Secondary Thoughts on Superman Returns

Well, Superman Returns has been out for a couple of weeks. As promised, here are more of my thoughts on the movie. Be warned, spoilers abound below.

Superman Returns had good, bad, and elements that were both good and bad (further known as “gad.”) It’s been a couple of weeks, so I figure anyone who reads this and intends to see the movie already has. For those of you that haven’t, spoilers follow.

The Good:

• Flashback to young Clark discovering his powers as he runs and jumps through the Kansas cornfields, ultimately falling out of control to the barn floor, but not landing


• Homage to the cover Action #1 when Supes lowers a runaway Ford Mustang to the ground


• Homage to Man of Steel when Supes rescues an out-of-control space shuttle and airplane with Lois Lane aboard


• Supes outracing said plane after it lost its wings, catching it on the nose cone, stopping it with the power of his flight just inches from the ground in a full sports stadium, then gently lowering it to rest


• Various scenes portraying Supes flying through Metropolis as its citizens look up in awe. This is reminiscent of the citizens in the comics that are safe and secure in the knowledge that Supes is watching over them and are used to seeing him flying through the streets


• Television footage of Supes fighting everyday crime in convenience stores, banks, etc


• Supes floating above the Earth and just listening until he hears a crime. Not only does this showcase his devotion to fighting crime, but it gives a little bit of insight to what it would be like to be able to hear everything all of the time. Plus, the visual with the cape billowing in zero-G was cool


• Supes walking up to a full-sized chain-gun on full auto until it runs out of ammo, after which, gunman closes the distance and shoots Supes point blank in the eye. Does Supes flinch or even blink? No, he takes the bullet straight to the eye, it deforms from the impact and falls to the ground, harmless. Both the thug and Supes take a moment to watch the bullet fall


• Supes takes Lois up above the city for an object lesson on why the world needs Superman. “What do you hear?” “I don’t hear anything.” “I hear everything. You say the world doesn’t need a savior but everyday I hear them crying out for one.”


• Lex gets out of jail because Supes doesn’t show up for Lex’s parole hearing


• Supes flies on his back and lays down a broad beam of heat vision to take out falling debris and save the people on the ground


• The Daily Planet globe’s slow fall and ultimate catch by Supes, who then lays it to rest gently on a Volvo

The Bad:

• Oh, where to start? Crystals, that’s where. Everything to do with Krypton crystals should not have been there. What a horrible plot device. By extension, most of the movie was bad


• Crystal-based Krypton sucks, as does the sterile environment of the crystal-based Fortress of Solitude


• Lex Luthor was the old land-grabbing kook from the original Donner films. Why? Why not the xenophobic business tycoon that carried on a personal vendetta against Supes through many years of the comics? Why not the man that was so charismatic, he became the US President before his treachery was revealed?


• Cyclops as Lois Lane’s love interest. Not nearly as annoying as he was in the X-Men movies, but lame nonetheless.


• The homage to the first Donner film with Supes outracing a natural disaster to save thousands while Lois, this time with bastard son and annoying fiancé, sinks to her death. Still an earthquake, but this time it hit Metropolis, and this time Lois is drowning in water instead of earth. At least Supes didn’t have to travel back in time to save her this time.


• The Boy. I can’t express the amount of my dismay at The Boy. First, they make Supes and Lois parents of a bastard child. This is the most morally-straight man on the planet. His scruples have scruples, he’s so righteous. Yet they portray him as someone that has not only had premarital sex, but has fathered an illegitimate child. Second, they foreshadow that The Boy is really Supes’ son by laying on the health maladies so thick that The Boy shouldn’t even be walking. Third, when The Boy does exhibit his super-strength, he uses it to kill a man. The Boy is already a killer at five years of age. Fourth, when given not only the opportunity, but the motive to use his powers again, The Boy sits on the floor playing with olives. Gah! The Boy!


• Superman becomes Superstalker. Would the man who holds principles as dear as Supes use his X-Ray vision and Super Hearing to spy on Lois and her family? I think not


• Superman drinks beer. COME ON


• Supes leaves the planet for five years without telling anyone why. Weak


• Constant focus on Luthor’s thug’s “eyes on the back of his head” tattoo. It was a dumb joke and repeated display only makes it worse


• Supes gay costume. The “S” shield was too small, his hotpants were too small, there shouldn’t be an “S” on his belt buckle, there shouldn’t be “S”s on the backs of his heels, there should be a yellow “S” shield on the back of his cape, the blue and red in his costume should have been brighter. In other words, his costume should have looked like this:

The Gad:

• In the context of the bad, some of the elements of the movie were good. Lex using a crystal encased in kryptonite to create a continent laced with the only thing Supes is vulnerable to is one of those things. The crystals are bad, but the concept was cool


• Lois uttering the Freudian slip, “I did Superman!” in response to being assigned Supes as an article subject. Said joke reinforced by the snickering of Olsen


• Lex causing massive EMPs everytime he uses a crystal in water


• Supes using his heat vision to punch a hole underground and lifting the entire Krypton continent into space, regardless of the kryptonite that is growing out of the bottom


• Supes pulling half a yacht out of the water to save Lois and her family, then dropping the yacht as they hang on to him. Powerful image


• Luthor’s thug playing the piano with The Boy. The Boy shouldn’t have existed, but since he did, it was kinda cool


• Lois doing what Lois would have done, brazenly entering Luthor’s yacht to track down a story even with The Boy in tow

There is more, much more, but now I am down to minutiae and I’m running out of items. My conclusion? Go see the movie if you haven’t already and make your own decision on the merits of the movie. It was not as bad as I thought it would be, but obviously, I still have some issues with quite a few of the concepts. Still, nothing compares with seeing Superman in action on the big screen.