Superman Doesn't Return

[filkertom]

I am finally watching Superman Returns. About a half-hour in.

There is a lot of goodness in this film. A surprising amount. Kevin Spacey absolutely rocks. Parker Posey as Teschmacher II. The sequence of saving the plane. The elements of the earlier Superman movies integrated and updated. (Although, again, I really wish they'd done something, y'know, new.) A lot of goodness.

But not Kate Bosworth.

And not Brandon Routh.

I want to buy it. I want to like him. And I simply can't. It's as if they know how to write all the other characters, but not Lois and Clark/Superman. The kid playing Jimmy Olsen has way more charisma. And I am sick to the teeth of the Clark Kent Oppressed And Yet Ignored By Everybody riff.

But, mostly, he's just... bland. The warm smile Reeve pulled off so effortlessly completely eludes Routh. He's stiff. Uncomfortable with his character, his clothes, and his own body. And he still looks like a frat boy in a Halloween costume.

This guy is no more Superman than I am.

And this is one of those times when I'm really annoyed I was right.

Update: All done.

Never bought him as Superman. Not once. A couple of long shots looked good, but nothing, nothing close. Never bought Bosworth as Lois. Thought the plot with the kid was completely unnecessary from the git-go. Bluntly, we could've collectively done a Mad-Lib and come up with a better script. I can think of a dozen stories right off the bat that would've been better than this.

They committed the ultimate movie crime: they made a boring movie.

About Superman, no less.

Comments

Have to agree

[farnex.livejournal.com]

I wish I didn't agree with you Tom but I must. I saw this in 3-D down at the Henry Ford IMAX and even with all the power and special effects and all that, my favorite part was closing my eyes and listening to John Williams Superman Theme as I remembered my youth and Mr. Reeve flying.

I wish Kevin Spacey and Christopher Reeve could have torn up the scenery together but it was not to be. Oh well, all we can do now is pray the sequel sputters and dies...but I doubt even Superman AND Lex Luthor working together could stop that disaster.

[scifantasy.livejournal.com]

again, I really wish they'd done something, y'know, new

Amen. In truth, this, even more than the failure of the main characters to look the part, was what killed the movie for me.

[ladystarblade.livejournal.com]

Amen...when I went to see Returns in the theaters, I got this wonderful thrill when the opening credits rolled and the music crashed...sort of like when I first saw Phantom Menace. And both times I walked away with the same feeling...nice elements, but an incomplete whole.

In this case, I don't have it in me to dislike Routh...I don't think I've heard anyone say he's awful. But for so many of us, particularly my generation, Chris Reeve was and is the Superman. And I think anyone trying to follow in those bootprints was going to fail. The kid did okay. He was there.

But Bosworth...Miss I-Have-Two-Facial-Expressions-Blank-And-Pissed-Off...was a complete and total clunker, coming very close to wrecking the whole experience for me. And to add insult to injury, she claimed she pattered her Lois after my heroine Katharine Hepburn. *snort* Not even close, honey.

Anyway, Returns was okay. Spacey ruled, the effects were pretty cool, and for once, the precocious kid character didn't bother the hell out of me. But in the end, I'll stick with Superman and Superman II.

[filkertom.livejournal.com]

What's really getting me, as I proceed through the film (taking breaks so my head doesn't explode with Teh Dull) is that nothing in any of the scenes with Routh or Bosworth seems good. Their dialogue, their subplots, their expressions, the people Superman saves, nothing.

I don't like Perry White much either, and I've been a Langella fan since Dracula.

And... Hepburn!? Bosworth wishes she could channel only one-one-thousandth of Hepburn's chops.

[ladystarblade.livejournal.com]

I don't remember who she gave the interview to originally, but this clip is lifted from her own website:

"Bosworth used Hollywood great Katharine Hepburn as the inspiration for her portrayal of Lois Lane in Superman Returns.

She says, "I watched a lot of Katharine Hepburn to prepare for Lois, particularly The Philadephia Story and Guess Who's Coming to Dinner. Hepburn is a great model for how I see Lois - strong but fragile."

