Review: Superman Returns

For Superman Returns, I have a couple of simple words to say spectacular and terrific. The cast is quite good but it's the story that drives the film, and this is a very personal story with lots of strong emotions. I think even a non-Superman fan would also like this one. Kudos to all the filmmakers. They succeeded.

Bryan's Singer love of the character comes through in every frame of film; he was the perfect choice to return Superman to the big screen. Dan and Mike wrote a great script and Gil Adler produced what can be termed as the crown jewel of his career. It was like a passing of the torch from one generation of Superman films to the next.

Film took the best of the old films and combined it with the most modern approach to the Superman mythos - that he's a "man" first. And when he is "super," those are some S-kicking scenes! There are some great surprises in the film - stuff we never could have gotten away with - that left me in shock.

It's the story of Superman finding his place in the world that's very much changed. And ultimately he does - at the end of the movie. Brandon Routh as a Superman is weird. One moment he's a dead ringer for Christopher Reeve, the next minute you see that he's completely different - the movie captures moments of that. He'll have moments where you'll recall the first film and moments where he's his own Clark. He's his own Superman.

Clark Kent is somewhat goofy, he's playing a role and is definitely at it; he's not young Clark from the farm… I mean, you'll see a bit of that, but in The Daily Planet he's awkward - He's the invisible guy, he's playing a role, that's his costume and Superman is him.

Well, the film is written to be the vague sequel to the first two films. Inheritably in the script there are many homages in the character - especially written from that character - so there are similarities because of that. The only thing that was done, really only to mimic Chris' performances, [was] pushing the glasses up with the forefinger.

It's uncanny how much ex-soap opera actor Brandon Routh looks like a younger version of Christopher Reeve, the man who donned Superman's cape and tights for the last four Superman movies. Yet despite the fact Routh does resemble Reeve, he also looks much younger than the talented actor whose shoes Routh has the tough task of trying to fill.

It's a well-cast film, proven strongly by Parker Posey as Luthor's dog-carrying aide, Kitty Kowalski. Posey carries off her role superbly, alternating between annoying and alluring with terrific ease, and being the perfect foil to Spacey's ruthless baldy. On the other hand, the film's leading woman is a massive disappointment. Kate Bosworth plays a depressingly straight Lois Lane, and while she gamely tries to gobble up Clark's sentences or pretend at spelling incompetence, we never quite buy it. She seems far too contrived, and the film works despite her, a pity because of Lois Lane's singular importance in Superman's world.