Mr. Movie reviews: Superman Returns

He’s back and he’s got a lot of explaining to do. Superman’s been gone for 5 years and the mystery of where he’s been is about as compelling as a discussion of socks missing from the dryer.  In his absence Lex Luthor has been taking lessons from Anna Nicole Smith, and Supermans Metropolis is beginning to feel reality pains. The film flirts with a laundry list of modern problems, but never any of the real scary ones. ie no terrorists. There’s something akin to global warming, and there’s bank robbers, and even a gas station hold up. Spacey is really great in this movie, and his performance is pared way down.

It’s understandable that some of the buzz on this film was that this may be the gay Superman movie.  It’s been said about many Jewish men, but what people are confused about is the soft attitude and caring demeanor.  It’s definitively not a gay Superman movie but Louis Lane is leaning to a polyamorous life style.  We so often root for Superman to throw off his Kent persona and live large in an uber Superman style.  In this film we’re looking to Louis to throw off her shackles of domesticity, or at least cheat a little bit. Not like real cheating just the different state only necked, it wasn’t cheating really, kind. We also root for something to happen, anything to happen.  There is so little super-dupering in this film, it’s kinda sad. More super-dupering please!

Warner Bros. should have stuck with Brett Ratner to direct this film.  They decided to change over to Bryan Singer a better director to be sure. Singer’s got a great touch for just the right amount of old school to make this story updated, it’s all just a little too dull. And then Ratner made the worst of the X-Men films.  I think Ratners larger cruder style would have given us the Superman movie that we needed, an entertaining one.

When Superheroes where invented they first fought organized crime, later it was Nazi’s and then Communists; Always the big fear of the day. So why can’t any of the Super heroes take on Osama Bin Laden. I’d love a fairy tale ending to our fight with Radical Islam so that Superman could go back to fighting Goombahs.