Superman Returns

[Senbei]

I wish I had watched the rest of the series before going to see it tonight, but I have only two questions. One, when did Lois and he do it? And two, how did they do it? In mid-air, like dragonflies or something?

Honestly, I was skeptical when I first heard about this film, but I have to say that it was twice as good as I thought it’d be. I was glad that the film didn’t take itself too seriously and I liked the way it mixed a 1930s style with modern tech like camera-phones.

The feeling of action and power emanating this scrawny little man was pretty hardcore. The action was freaking badass, but every event followed a similar pattern: Superman basically shows up at the last possible minute in each crisis, then calmly flies the victim to safety. Which is fine, but this formula was used over and over again throughout the film. Still, the special effects and sheer cinematic excellence overcast any complaints I might have, right from the moment the title appears on the screen to the credits roll.

Kevin Spacey’s performance as Lex was enjoyable. You gotta love a villain who’s simultaneously brilliant, insane, sadistic, and goofily sarcastic. (Krrryptonite!) I found the main crisis, meanwhile, to be pretty frightening in its sheer colossal size.

My suggestion is: if you haven’t seen this movie, whip out your eight bucks and go see it now. It’s well worth the 2.5 hours that it eats up.

[Segaholic2]

I wish I had watched the rest of the series before going to see it tonight, but I have only two questions. One, when did Lois and he do it? And two, how did they do it? In mid-air, like dragonflies or something?

Superman 2, Donner version. Superman Returns ignores 3 and 4.

I loved it. I thought it was a fantastic movie featuring one of my favorite fictional characters of all time. There were so many ways it could have gone wrong, but Singer avoided them and made an awesome movie. I already saw it twice, and I can't wait for his sequel(s).

[Zeta]

Could we please have a Superman movie where they use one of the other villains, besides Lex Luthor? Metallo? Darkseid? Parasite? Anyone else?

Brainaic. God how I'd love to see Brainiac, with a Bruce Tim-inspired backstory, as a main villain.

But no Toyman, Mxy, or Prankster, please.

[Senbei]

For what it's worth, it's speculated that a lot of classic villains will appear in the game adaptation, which I'm now rather excited about.

[Shadow Hog]

Will Lex Luthor have the inate ability to destroy entire buildings by screaming "WRONG!" a lot? That'd probably make it an instant-buy.

[Kishi]

Could we please have a Superman movie where they use one of the other villains, besides Lex Luthor? Metallo? Darkseid? Parasite? Anyone else?

Pitting Superman against the armies of an alien invader from a planet called "Apokalips," or any number of other scenarios derived from the usual roster of dedicated Superman villains, is treading too far into dumb comic book territory. Luthor is more comfortably down-to-earth but still perfectly fiendish. And honestly, if they could get Spacey to keep coming back, I'd gladly watch three more of these movies with Lex as the sole villain.

Brainaic. God how I'd love to see Brainiac, with a Bruce Tim-inspired backstory, as a main villain.

Now that's more like it. Brainiac is one of the three Superman villains whom I can actually take seriously--the others being Zod and Luthor--and the only one who hasn't appeared in a movie yet. So he's definitely my first choice to feature in the next one.

[Dash]

Am I the only one that thought the pacing in this movie was terrible? A lot of those "epic" moments just felt like dead space to me. I would've literally fallen asleep if it weren't for Lex Luthor/Kevin Spacey popping up now and then.

Mind you, I'm not a huge Superman fan. I only know as much as the first movie and the cartoons (Flischer and WB) have taught me. However, I was extremely excited to see this movie. I had hoped it would push me into checking out even more Superman related media as the recent Batman and Spiderman movies had. Regrettably though, it just didn't "click". It was short of some charisma that I was looking for even though it's clear the cast and crew were really trying to capture it.

It succeeded in making me want to check out more Superman media, but not with the intent I meant to go into the venture with. Now I want to figure out what exactly the film is lacking.

There were some great spots to be sure, but I can't see how someone could call Superman Returns Fantastic. Somewhat Good is the best I can muster.

[Kishi]

I think the problem there is that most of the crises in the movie were Superman vs. airplane, Superman vs. car, Superman vs. earthquake, Superman vs. island--instead of, say, Superman vs. Luthor.

[Baba O'Reily]

I enjoyed Kevin Spacey's interpretation of Lex Luthor. However, I'd think that the magic would wear thin after two more recurrances as the main villain.

[Senbei]

Am I the only one that thought the pacing in this movie was terrible? A lot of those "epic" moments just felt like dead space to me. I would've literally fallen asleep if it weren't for Lex Luthor/Kevin Spacey popping up now and then.

Each crisis was handled as a serperate event without much intertwining, just as Kishi pointed out. I agree that this was the major flaw of the movie.

Oh, and there was a Superman vs. Luthor scene, and Luthor kicked his ass.

But it's hard to have a brawl between Supe and a villain when he's invincible, kryptonite notwithstanding. I think someone in another thread pointed out that this doesn't leave much antagonism to take seriously. It makes more sense to put civilians in danger rather than Superman himself.

[Grant]

I saw Superman Returns the day after it came out and I wasn't very impressed. It wasn't bad, but it felt as long as it was and never really captivated me.