Hero Worship

As part of his Friday 411 column, Roger Friedman of Fox News.Com, posted a review of Superman Returns. After reading it, I decided to republish the entire commentary, because this is by far the most mixed review of the film I have seen so far. And I thought my readers would benefit from looking at it. Friedman's piece also makes a few points both inside and outside of the review that I feel compelled to comment on.

'Superman Returns': Superhero Broods, Breeds

Bryan Singer's "Superman Returns" got its big press airing last night in multiple screenings. Even though Warner Bros. has been keen to flack positive reviews from the trades and the newsweeklies, there’s a lot more to say about this $300 million epic that opens next Wednesday.

For one thing, I don't know why in the world this edition of "Superman" was adopted by the gay community. Director Singer is gay, and his point of view comes across fairly often, but neither Superman the character nor his new portrayer, Brandon Routh, seem especially sexual in any direction. Singer seems more interested in creating a Christ-like icon out of Superman, which is certainly unique.

But Superman, aka Clark Kent in "Superman Returns" is just as much of a dork as he was in the first two films that starred Christopher Reeve and were directed by Richard Donner.

The early revelation that Lois Lane has a child the same age as the amount of time he’s been away makes absolutely no visible impact on Clark. If he ever slept with Lois in "Superman II," he seems either to have forgotten or not realized the consequences.

The one thing Routh has going for him is that he looks a lot like Chris Reeve. Other than that, his acting hasn’t changed much since his short, cardboard-like stint on "One Life to Live."

Singer is content with using him as sort of a prop, and moving everyone else around him. It’s not that Routh is bad or embarrasses himself. He does neither. But dynamic is not a word that comes to mind, either.

Kate Bosworth as Lois Lane actually fares much worse. She is very bland, lacking any of the zip Margot Kidder gave to the role in the films or Teri Hatcher in the "Lois and Clark" TV series.

She is sass-less, but then again, so is the wearisome script by Michael Dougherty, Dan Harris and Singer. Their dialogue is either suffocating or absent. After all, Lois has supposedly won a Pulitzer Prize. But she's as witty or facile with words as a lump of Kryptonite.

Now, you might think I didn't like "Superman Returns." Not so: The first hour is magnificent, and there is a lot to like in the succeeding hour and a half. But the movie is way too long. Singer apparently thought "more is more," and you can see all $300 million up on the screen.

But a long sequence in the middle, with lots of CGI and some preposterous stuff involving Lois saving Superman, is repetitive and kind of joyless. A woman sitting next to me in yesterday’s screening kept making phone calls during that part.

But the first hour or so just soars, and all works with a real brilliance. It’s enough to offset the rest of the film for better or worse.

That first hour is essentially a remake of the first two Donner films. The only difference is that Superman has been away for five years. But Singer recreates Superman's original appearance on Earth — this time instead of being a baby in a rocket, he's an adult. The wonderful Eva Marie Saint returns as Clark’s mother Martha Kent, and the scenes in Kansas are gorgeously shot.

In recreating the Donner films, Singer has also used John Williams' original score and the original title design as well. In this case "Superman Returns" is really "Superman III." About 20 minutes in, Clark/Superman must rescue the Space Shuttle and a passenger plane that was boosting it into space. The whole movie is worth this episode, every part of it works.

But that's when a new story kicks in, involving Kevin Spacey as Lex Luthor colorlessly imitating Gene Hackman, and Parker Posey doing her damnedest to make a character out of his sidekick Kitty.

But Posey — who looks great and has some good introductory moments — never takes off. For a lot of the film she’s dressed up with no place to go, and you can feel it. Her role is full of missed opportunities for juicy one-liners and observations.

Spacey, sometimes looking like Uncle Fester, works overtime to find new paths away from Hackman's work. Sometimes, but not often, he is successful.

There are some nice touches: The first character you see in the film is a wealthy, dying widow whom Lex is conning into signing over her estate. The original Lois Lane from TV, Noel Neill, does a nice job with the part.

Later Jack Larson, Jimmy Olsen from TV, gets few good scenes as a bartender. Perry White (Frank Langella) does get to say, "Great Caesar's ghost," and in a cute scene the words, "Look, up in the sky, it’s a bird, it's a plane," are uttered.

In the end, "Superman Returns" is grand, and often aims to be a take on "Gotterdammerung" with the world exploding, flooding, collapsing and repairing itself. There is a lot of melodrama, and many gorgeous shots of Superman flying around the world, into space and brooding about his life's work.

I think the audience I saw the movie with was a little confused. They wanted some laughs, but when the few times came, they chuckled nervously instead.

There was succinct applause at the end, but not the feeling that we’d seen a jubilant triumph.

My guess is the movie, which comes out June 28 and will "open" all the way through July 4, will make all its foundational money right away, and come out of the first week in good shape. But $300 million is a lot to earn back, no matter how impassioned comic books fans are about this latest iteration of their hero's saga.

For better or worse, the character of Superman has been compared to Christ all throughout his 60+ years of history, therefore there is nothing new or unique in Singer's approach.

Take for example, this line uttered by Marlon Brando from the '78 film:

For this reason above all, their capacity for good, I have sent them you... my only son.

Descended from the heavens (Krypton).

Or this image used to promote Smallville when it premiered on TV in 2001:

Warner Bros-2001

If that image doesn't evoke Christ--I don't know what would...

As for Friedman's thoughts on the film itself--I'm confused. He's entitled to his opinion, of course, but how can he say that the first hour is "magnificent" but criticize the acting of Spacey, Routh, and Bosworth? If the performances aren't that great overall--then magnificent is hardly a word I would use. Saying the perfect first hour offsets any other issues he has with the film makes no sense, especially when the "problems" he outlines are seemingly multiple in number and certainly not minor.

The Space Shuttle rescue that happens in the first 20 minutes of the film makes it all worthwhile...The last time I saw a film come close to doing something like that, was the lightsaber duel in Star Wars: Episode I: The Phantom Menace.

He isn't the first critic to complain about the film's long running time...In fact that's been a familiar refrain--even in some of the very positive reviews I have read.