Tuesday, December 18, 2007

Movie Review (Superman Returns)


I am a huge fan of Superman and spent years wondering if Hollywood would be able to "replace" Christopher Reeves as Superman. This was a difficult task since I grew up watching Reeves portray this mythical American icon.

Brandon Routh did a great job stepping into a role that was completely defined by another man over the course of a decade. If they plan to do any sequels, I hope they do, I would just like to see a less "model-like" haircut on the man of steel. Routh is almost too pretty to be tough anyway but he did well. Kate Bosworth steps into Margot Kidder's Lois Lane and wasn't near as impressive. She is certainly prettier but lacks the toughness that I think Lois is supposed to have. There also appeared to be zero chemistry between Lois and Superman but maybe that was just me. Kevin Spacey had the second toughest job becoming Lex Luthor. Not only is he a prime character, Gene Hackman is a great actor making it doubly difficult. I thought Spacey was incredible, as always, and really hit a home run as Luthor. Lastly, I have always really liked the musical score in Superman movies as it has always been used to infuse emotion into some scenes. The re-writing of the score for this movie was great! I liked the intro using the strings instead of just horns then building into the original sound so many of us grew up with.

Overall the movie was great.

***SPOILER***
The whole "illegitimate" kid thing is interesting, kind of puts a damper on the whole moral champion image. They didn't make a big deal of the situation and it may work out fine but this could be an interesting wrinkle in the whole Superman legacy.

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

Spacey was great as Luthor, but I was disappointed they didn't get someone hotter to play Lois. I don't know just a personal preference.

The movie was just ok for me. I'm really becoming exasperated with Hollywood leaning too heavily on CGI. I understand it's necessary but the last two Spiderman movies were just overkill. If you're going to use that much CGI then just make a cartoon already.

Captain Dude said...

She was definitely the weakest link. I don't mind all the animation as long as it's this type of movie. I mean come on Mike it is based on a comic book.

Anonymous said...

I'm not against the animation as a whole. I believe it has it's place, I'm just against animation overkill (like the three newest Star Wars movies). I understand that comic book movies tend to rely more heavily on CGI, but I've seen quite a few that have used it sparingly and still made a great movie.

The original Spiderman was one. The newest version of the Punisher is great, and Batman Begins is great as well. Even the X-Men trilogy while being CGI heavy utilized it in a manner that didn't seem hokie, like the Hulk.

Captain Dude said...

Man, The Hulk was horrible. The Punisher was great, but you don't need special effects either. Superman and the X-Movies involve flying and more fake stuff all the time. The scene I thought was dumb in Superman was the machine gun thing. Conversely, the scene with the jet in the baseball stadium was pretty good. When does the new Batman come out?