Superman Returns [HD DVD]

A Superman we can root for
I remember seeing Superman IV in the theaters when I was six, how there were so many people swarming all around, how there was excitement. Clearly it was a shoddy movie, but to a kid you just can't buy that kind of palpable movie madness.

Now I'm as old as my parents were when they saw the very first Superman, and I've got to say this must be what it felt like. I think Bryan Singer is fast becoming one of the most respectable directors in Hollywood, and what he did with this movie--on a far, far grander scale than either of his X-Men movies--merits SOME kind of award come Oscar time.

We all know the story--Kryptonian boy comes to Earth, saves man from the foibles of archnemesis Lex Luthor, woos Lois Lane. Singer and Co. decided to have this movie pick up after Superman II (wise move) but you never really get a jarring sense of chronology--no General Zod references here. Instead, Supe has just returned from a nearly five-year journey to see if anything remains of...

Not Even Kryptonite Can Stop Him!
I can now forgive Bryan Singer for ditching X-Men - possibly even he couldn't have saved X-3, but what he did with Superman Returns puts him at the top of the heap of action film directors. Quite simply Superman Returns is just about perfect. It has nearly everything one could want in a 21st Century incarnation for the Man of Steel and the physical production is visually as eye-poppingly glorious as anyone could hope for. The flying scenes (especially the Superman in space scenes) have a breadth and beauty around them that almost stops one's breath - absolutely stunning.

As we've come to expect, there is great humor throughout with winks to the comic books and previous Superman flicks and director Singer doesn't shrink from paying obvious homage to the Reeve flicks - a very nice touch, indeed. Singer doesn't shrink, either, from going for broke in the second half of the film's more emotional content and the balance between action, love story, and pseudo-religious,...

A sequel and a remake at the same time
I went to a special pre-release screening of Superman Returns that I thought was supposed to start at 9:30 and did not start until 10:30. While watching the previews, I wondered why on earth I ever agreed to go see a movie at this hour on a work night. As soon as the film started, with the stunning 3-D-like presentation of the credits, accompanied by that wonderfully irreplaceable theme music by John Williams, all doubts were gone.

And in this theme music is the key to the wonder of Superman Returns. It is set up as a sequel to the original films, and yet it recycles many elements of the original, and so it manages the seemingly impossible task of being a sequel and a remake at the same time. Watching the film was like a wonderful trip back in time to 1978. Everything was different and yet everything was the same.

Once again, Lex Luthor has a plan for taking over the world that involves land, and this plan is even more diabolical and life-threatening than...

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