pres.umptuo.us

Superman Returns was good, but not the greatness I was hoping for. You could say I’m a little disappointed.

The good: I loved the plane sequence, where we first get to see Superman in action. It was ridiculously intense. I’d almost buy another ticket just to see it again.

Kate Bosworth as Lois Lane, which I know a lot of people had trepidations about, did a fine job. I only vaguely remember the original Superman movies, so I can’t really do a comparison with Margot Kidder here, but Bosworth fit in nicely in the movie. Brandon Routh was good as Clark Kent with the awkward waves and the goofy smiles, but as Superman he stayed almost silent.

And therein lines the main problem with Superman Returns: I didn’t feel like it was a Superman movie. The movie was very emotionally distant from me, and I never came to sympathize with Superman’s character. The inner struggle, what little there was of it, never surfaced.

But the blame falls not on the movie or the script, but on the Superman character himself. I’ve never been a big fan of Superman, simply because he’s so boring. He has no flaws, and that itself is his biggest flaw.

I had my hopes that Singer and crew would do their best to focus this movie more on the human aspect of Superman, and there’s a few scenes in the beginning that show promise, but nothing comes of it. At the beginning of the movie, Superman has been gone for five years to search for the remains of his destroyed planet Krypton, only to discover that nothing is left of the planet or his ancestors. Yet this doesn’t seem to have any sort of impact on him throughout the movie at all.

The lack of development in the character of Superman spread to the other characters as well, and I just didn’t care for any of them. For shame, because the movie was very solid and I enjoyed it, but it failed to elevate itself beyond a mere “superhero” movie.

I read Ebert’s review after seeing the movie and found myself agreeing with a lot, but not all, of what he says. He’s quite a bit more eloquent than me as well.