Bryan Singer has proved himself to be a resourceful director when it comes to making superhero movies. His proved himself worthy of directing this comeback for Superman since his X-men films where such huge successes. Every comicbook geek and superman fan was resting comfortably on the fact that it was Singer who was behind the steering wheel of this new Superman film. Did he disappoint? Well the story is about Superman leaving earth for five years. He gives no reasons to anyone and just leaves. The world moves on without him, Lois Lane forgets about her romance to supes and falls in love with someone else. Basically the world accepts the fact that Superman might have left for good and moves on without him. Suddenly and without warning Superman Returns! His back and the whole world accepts him with open arms...well all except Lex Luthor and his posse who have plans to eliminate Superman for good.
As I sat in the movie theater to see the most anticipated movie of the summer I felt like a little kid again. I don't know if it was the music or the awesome opening sequence but I felt like a kid watching the old Superman flicks at the theater for the first time. Many things went right for this movie, first of which is of course Bryan Singer directing. He has done a great job of capturing not only the essence of who Superman is, but also bringing back the Superman that Christopher Reeve brought to life in the first four films. Smart move to choose Brandon Routh for the role as he both looks like a clone of Reeve, but also acts the same way that Reeve did when he played the role. So supes himself I think turned out excellent. The suit, the actor, the look, it perfectly personified who Superman is. So good job there. Though I must admit I would have liked for Brandon Routh to give Superman his own little touch. As it is, Routh is channeling Reeves almost perfectly.
The special effects are nothing short of spectacular, specially a scene involving a plane thats about to crash. That scene alone is worth the price of admission, my jaw was on the floor. I thought to myself that if the film was only half way through, then there should be even more spectacular scenes ahead...sadly, for me, this movie reached its peak with the plane sequence. Still, Superman doing all his super things like lifting cars, using x-ray vision, heat vision, and just plain flying around with Lois Lane were all done to perfection. Kudos also to the special effects guys.
As far as the story goes its very similar to the story that we saw in the first Superman film in which Luthor is interested in creating his own little piece of Luthor Land. Still, even though this movie does have a lot of similarities story wise with the first Superman film directed by Richard Donner, it did manage to surprise me here and there with new story elements. Fear not movie goers, this movie has a thing or two up its sleeve's. One particular surprise totally knocked me out as I was not expecting it at all, so enjoy you guys! I wont spoil it.
On the negative side of the spectrum I though the movie needed to bring it up a notch when it came to the action and suspense. I don't know if its a Bryan Singer thing to bring levels of intensity down or what (he did it in the X-movies by downplaying the X-mens powers) but he did it again here. In my opinion this movie needed to have intensity levels higher then it did. For some reason even when Supes was doing all these amazing things it didn't feel as exciting as it should have. Maybe it was me? Maybe I was having a bad hair day or something, but I felt Singer wanting to downplay things again. In my opinion Singer should stop trying to play it safe with his characters and go full blast with his films. I understand this is Superman were talking about here and we need to treat such a cherished character with extreme care, but come on, we want to have some fun. So if there's anything negative I can say about the film, its that. And I'm also willing to bet that this is the reason why this movie hasn't been the colossal hit it was expected to be.
I mean in all honesty, for 300 million + I was expecting to see freaking mayhem and destruction like I've never seen before. I have to say that aside from that plane sequence I was a bit underwhelmed by this film. This is not to say that it was badly directed or acted or anything at all...but it did need that extra oomph to make people come out of the theater wanting to see it again and again. As it is people leave the theater feeling like the movie wasn't all that it was hyped up to be, and I'm being honest here.
So in conclusion, it was sweet to see Superman back on the big screen is such an expensive production. Great cast, great effects...but it needed a little more intensity. Just a bit more, but I'm not worried, I'm just hoping that its something that can be rectified in a possible sequel. Please? Rating: 4 out of 5
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