There is a wonderful moment in 'Superman II' where General Zod sees the Fortress of Solitude and remarks, "Scruffy. So morbid. A sentimental replica of a planet long since vanished. No style at all!" It would be unfair to say that 'Superman Returns' has no style at all; the cinematography is magnificent, locations are used extremely well, Singer's action scenes are brilliant composed, and special effects have improved enormously in 25 years. Also on the plus side, Kevin Spacey is an excellent Lex Luthor (and gets most of the best lines), and his henchmen in this film are much more interesting and believable than Ned Beatty's Otis. In fact, most of the new material in this film is excellent, particularly the exploration of the relationship between Superman and a (bizarrely young-looking) Lois. The weakest elements come from the sentimental replication of 'Superman: the Movie'.
Recycling the soundtrack... okay. Recycling the title sequence... unnecessarily sentimental. Recycling the late Marlon Brando's overpriced and ponderous Jor-El... been there, slept through that. But a Christopher Reeve lookalike who doesn't display a fraction of Reeve's talent (Reeve's Clark and Superman actually seemed like different people; all Routh manages is a different hairstyle)... bad decision.
Worst of all, though, is the attempt to re-use the silliest parts of the script of 'Superman: The Movie' - Luthor's plan to create a real estate empire, and a solution to this problem which, while not as unbelievable as spinning the Earth backwards to change the past, totally defies the film's tenuous internal logic.
That said (and despite its sometimes heavy-handed religious iconography), 'Superman Returns' is still more entertaining than the original it tries too hard to emulate, and nowhere near as awful as 'Superman IV'. (If I'd been blamed for that one, I probably would have wanted to leave the planet for five years, too.) It's not as much fun as 'Superman II', but now that the filmmakers have gotten the homage out of their system, maybe we can look forward to 'Superman II Returns'.
Recycling the soundtrack... okay. Recycling the title sequence... unnecessarily sentimental. Recycling the late Marlon Brando's overpriced and ponderous Jor-El... been there, slept through that. But a Christopher Reeve lookalike who doesn't display a fraction of Reeve's talent (Reeve's Clark and Superman actually seemed like different people; all Routh manages is a different hairstyle)... bad decision.
Worst of all, though, is the attempt to re-use the silliest parts of the script of 'Superman: The Movie' - Luthor's plan to create a real estate empire, and a solution to this problem which, while not as unbelievable as spinning the Earth backwards to change the past, totally defies the film's tenuous internal logic.
That said (and despite its sometimes heavy-handed religious iconography), 'Superman Returns' is still more entertaining than the original it tries too hard to emulate, and nowhere near as awful as 'Superman IV'. (If I'd been blamed for that one, I probably would have wanted to leave the planet for five years, too.) It's not as much fun as 'Superman II', but now that the filmmakers have gotten the homage out of their system, maybe we can look forward to 'Superman II Returns'.
