult, but in name only. And the movie manages to sustain the breathless pace its entire length, without losing its inventiveness or attitude.

That's something of a surprise as director Edgar Wright's previous films, like Shaun of the Dead, and Hot Fuzz, outwore their welcomes at the 2/3 mark but kept on going. Scott Pilgrim vs. The World starts out of the gate fast and only lets up at its resolution (appropriately), in a melange of styles and techniques, while also shifting the narrative into over-drive with cartoony and comics graphics touches that invade and overlay photo-reality. Fight Club and Stranger Than Fiction did the same with a formalist style, but "Pilgrim" suffuses it with an energetic slacker zeal, as if these things were appearing off the top of its protagonist's head (which, in the narrative, it probably is). A movie hasn't been this anarchistically fun to watch tearing apart movie-sensibilities since...oh...Fight Club, Moulin Rouge!, or, hell, Citizen Kane.* Film-making rules are bent almost in two, but never break the narrative flow. This is good stuff.**

I've stayed away from reading any reviews (which is my M.O.), but a scan of headlines leads one to think that the film has turned off its "Gamer" audience.

I can see where the argument would come: it's really not about gaming (not in the electronic sense) and whimsically lampoons the culture using its tropes and excesses against it. On a deeper level, however, it manages to take the insular mind-set and short-term rewards and gratification of gaming and place it in context into the real world. And finds it wanting in the course of a life. At the same time, it manages to make the sensibilities of gaming concepts—the nexus-choices of "Continue?," "Adding a life," and "Game Over," and draw parallels to painful life-lessons—real ones—that legitimize the story-line, gaming structure and the very reason for making the movie. Very, very smart.

Now, this is a lot of "deep thought" for a teen-relationship (kinda) movie, and I run the risk of gilding the lily, and worse, building high anticipation which might kill the appreciation for what is there in the theater.*** But, more light-bulbs went off for me in this one, about how to use the craft to tell a story, and, in context, of achieving something more than the instant gratification that permeates our society (and the damage it can create) than anything I've seen in awhile.

It also managed to save, for me, what has been a rather disappointing movie Summer. It's also the kind of high-concept circus act that the director can only pull off once—another movie in this style would lay him open to suggestions that he's a "one-trick pony." But, if he can bring this kind of sensibility to this project, imagine where that mind could go in the future. It makes one anticipate, and excited for, what can happen in the future.  As for now, Wright's taken things to a whole new level.

* Okay, lest this be taken out of context ("He's comparing 'Scott Pilgrim vs. the World' to 'Citizen Kane?'!) and I'm accused of Kael-esque hyperbole, I found the same sense of film-making brio in this one that I've found in the others.  I always find this exciting, whoever does it, even if the results are ultimately to a less than satisfying experience.  I'm all for pushing the envelope, but the results have to be more than a good-looking envelope.  There's got to be a good message inside it, too.

 ** And, there's another layer—the sound design.  This one may be my winner for "Best Use of Sound" for the year, tossing in music and effects in a giddy montage that's constantly inventive and supportive.  I've tried to do this sort of stuff in my work—specifically for the old "Bill Nye the Science Guy" show—but, I could only aspire to the level that "Scott Pilgrim" does. Bravo. (Clapclapclap)

*** Notice, please, that I haven't done a plot synopsis, quoted good lines (which there are, a-plenty) or said anything about the movie other than a basic wash-and-rinse of the film-going experience.  There are too many surprises, and too fine a resolution, to go about spoiling one's viewing.  I want to keep your preconceptions of this movie (which I hope you'll do) as spoiler-free as possible.  Go in expecting nothing, and this will be a better film—for you—for it.