[MyPantsAreOnFire]

Well, I agree it was too long with far too much padding to justify the length. That said, I couldn't diasgree more about most of the acting and directing. I can't look at this as anywhere near being a bad film. It's not even close to being a great one, but to call it a disaster or terrible or whatever seems to be trying too hard to not like it.

The movie was indeed meant to be in tribute/respect to Donner and the original cast, hence why Singer had so many shots similar to those from Donner's films and why the actors were attempted to at least seem similar to those from the first set of films. Whether they succeeded or not...well, I think Kidder was awful, so Bosworth had zero to work with in that regard. I actually was very impressed with Routh. He had a natural charisma as Clark and Superman and really looked the part. Nobody can ever be Reeve, but who really expected that?

That said, I definitely agree that it would have been a much better idea to establish a totally new Superman and not try to piggyback on the first two films. They were moments in time and everything in the Superman world has changed too much. There's too much baggage trying to link films over decades...just ask Mr. Lucas.

Still, overall, I enjoyed the film. I think it had some spectacular and beautiful moments. It dragged a bit, but I was never bored. Superman is a comic character I can't stand, so when someone manages to make me interested in him, I end up impressed. And I rarely base my opinions of a film on how much money they make. If that were the case, most of the films I own are complete garbage.

[Jedi_Arco]

I totally agree about the box office a film grosses and the quality of said film. Most of my favorites are films that didn't do much box office (dramatic pieces that most people don't see). I'm just putting that in there because some fans are trying to say the box office proves it's good. I disagree with the box office on both counts. Just because a film makes a killing at the box office, does not mean it's a good film and vice versa. I mean, Titanic is a horrible movie too, and it's the box office record holder.

As for the actors, I said I liked them. They just didn't have much to work with in my opinion. And I think Routh was the strongest of the main cast and was a fine Superman, but he would've been better if this had not been a sequel to the first two. And I agree that Margot Kidder was a horrible Lois Lane. She is the worst part of the first movie for me.

Also, I wouldn't have been so nit-picky about the mirrored scenes and "homage" to Superman: The Movie had this been a relaunch. The fact that this is to be taken as a sequel makes it redundant. To watch S:TM, then Superman II, and then this... it would be like watching S:TM again with slight changes. If this were a relaunch movie, starting from scratch and ignoring what came before (as it should have been) I wouldn't have drawn any connection between it and the original Donner movie from '78. But Singer did it that way, and it is, so I am. Simple as that.

I'm glad you liked it, and I'm glad it made you like Superman in some capacity. While he's not my favorite character either (that would be Batman) he is on my top 5 list. I really am glad that there are people out there that like this film and are saying so. I just don't want a sequel to it.



-- On a somewhat seperate note, thank you for not flaming me. I am always a bit gunshy when it comes to posting sometimes, especially with something as potentially flammable as the subjects spoken of on here. Other pages I have posted on before usually break down to name calling and the hurling of insults. That is one of the reasons I like it here, and hope to continue posting; everyone is very civil and willing to listen to opposing viewpoints with an open mind. Debate is inevitable, but it's nice to know that we can all get along and just agree to disagree sometimes. So, thank you all for being so kind and allowing for fun and spirited chats without all the flaming. Thank you.

This post has been edited by Jedi_Arco: 05 July 2006 - 08:01 AM

[MyPantsAreOnFire]

Out of curiosity, I think I recall seeing you post in another thread about how Batman Begins is such a great comic book film, yes? Now, I agree with this...but come on, they almost carbon copied plot points from Burton's first Bat-film. I think that's much more glaring in that film since it's whole schtick was "this is a NEW Batman" whereas SR has worn on its sleeve that it's in honor/homage to the original two Superman films and the people involved.

But overall, this was a very good review on your part. Obviously, people have different opinions, but it's easy to see how and why you didn't like the film. I think the box office showing has more to do with it not being a great film and it's so long...pretty much everyone I know has liked it and will buy it on DVD but doesn't want to go see it again because it was just so damn long. People are finding it good...just not "see it again and again" great.

