SUPERMAN RETURNS

Directed by Bryan Singer
Starring: Brandon Routh, Kate Bosworth, James Marsden, Frank Langella, Eva Marie Saint, Parker Posey, Sam Huntington, Kal Penn, Kevin Spacey

Reviewed by Jeremy Silman

Watson Scale rating (0 being worst and 6 being perfect): 4.0

Hungry and looking for food, I walked up a lumpy red carpet, past the usual array of guards, and into pure Hollywood: the façade of a farmhouse and a huge Daily Planet globe sat in different parts of the outdoor "county fair," countless tables circling the grounds were filled with typical farm food (corn and fried chicken) and also offered more Los Angeles based fare (sashimi, pasta, etc.), a dessert table covered with brownies/ice-cream/hot fudge/cookies/cakes/chocolates/pies seemed to be calling out to me personally, blue-screens were set up so guests could get photos of themselves with Superman, giant rubber-bands attached to those brave enough to give it a go allowed them to leap enormous heights in a single bound, a roaring noise signaled a takeoff for kids that wanted to ride the artificially created air current like a bird or a plane or ...

CLARK KENT

And the evening went on and on, people chatted, hobnobbed with the rich/famous/beautiful, drank from the many free bars, ate themselves into oblivion (not me, of course!), and eventually made their way home.

The world premiere of SUPERMAN RETURNS was the first "done right" premiere I had attended for some time. Everyone who was anyone was there, each star was stopped on the theater's red carpet and interviewed, gawked at by the hundreds of fans, and snapped repeatedly by the paparazzi. These intrepid photographers wisely saved their film when I walked by. Rushing into the theater, I grabbed my free popcorn and coke, found my seat, and watched the red carpet goings on as they were splashed live on the movie screen. The wait seemed interminable, and when it finally did begin I got my first and only bit of disappointment of the evening: the film wasn't as good as I had hoped it would be.

With reviewers raving about the wonders of SUPERMAN RETURNS, I must swim against the tide and announce that this movie, which could have been very good, suffered from the huge, agonizing flaw that plagued Richard Donner's 1978 film: Lex Luthor. In Donner's SUPERMAN, Gene Hackman played the evil genius that continually tortured the caped hero in the comic books. Sadly, his Luthor was a bumbling fool followed about by even greater fools. To me, this was pure stupidity. First, it's hard enough to imagine a mere human, no matter how intelligent, stand tall as one of superman's worst enemies. But, if you make him an idiot who surrounds himself with other idiots (this sounds like our present administration, but I digress), it becomes laughable.

One would have thought that the extremely talented director, Bryan Singer -- a man that claimed to have been a fan of the superman comics and who brought the X-MEN to life by quashing the humor and allowing things to be viewed as real life drama -- would have avoided this pitfall. Alas, he brought back Lex Luthor (apparently deciding that we didn't need a more compelling, dangerous villain) and made him the same sort of clown that was present in the Donner film!

EVIL GENIUS OR CLOWN?

Though one can't blame Kevin Spacey for trying to do "evil-idiot" if the script calls for it, the fact is that the rest of the characters were played seriously and did an excellent job. Brandon Routh was a fine Superman, while Kate Bosworth was a fantastic Lois Lane.

The TV series SMALLVILLE, though nothing special, created one great character: Lex Luthor! That's right, Michael Rosenbaum -- by making Lex curious, thoughtful, sly, manipulating, cultured, a man of the world, and seriously fighting between a desire not to follow in his evil father's footsteps while slowly succumbing to his own out of control "conquer the world" DNA -- showed us how Luthor should be done!

Instead of Rosenbaum's brilliant Luthor, we are given Luthor as Bozo. What's worse, rumor has it that Lex Bozo will appear in future Superman films also! The result is grating: on one hand you have a movie whose very real characters are filled with heart and the search for purpose and understanding. On the other hand we get a cartoon villain that seems to be from a completely different script.

AN EXCELLENT LOIS

Much of SUPERMAN RETURNS is to be applauded, but if more Superman movies are to be made, I can only beg Mr. Singer to dump Bozo and allow Superman to have the wall-to-wall edge that he gave to the X-MEN.