I hate to break it to her, but watching Katharine Hepburn to channel her is like me watching Yo-Yo Ma to learn cello. Oy.

But hang in there, Tom...Spacey's scene with the krypo-shiv is pretty damn cool to watch...

[hanabishirecca.livejournal.com]

The sad thing is that I could probably do a better Hepburn than Bosworth. I mean... all one needs to do is sit down one evening and watch Love in the Afternoon and you can emulate Hepburn better than Bosworth.

[gorgeousgary]

So IOW this is one to stick far down my Netflix list behind all the classic flicks and classic SF series, right?

[thatcrazycajun.livejournal.com]

Sadly, I must stand as another who doesn't buy Routh as Supes either. He's just too young looking and skinny to begin with, and nothing in his performance enabled me to overcome that fact. The best thing about the film was Spacey showing himself amply able to pick up the torch Gene Hackman carried so ably decades ago. And I, too, was annoyed that the storyline was basically a rehash of the plot of the first Reeve film. Where's the freakin' originality, Bryan?! Are we supposed to believe Luthor didn't learn a damn thing from the first time he tried to corner the world real-estate market with nukes? (By the by, this time he better hope Metropolis isn't in a death-penalty state with an automatic needle ride for killing cops; I fail utterly to believe the damage his little stunt did in the city didn't cause at least one or two MPD officers' deaths.)

And as for Miss Bosworth having the unmitigated gall to compare herself with La Hepburn...well, my Songbird is a Hepburn fan from way back (being both a Philly girl and an alumna of Hepburn's alma mater, Bryn Mawr) and will probably laugh that one right out of town.

[twfarlan.livejournal.com]

Okay. Kate Bosworth was a problem. I'm not sure how much blame we can lay at her feet; the writers took the fiercely-independent newshound Lois Lane and made her into a mommy. Just NO, for so many varied reasons. I can't distinguish where my ire for the whole Lois problem here should fall, but agreed that Ms. Bosworth wasn't making me think "Lane."

Regarding Brandon Routh, it's unfair to ask him to be Christopher Reeve, but that's exactly what the producers and director and the writers were asking of him. The film company tried to make lightning strike twice, to bring to an iconic character that same living warmth that was managed by Chris Reeve. It seems to me that they didn't attempt to fill the boots with someone who could be Superman but someone who could be Reeve, and that wasn't fair to the legacy of either icon. Routh didn't have the screen presence to be Chris Reeve. He didn't convey the confidence and do-goodery of Big Blue, the hapless positivity of Clark Kent, or the warmth of either. He was simply a look-alike, and that's not what the legacy of the film series needed.

I suspect we will need to suffer through another film with Bosworth and Routh. It's unlikely that Bosworth will suit herself to the role. She's too convinced of her own ability, based on her comments about attempting to ape the style of Ms. Hepburn. Routh is still new enough that he might realize that we need to see more than just a stand-in wearing a suit. We need to see the emotions inside the invincible flesh. However, either way, I suspect that Routh won't be the only actor we see in the suit. Michael Keaton wasn't the only Batman in the last fifteen years, was he? Routh may only be the first of several Supermen to come. For now... despite his failings, there are moments, like the plane rescue, where I am lost in the moment, giggling so I won't cry, because I am watching the hero of heroes, Big Blue himself, in the flesh.

Maybe the sequel will be better...

[popefelix.livejournal.com]

"Superman Gets His Deposit Back"

[wildcard9.livejournal.com]

Both Superman and Lois are supposed to be in their late 20's in this movie (5 years after the previous movies when they were in their mid-20's). Both look like they just barely got out of college, not been out for almost a decade. Lois looks like she must have had that kid while still in high school!! Neither Roth or Bosworth looked old enough for the parts (heck, Bosworth looks like she should have been Lucy Lane, Lois's much younger sister who dated Jommy Olsen). That was too much for my suspension of disbelief when I saw the movie in the theater.