[threegee]

A couple minor nitpicks: the seventies were part of the silver age, and golden age superman (who leaped rather than flew) would sometimes allow criminals to die (sometimes with sup's help).

[barend]

i saw it on the weekend...

it was a fun watch, my only real problems...

it felt convincingly like a sequal, but as mentioned in the long long review... you couldn't tell what it was a sequel too.
it was so erronious on points.

it seemed to ignore things here and there...

but i agree with the choice to not restart. it would be a tad disrepctful to reeves so soon after his death to begin again. because everytime you do that your essentially errasing theoriginals to alot of people...

i felt the same watching this as i did the others... the main dude did an acceptional job of mimiking reeves quirkes... most of them.

some interesting questions came up and were put forward...
but also ones of constistancy...

he gets awful close to that cryptonite at the end...

also... superman leaves for five years, and comes back and everyone's 5 years younger than when he first got there?


they didn't really have a choice with batman... they had to start again because;

1. 3 & 4 were so utterly fucked that there was no other way...
2. it was nice to see him become batman.

[civilian_number_two]

SPOILERS APLENTY: DON'T READ IF YOU DON'T WANT TO SEE THEM:

Agree, obviously, that there are way too many citations from the original film. Superman Returns is really Superman Rehashed; about as long, but lacking the charm.

Disagree that the film should have been more true to changes recently made in the comic books. The films are always going to be differnet from the comic books, and this happens to be the film series that the filmmakers chose to go with. Dubious choice to make a "sequel" identical to the first chapter, but nothing wrong with keeping to all of the other details.

Disagree too that Lex would necessarily kill his moll after she foiled his plan. This Lex actually showed a moment of reaction when his thugs died.

Naturally even the Silver Age Superman could never pick up an island infused with Kryptonite. He should have come up with a clever scheme for pulling that off, like wrapping it in gigantic chains and lifting it from a safe distance. The whole concluding scene of this film reeked ofass.

What gets me is that Superman is from Krypton, hence he is indestructible. So how does Lex grind stone from Krypton? Coming from the same planet that makes skin unbreakable, should the stone be even more unbreakable?

Little nitpicks aside, your review contains the same criticisms that I had on seeing the film. I would not make a big deal about Lois's memory loss in Superman II. That was to scare off any memory of Clark's identity. I dare say that in the unseen-but-hinted-at backstory, Superman went back as Man of Steel and tapped that ass a few more times before splitting. But since the whole point of implying that is so they can include this lame superson character, yeah, why why why?

My smallest complaint is of course that Clark returns at the same time as Superman, and no one sees this. Remember in the old Wonder Woman tv series, how whenever Diana P{rince's sister (Debra Winger) would show up, there would be a junior Amazon named Wonder Girl helping Wonder Woman to fight the Nazis? You'd think even comic book mooks would be able to see through that one.

[barend]

poor cyclops and his relationships with women who have feelings for other heros...

-----------------------S-P-O-I-L-E-R---------------------------------
spoiler: in a way i can't wait to see the nest one to see if they adress the issue of junior... i mean the longer they wait to tell cyclops the truth the more devistating its goin to be.
-----------------------S-P-O-I-L-E-R---------------------------------

[Dorothy]

I saw this movie the other day at the drive in (triple feature - Xmen 3, Superman and Poseidon [I didn't make it to Poseidon]), and I have to admit that the movie is visually beautimus. It reminds me a lot of Alex Ross' work, (the lighting, some of the shots, and the blurriness of the characters [though, admittedly this could have been caused by dirty glasses]) even though Routh is in no way shape or form as beefy as Ross' Supes. I really could have done without Kal Jr., though...

I cannot see the name Lex Luthor without hearing Ned Beatty in my head... "Mr. LuthOR."

[Lord Aquaman]

Okay, some of this is going to sound like a rehash of Jedi Arco's review, but I can't help agreeing with him here and there:

This could have been a great film, it wished to be. It only lacked the light to show the way.

