Superman Returns, Superman, Superman II

After going to see Superman Returns, I decided to watch the two older films that it was nominally a sequel to, to see if Superman was as good as I remembered it being and if Superman II was any better than I remembered it (it wasn’t). So this review will touch on all three of the major Superman films. (We’ll forget about the third and fourth Christopher Reeve films; they are best forgotten.) I’ll also note that some of the best Superman adaptations have not been live-action films, but rather the best episodes of Superman: The Animated Series. Someday, I’ll try to review that series, which, along with Batman: The Animated Series and Justice League (and Justice League Unlimited) are among the best superhero adaptations you’ll find anywhere.

But, let’s start with the new film: Superman Returns. It’s a good film. It’s not up to the quality of the first Superman, but it has many things going for it (and a few nagging problems). Superman, after having been away for five years (he’s visiting the remains of Krypton) returns. Lex Luthor, who has been in prison – presumably for murder and attempted mass murder (see Superman) has been released on parole since the chief witness against him, Superman, can’t be found. And Luthor has his usual (at least of the movie version of Luthor) crack-pot scheme – this time to create a new continent using Kryptonian technology, even if it means destroying the American East Coast. It all makes for a pretty good superhero adventure film. The plot is usually interesting (if you ignore a few nagging problems; see below), the acting overall good, and the effects by and large quite good. Brandon Routh and Kevin Spacey are good as Superman and Luthor, though not as good as Reeve and Hackman (a common theme with this movie: good but not as good as the 1978 film). And Brian Singer (director of the first two X-Men films and creator of the TV series House) also does a good job.

The film does have a few problems. Superman is away for five years. So is Clark Kent. Kent returns. So does Superman. Yet nobody makes the obvious connection. Later in the film, Superman if hospitalized for days after saving the world. Kent presumably is missing for that whole time, but again nobody makes the connection.

One point that bothered me when I watched the film but was cleared up later involved Lois Lane. She has a kid, one that she assumes is the child of her live-in boyfriend. It’s Luthor who first asks if the kid could be Superman’s. Later he demonstrates some super powers in a crisis. So how could Lois not know that she and Superman could have conceived a child? The answer is in Superman II. He and Lois do make love in one sequence. Then, at film’s end, when Lois can’t deal with being around Clark every day, knowing what she has to give up, he erases her memory. (See below: one of my many complaints against Superman II is the way it kept adding superpowers to Superman’s abilities.)

The music is mixed. It reuses a lot of John Williams’ music from the original, including the marvelous Superman theme. But the original music, written by John Ottman (who I hadn’t even heard of before checking the credits for this film) is uninspired.

A lot has been made of the lack of chemistry between Superman and Lois Lane in this film. That didn’t bother me as much as it bothered some. I agree that Brandon Routh and Kate Bosworth aren’t the couple that Chris Reeve and Margo Kidder were, but the film is trying to present them as having a muddled relationship at this point.

Overall, though, it is a film worth seeing and enjoying. We plan to re-see it this weekend, at the IMAX theatre in the Pittsburgh area.

Superman (1978) is a marvel, a film that still retains most of its original magic. Yes, the Krypton sequence could have been trimmed just a bit (and it’s slightly longer in the extended edition, which is the best version of the film) and I really could do without Lois Lane’s childish “Can You Read My Mind” poem (a good moment to hit the rest room or go for a snack), but overall this is a great film. The Smallville sequence is touching and well done, setting up the essential character. And after Superman reaches Metropolis, especially the string with the great action sequence that starts with his saving Lois who has fallen from a damaged helicopter, is tremendous. Gene Hackman is great as Lex Luthor, managing to be both a menacing criminal genius and to provide comic relief at the same time. His plot to explode a nuclear weapon in the San Andreas fault, sending California into the ocean so that the desert property he’s buying up becomes worth millions, is both wonderfully absurd and just the sort of thing for this type of movie. (One of the great movie moments: there are actually two missiles, since Lex’s dumb assistant, played by Ned Beatty, mis-programmed the first one. Superman, to demonstrate how callous Luthor is, says “I bet you don’t even know where the other missle is going.” Lex: “I know exactly where it’s gong. Hackensack. New Jersey.” Miss Tesmacher (Lex’s girlfriend): “But Lex. My mother lives in Hackensack.” Luthor looks at his watch, then shakes his head.)

It’s all great fun, from the marvelous comic book opening to the closing shot of Superman in space. And, since Superman II was mostly shot at the same time as the first film, we all had great hopes for it. But …

Superman was directed by Richard Donner, who had a great sense of the characters, understood how to blend humor into the movie but at the same time keep it dramatic, and overall did a good job. But the producers (Alexander and Ilya Salkind) didn’t like him. So they fired him after the first film and brought in Richard Lester, who didn’t understand the characters, threw out and reshot scenes, didn’t pay attention to continuity, and overall turned what should have been a good film into a so-so one.

At the very beginning of Superman, we see three Kryptonian criminals being sentenced to the phantom zone (in the movie, that amounts to imprisonment in a giant crystal). That was the set-up for the second film, where the three criminals escape and come to earth, where Superman must defeat them. A good set-up, but it goes wrong in Lester’s incapable hands.

First off, Lester seems to ignore logic, even the internal logic of the film. Superman, after revealing his identify to Lois, takes her to the fortress of solitude. There, he goes through a treatment that makes him mortal, a treatment that, the image of his mother assures him and us, cannot be reverses. Clark and Lois return from the fortress, only to discover that the super villains have essentially taken over the world. Clark turns around and heads for the arctic, and a bit later returns as Superman. So, how did he reverse the irreversible treatment? How knows. It all happens off stage.

When Superman finally encounters the villains, we have a scene in which they shoot force beams from their fingers at one another. Where did this power come from? Again, who knows. Lester presumably didn’t care.

Gene Hackman is again good as Luthor, though this time the role is much smaller. But, Lester apparently didn’t like some of the dialog and reshot it after Hackman was on to other projects. There are a few long shots of Luthor where the voice is clearly someone doing a Gene Hackman imitation.

The music can be summed up the same way I summed up the music for Superman Returns: the Williams music the re-use is great. The original music isn’t at al memorable. The effects likewise alternate between good and painfully bad.

The film isn’t all bad. There are a few good scenes, such as Superman tricking Luthor and the villains, such that they wind up losing their powers. (Though since Superman got his back, maybe they can too.) The whole thing alternates between fun, minor entertainment, and dumb, annoying sequences. I’m still amazed by the handful of critics who thought this film was better than the first one.

I hope there are more Superman films. But I also hope that, if there is a sequel to Superman Returns, that Brian Singer directs it.