 |
|
|
|
| | | |
| MatchFlick Member Reviews |
view all movie information
Directed By
Bryan Singer
Written By:
Dan Harris, Michael Dougherty, Michael Dougherty
Cast:
Kate Bosworth, James Marsden, Frank Langella, Eva Marie Saint, Parker Posey, Sam Huntington, Kal Penn, Kevin Spacey, Brandon Routh
|
|
|
| |
Superman Returns (2006)
 email this review to a friend
Movie Review by AJ 
June 30th, 2006
|  |
Picking up five years after Superman II and disregarding the other sequels (which I have not seen) completely, Superman Returns finds Supes returning to Earth after spending time researching remnants of his home planet of Krypton that were found in outer space, only to find that his adopted home has changed quite a bit in his absence. Unfortunately, it's nowhere near as interesting as it sounds. Superman's time spent in space is barely mentioned other than the opening title card and some quick exposition ("What did you find?" "I'm the only one left." No, really?), and the way in which he deals with the changes is so conventional I found myself nodding off in the theater. Superman's emotional confrontations with married mommy Lois Lane just scream soap opera. Director Bryan Singer's movies are usually dark and cynical, and it seemed to me that he didn't know what to do with the elements of the movie that were supposed to be more joyous and buoyant, nor did he really understand the character and his story. Singer understood the dark, sociopolitical complexities of Marvel's merry band of mutants, but he doesn't seem to know anything at all about Superman's simple, rigid ideology (and the Christ symbology was unnecessary). So, he ends up trying to ape Richard Donner's 1978 film as much as possible, ending up with a superfluous and tiresome imitation. Even star Brandon Routh does a full-on Christopher Reeve imitation. Kevin Spacey could've been fantastic as Lex Luthor, but the script tries to find some middle ground between Gene Hackman's wacky Lex and the comics' menacing Lex, ending up with a character who can't tell a joke and puts on a pouty face when he's mean. In this wasteland of missed opportunities, one savors Parker Posey's biting wit. Not a bad movie, really, but nothing I'd ever watch again.
email this review to a friend
Comment on this Review:
Sorry, you must be a member to add comments to reviews.
Join or Login. |
 | Jen
Jul 1, 2006 8:46 PM
also wrote a review of Superman Returns
| |
| I agree on all counts, though I'm guessing you're a fan of the Christopher Reeve Superman films? I went to see this with a guy who was and afterwards he went on an angry rant very similar (although not as well thought out) as this one. I don't think you give Spacey enough credit, though that may just be because I love him in (almost) everything he does. |
 Subscribe to MatchFlick Movie Reviews through RSS
|
Jul 2, 2006 6:09 AM
As for Spacey, he wasn't bad, and he did the best that he could with what he was given, and he did indeed get the best lines: That whole "WRONG!" bit, "Gods are selfish beings who fly around in little red capes and don't share their powers with mankind," and especially, "Now FLY."
But I really wanted to be scared of Lex this time around, and I kept waiting for a scene where he finally delivered Superman a beatdown after all of these years. It was the script's fault, not Spacey's.