The fact that WB still relies on Superman and Batman to bring in the audiences when DC Comics is loaded with other deep, richly intriguing heroes is disheartening. And when they finally tap Bryan Singer after so many false starts, what does he do? He decides to make the film a sequel to the first two Superman films directed [primarily] by Richard Donner, with Superman returning from a mysterious absence after failing to tell anyone he was leaving in the first place and dealing with the ramifications of that.

It was a bold, ambitious idea, but it doesn't work. Using the first two films, which were not exactly perfect to begin with, as reference point instead of the current comics, is lazy and uncreative, defeating the entire point of redefining Superman for a new generation of movie goers (Chris Nolan did not make that mistake with "Batman Begins"). I don't buy the stuff about how Batman had no choice but to start over. You think Superman's first film franchise was in any better shape than Batman's? Hell, they mirror each other for crying out loud - both took what are generally considered bad turns at the 3rd entries and both were burned out by the fourth entries. Superman's own franchise was reduced to a steaming pile of crap, which is why he didn't have a film for almost 20 years. On top of that, the film doesn't even explore it's own ambitious idea thoroughly, thus squandering what could have been a fascinating plot (the third and fourth films suffered the same mistake). Superman returns, resumes doing good deeds and the world falls in love with him again, never displaying any resentment towards him for leaving them in the first place. Only Lois Lane and Lex Luthor hold a grudge against him, albeit for different reasons, but it doesn't take long for Lois's undying love for Superman resurface despite having "moved on" to Perry White's nice guy nephew Richard, who has been helping Lois raise a son, Jason, who turns out to be the illegitimate son of Superman. Additionally, Superman would never have just taken off without informing the world that he was leaving; to do so feels very out of character for him. He ain't perfect but he shouldn't be that dumb. The more natural thing to do would have been for Supes to take Lois aside first, explain to her his reasons for leaving, and then he would have addressed the world about his leaving with a big meaningful speech. To have him just up and disappear like that is pretty much on par with the stupidity of having him give up his powers in the 2nd film.

Demographic friendly leads Brandon Routh and Kate Bosworth, 26 and 23 respectively, are too young to believably pass themselves off as a Superman who has been missing for 5 years and a Lois Lane who is supposed to be an accomplished reporter turned single mother. Apparently Singer became so fixated on the idea of casting an unknown in the role of Superman, like Donner, that it didn't occur to him that if Superman were to have been missing for any length of time, he should look old enough to have been missing and also look old enough to have the experience of a hero under his belt. Jim Caviezel would have fit these requirements perfectly. But Singer, blinded by X-Men hubris, decided to cast some young guy no one had ever heard of, and matching him with an equally young leading lady.

Adding insult to injury, Singer and his idiot costume designer Louise Migenbach, butchered Superman's costume, darkening the red parts to maroon/burgundy, shrinkng the insignia and giving the costume an overall rubbery look. After all of Migenbach's self-congratulating rantings about what a wonderful job they did of "updating" the costume and bitching about how much she's always hated the suit's classic color scheme and all those speeches about how Superman has to look as if he steppe dright out of our collective conscience, Singer's Superman looks like a high school jock in a bad Halloween costume, and he had twice Donner's budget and three times the special effects technology.

In some instances, Singer recreations of sequences from the Donner film with a little tweaking, like the romantic flight between Superman and Lois, minus the voice over narration, add in Lois taking off her high heels, feel so familiar it's creepy. While the film never sinks to the painful depths of banality that the Star Wars prequels, Matrix sequels, Catwoman, Daredevil, Elektra and the 2005 Fantastic Four sank to, there's an overall feeling of been there, done that, and Singer's slick style isn't enough to cover for it. Good intentions he may have had, but this time Singer bit off more than he could chew; perhaps it's time he abandoned the world of pop spectacle film-making and went back to directing films grounded in reality.

