AntiMovies

IMDb: Superman Returns (2006)

Let’s take one of the most anticipated super hero movie remakes of all time and shit on all the characters and then smear that shit all over the audience’s face.

This movie looked good. I mean, it looked good. I bought it. Superman looked like Superman, Lex Luthor looked like Lex Luthor and Lois kinda looked like Lois. He wore the suit and flew around…

But let’s examine what makes this an AntiMovie. It is not a Superman movie, or even a super hero movie for that matter. It is a big, overdone soap opera chick-flick in which nothing remarkable happens. (Sorry Brian, you can’t get away with it this time. X-Men was a new franchise. There has already been a Superman movie and people know what to expect.)

Superman returns to find the world no longer wants/needs him. His girlfriend has a kid and is engaged to another man—he apparently didn’t even tell her he was leaving for five years. So we all we do is suffer for two and a half hours as Superman/Clark Kent tries to get his girl back.

Or is he really trying to get her back? The relationship is portrayed so wooden and unconvincing, one could argue that Superman doesn’t care at all. If Superman is the father of her child, why do neither of them seem to acknowledge it? Is the answer that the new Superman is gay, like so many would have us believe?

Superman could have always been considered gay. He dresses up in a form fitting spandex suit and a cape. But that was always a joke. He didn’t even have the fake nipples and latex of a Joel Schumacher Batman. Of course he wasn’t gay, but it was easy to make fun of him because he was an overgrown Boy Scout. But perhaps Brian Singer went a little too far this time exploring his personal issues in his movies.

Now, I wouldn’t care if the Superman character was gay originally. Though, if he would have worn pink tights (a la Orgazmo) and skipped around instead of flying, I think it would have been great and more true to the subtleties of this movie. Maybe a bit of a Zorro, the Gay Blade influence would have made this movie funny and entertaining. Sadly no.

Lex Luthor is the villain, but what does he do? He steals all the knowledge contained in the Fortress of Solitude and proceeds to grow a giant island with it. Ummm. OK. Is that really the best you got? Here’s an idea: take over the planet with the super advanced technology, make yourself unrivaled master and ruler and then kill Superman with the Kryptonite when he comes back. Now there’s a plot.

Then again, there are plenty of opportunities in the movie for a real plot:

Superman has a son! Let’s explore that. Maybe his son could have saved him from Lex Luthor… No, we’ll just save all that for the sequel—maybe.

The world doesn’t need Superman anymore! Maybe this was too much like The Incredibles (arguably the best super hero movie in recent years) but it would be interesting to see some real consequences for Superman abandoning the world. Or how about, the world needs Superman more than ever because it descended into chaos when he left?

This leads us to, why did Superman leave in the first place? So many unanswered questions. But the best question to ask is, who cares? Ultimately, two things happen in this movie:

1) Superman strains to save Lois Lane when he stops a huge jet from crashing into a baseball stadium. (Jesus, they should have all been handed some hot dogs and apple pie at the bottom of the emergency exit slide.)

2) Superman really strains to throw a giant Kryptonian crystal/rock into space. Something that probably would have destroyed most of the planet due to flood, tidal waves and earthquakes.

And at the end of it all, none of the characters are really likable or memorable. Except maybe Lois’s fiance. He seemed to be the only one who had his head on straight and wasn’t a dick. But the movie tries to force us to dislike him because we are supposed to be rooting for Superman to get back with Lois.

I really wanted this movie to be good. I left the theatre desperately trying to find some reason I should like it. It had its great parts. It was beautifully shot. I was ready to accept it with all it’s plot ambiguities and unanswered questions. In the end I found I didn’t care about anyone in the movie or what they were doing. Characters that have been around for 70 years were destroyed and shit on. Much like those in the Star Wars prequels. I was bored, disappointed and offended that this was the best they could come up with.