Superman Returns is a film about Superman… uh… returning. Set after Superman II, our hero has gone off in search of his home planet, Krypton, which astronomers claim to have found. He finds no life there, but when he returns to earth he finds that a lot has changed since he’s was here last…

The film starts off with him crashing into earth (controls out?) and landing at the farmstead where he was raised. It was as early as this that I had problems suspending my belief – yes, Superman is impervious to heat, but his aged human “mother” is also quite unaffected by the raging fires around her. (I also thought it was a bit odd that something passing overhead should cause the house to shake, while its crash-landing at high velocity only a short way away produced no such effect.) That I could have quite easily forgiven because the story does take quite an interesting angle on the character, but then not long afterwards we have another human being slammed against the wall with incredible force, apparently without it so much as causing a mild ache. Er… superhero movies are never the most realistic of films for obvious reasons, but there surely has to be some hint of believability?

Of course with all the heart-pounding action and adventure you wouldn’t think you’d have time to think about this. The film however has a rather ponderous pace, exploring Superman / Clark Kent (his human alter-ego)’s struggle to come to terms with who he is, and Lois Lane’ struggle to decide whether she still needs him / loves him. As you’ll know from the trailer, Lois is not quite as available as she once was… She’s certainly attractive in the form of Kate Bosworth, but (intentionally or not I don’t know) she remains one of the most annoying and mind-numbingly stupid heroines of all time. James Marsden as her significant other gives a good performance and they didn’t do what I thought they would with his character. Bosworth’s performance isn’t bad at all, I just find her character profoundly annoying, whoever’s playing her at the time. I quite liked Frank Langella’s performance as the Daily Planet (the newspaper both Lois and Clark work for)’s Editor, but most other performances were unmemorable. Though she’s similar to a character in the first Superman film, I can never accept that someone like Lex Luther would want to have someone like Kitty (Parker Posey) around. Still, that’s Hollywood.

Newcomer Brandon Roth is okay as Superman, though to be honest I found his performance to be rather wooden at times. His character, and the film in general, just didn’t capture my interest. The whole struggling to deal with being a superhero bit has been done more effectively before in Spiderman 2, Ang Lee’s Hulk, and most importantly in Superman 2. Even Kevin Spacey having a whale of a time as eeeeeeeeeeeeeeevil Lex Luther didn’t raise the level of interest for me in this film. The special effects were good, and it is commendable that they weren’t made to be the main star of the movie, and there were one or two good action sequences, but to me the whole thing just never really god off the ground. Obviously a lot of people liked it more than me and I did think the plot twist with Lois’ son was clever (I thought they’d have done more with it but I guess they’re saving that for the inevitable sequel), but some silly plot elements (to those who have seen the film, all I need say is “fax machine”) prevented the onscreen happenings from ever gaining any credibility. One or two scenes seemed rather brutal but other than that there was nothing grossly offensive about the film.


There were things I liked about this movie, but at the end of the day I just couldn’t get into it. If you’re a fan of Superman you’ll probably like it a whole lot more – I wasn’t impressed with Batman Begins either but the fans lapped it up. Not recommended from a personal point of view, but you’ll probably still watch it anyway – or have already seen it given that it came out in the States earlier.


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