Given the thankless task of being the new screen embodiment of the world's most famous hero, Brandon Routh, chosen for no better reason than the fact that he's young, unknown, inexpensive and in the eyes of some vaguely resembles Chris Reeve (he's actually two years younger than Tom Welling, who plays the teenager Clark on "Smallville"), gives an admirable effort, but despite all his sincerity, he never inhabits the role the same way Reeve did and lacks the heroic aura of Reeve (though Routh's never as annoying as Hayden Christensen was as Anakin in the SW prequels). After a while you desperately want to like him, but Routh's clearly in over his head, most notably in his scenes with Ma Kent (Eva Marie Saint) where he tells her that what he found out there was "a graveyard...", and at the end when he tells his son the same speech that Jor-El gave to the infant Superman in the first film. As stated above, Routh's boyish youth prevents us from really believing that he was missing for five years and had prior experience as Superman. Reeve was also young, but damn it, Reeve looked like a man. Perhaps if he were older, or if the film wasn't mindlessly lashed to the earlier films, Routh's efforts would not be in vain. It's so easy to imagine the aforementioned Jim Caviezel in the same role and bringing the necessary depth and gravitas to Superman's plights.

But Routh's not nearly as bad in his role as Kate Bosworth is in hers. As stated above, Bosworth, while cuter than Kidder, is simply too young to be the veteran reporter Lois Lane, or the mother of a five year old boy for that matter (unless we assume she had the kid when she was 17 or 18), and she's too lightweight. Bosworth may have looked to Katharine Hepburn as a model for Lois, but Bosworth is no Hepburn.

Frank Langella, James Marsden and Sam Huntingten are good enough, and Kevin Spacey is an improvement as Lex Luthor, but Luthor's thugs are sadly lacking, with Kitty Kowalski a waste of Parker Posey (Posey probably would have made a better Lois than Bosworth).

Well, that's my rant. Sorry if it offended those who loved this movie. If it's of any consolation, this film is still better than Catwoman.

[barend]

Frank Langella, James Marsden and Sam Huntingten are good enough, and Kevin Spacey is an improvement as Lex Luthor, but Luthor's thugs are sadly lacking, with Kitty Kowalski a waste of Parker Posey (Posey probably would have made a better Lois than Bosworth).

that's an amazing call... Parker Posey was so more lois than bosworth. she wold have been perfect.

i was so annoyed when i saw posey in supermans arms infront of the martin place fountain... i was walking past as they were placing the crowd... which means i missed her by not much. damnit... i love her.






oh ...and yes, the did have to restart with batman...

superman 3 was to 2 what Return Of The Jedi was to Empire Strikes Back.

batman 3 on the other hand was so fucking bad that the makers actually should have been put in prison.

[Lord Aquaman]

that's an amazing call... Parker Posey was so more lois than bosworth. she wold have been perfect.

i was so annoyed when i saw posey in supermans arms infront of the martin place fountain... i was walking past as they were placing the crowd... which means i missed her by not much. damnit... i love her.
oh ...and yes, the did have to restart with batman...

superman 3 was to 2 what Return Of The Jedi was to Empire Strikes Back.

batman 3 on the other hand was so fucking bad that the makers actually should have been put in prison.

Superman 3 and 4 are still bad films - bad enough to merit a complete revamp in the same vein as "Batman Begins".

[georgelucas4greedo]

I think Spiderman set the bar for what a superhero film should be in the 21st century. With all the other movies, it feels like the same cliches over and over again. Hero fights crime. Hero becomes overwhelmed by the burden. Hero tries to be normal. Hero realizes that evil in the world wont go away. Hero comes back. Hero gets sh*t kicked out of him. Hero kicks sh*t out of singular enemy.

I don't really like superhero films to begin with, but at least some originality is good. That's why I tip the cap to X-Men and Unbreakable.

I probably wont see Superman for the above mentioned reasons!

[barend]

batman 3 & 4 was to 1 & 2 what teenwolf 2 was to citizen cane!

that was one big MF dive!