[filkertom.livejournal.com]

See, even that is a data point, one they screw up. In the first Reeve Superman, Clark is 18 when he finds the Fortress of Solitude. He spends the next 12 years learning from the holo-Jor-El. So, if they're borrowing from the earlier movies, the turning-time-backwards thing has worked too well, and Superman will be Superboy by the fourth film in this franchise.

[wildcard9.livejournal.com]

Oh, so both Cleark and Lois were in their early 30's in the first 2 movies. I thought so but I was trying to be generous with the ages. Looks like I should have gone with my original instinct. So the age difference here was even worse than I thought.

[youngcurmudgeon.livejournal.com]

I will say, though, that I enjoyed Superman Returns, having never seen any of the original Superman movies (I know, I know, I fail at life and have no soul). I was never a Superman fan, but this movie converted me. YMMV.

[ddrussianinja.livejournal.com]

I gotta say Kate Bosworth is weak sauce, but Brandon Routh grew on me by the end of the film and I really like his speech at the end. I dunno.

[tomreedtoon.livejournal.com]

She watched Katharine Hepburn movies? Coulda fooled me. I thought she was watching reruns of "I Married Joan."

And the more you get through the film, the more you will dislike it. The reasons for liking this incarnation of Kal-El decrease as time goes on. None of the reasons anyone would have for liking him, that you recall from the comics, are present in this film.

They could have made a more exciting film entitled "Melvin Furbish, Super Accountant, Does His Laundry And Peeks At His Landlady Mrs. Frump" with the same script.

[lizreay.livejournal.com]

Hey, filking is a pretty good superpower in its own right. :)

[hanabishirecca.livejournal.com]

I get why people don't like Brandon Routh. I didn't mind his performance but I respect those who didn't.

I, however, agree with the dislike for not only Kate Bosworth in the film but how her role was written. I don't think I need to get into details here as the point is likely well hit multiple places across the web.

[drzarron.livejournal.com]

And another thing, Clark Kent is waisted in the film. Clark is just there to mug in the background and eat. He does nothing else.

[filkertom.livejournal.com]

They really, really dropped the ball on one important aspect of the two lead characters: they did nothing to make us like them. Nothing at all.

[seanmonster.livejournal.com]

Spacey rocked.

Most of the rest was meh.

And I hated the ending.

[arucartoonguy.livejournal.com]

I couldn't get friends to go see it in the theaters solely due to the 'Gay Superman Tippy-Toes on Earth' poster.

I haven't seen it yet, and don't ever plan to, unless there's a serious re-edit/directors cut/version which wrings all the suck out.

Too bad I'll be missing a good Kevin Spacey performance, but even Gene Hackman's clownish Lex Luthor detracted from the originals, in my opinion.

[filkertom.livejournal.com]

Much as I love Hackman, and his Luthor, Spacey's is better. Simple, flat-out better. He's got an edge that Hackman couldn't sustain -- all the wit, charm, sarcasm, but also with a more definable hatred of Superman, and a much stronger sense of playing for Really Big Stakes. Hackman's Luthor was a very smart and snide man who got control of a couple of bombs; Spacey's Luthor has been planning a lot of stuff for a long while, and is finally at the endgame, and is trying very hard to win.

[fuuberry.livejournal.com]

Kevin Spacey is the only reason I would ever willingly watch Superman Returns again. I love Parker Posey in the the Christopher Guest films, but anything outside of those movies, she seems entirely over the top and campy. She ruined Blade Trinity for me. But, it somehow works in this movie.

The bit with the dogs was weird, and the subplot with the kid annoyed me and hurt my head. The only non-Spacey scene I got into was the plane scene. That was fun. But, the characters were bland and there was entirely too much bitching and moaning going on. Plus, nothing really happened. There was nothing that changed between the start of the movie and the end, aside from the stupid kid plot.

[avt-tor.livejournal.com]

I think Kevin Spacey only looked good in this movie relative to the other actors. Spacey has been so much better in most of his other movies. I think he has the potential of playing a great Lex Luthor, but I think we only saw a small amount of what could have been in this movie.