[Jedi_Arco]

1) barend -- you crack me up!! "Batman 3 & 4 was to 1 & 2 what Teenwolf 2 was to Citizen Kane"!!! BRILLIANT!!

2) Aquaman -- well stated, and I don't mind the similarities to mine at all; if anything it just reassures me that my observations weren't only my own afterall. And you put it all down so eloquently too. And managed to mention things that I hadn't thought of or just didn't include. For that, thank you.

3) Agh! I'm sorry, I don't remember who asked or brought it up, but I probably did comment on the greatness of Batman Begins at some point, and I do believe it is THE quintessential comic book movie. Not Spider-man, although that one is very good too. Batman Begins was so well done that it can stand on it's own and not even need to be called Batman. It could've been a movie about a man who becomes something more, been called "Generic Hero #22891" and still been a fantastic movie, which it is. That's how good Batman is. It is a lesson in proper film-making and technical greatness. The fact that it's Batman is just icing on the cake for me. And I know there are some similarities between BB and the Burton Batman, but (and you knew there was gonna be a but) it never claimed to be a sequel to the Batman's before it, and it didn't try to copy what had come before. Yes some of the elements of the plot are similar (ie: the poisoning of the city, although Joker was killing and Al Ghul was just making people crazy) but throughout most of the film it's completely original and a whole new take on the Dark Knight.


In other news, I just learned that, according to inside sources, Warner Bros entertainment has stated that unless Superman Returns manages to break the $200 million mark domestically there will be NO sequel. That's domestic returns only, they won't count international because they have marketing to recoup there too. So, no $200 million = no sequel. And the way it's going now, there will be no sequel. I'm sorry to say it, but I'm glad. Not that I'd see a sequel anyway, but there ya go. Let's let this die now so we can come back to it in another 10 years or so and do a proper relaunch with a true re-start to the Superman mythology. Thank you.

[Lord Aquaman]

1) barend -- you crack me up!! "Batman 3 & 4 was to 1 & 2 what Teenwolf 2 was to Citizen Kane"!!! BRILLIANT!!

2) Aquaman -- well stated, and I don't mind the similarities to mine at all; if anything it just reassures me that my observations weren't only my own afterall. And you put it all down so eloquently too. And managed to mention things that I hadn't thought of or just didn't include. For that, thank you.

3) Agh! I'm sorry, I don't remember who asked or brought it up, but I probably did comment on the greatness of Batman Begins at some point, and I do believe it is THE quintessential comic book movie. Not Spider-man, although that one is very good too. Batman Begins was so well done that it can stand on it's own and not even need to be called Batman. It could've been a movie about a man who becomes something more, been called "Generic Hero #22891" and still been a fantastic movie, which it is. That's how good Batman is. It is a lesson in proper film-making and technical greatness. The fact that it's Batman is just icing on the cake for me. And I know there are some similarities between BB and the Burton Batman, but (and you knew there was gonna be a but) it never claimed to be a sequel to the Batman's before it, and it didn't try to copy what had come before. Yes some of the elements of the plot are similar (ie: the poisoning of the city, although Joker was killing and Al Ghul was just making people crazy) but throughout most of the film it's completely original and a whole new take on the Dark Knight.
In other news, I just learned that, according to inside sources, Warner Bros entertainment has stated that unless Superman Returns manages to break the $200 million mark domestically there will be NO sequel. That's domestic returns only, they won't count international because they have marketing to recoup there too. So, no $200 million = no sequel. And the way it's going now, there will be no sequel. I'm sorry to say it, but I'm glad. Not that I'd see a sequel anyway, but there ya go. Let's let this die now so we can come back to it in another 10 years or so and do a proper relaunch with a true re-start to the Superman mythology. Thank you.

Nice to know we're on the same wavelength, JA.

Yeah, a real re-start for Superman would be nice. I wonder, if these ten years pass, if they'd re-hire Routh, who'll probably look more Supermanish in 10 years than he does now, or if they'll pass him over in favor of another young unknown...

And while we're talking Superman, who wasted their money on Superman: Brainiac Attacks?