two observations:

1) given the praise that he has been receiving, it looks like james marsden should've played superman.

2) most of the "positive" or "lukewarm" reviews sound like comments from people who don't want to give a "superman" movie a negative review. this is basically damning with faint praise.

yes, i'm not going to see this movie. i made a mistake with peter jackson's "king kong" already.

Tim,

I'm not a comic book fan myself, but I do expect quite a bit from the superhero genre in film. It's a perfect archetypal forum to pit good against evil in its purest form. Superman Returns has a lot of long stretches that seem to reiterate the same thing over and over. For me that, along with the oppressively dark lighting design, is the biggest drawback so far. Pretty good performance, pretty good direction overall. The film just needed tightening by dropping about 15-20 minutes. And Chris is right: the film does lack really big action pieces. There's no saving hundreds of people from an earthquake, or battling Zod, Non, and Ursa over Metropolis. Peril is implied in the climax, but we don't really see Superman saving folks except a couple of times.

Honestly I'd say I liked this just slightly better than X3, but for very different reasons as they are very different superhero movies. I would consider both of them somewhat disappointing. Not bad, but disappointing in that so much potential was wasted in both films.

Definitely worth seeing in the theater for the spectacle. If you can ignore the lulls and aren't looking for huge set pieces, you'll likely enjoy this a good deal.

Sean (...maybe they couldn't afford any more set pieces because of spacey's scenery chewing...)

Tim,

That was a somewhat sarcastic reference. "Unbreakable" was a deconstruction of the super-hero origin story which explains the lack of action and conflict.

I'm pretty sure Singer didn't spend $250 million with the same idea in mind. This is just a blockbuster with no action scenes. Which is pretty weird. It's certainly a different kind of "mistake" to make in this sort of movie. Usually, we talk about these movies being overblown or mindlessly action-packed. Definitely not the case here.


X3 was awful.


Hulk had the best action scenes of any of the super-hero movies. Unfortunately, the rest of the movie didn't match up.

Well, I haven't seen it yet because I'm waiting for my daughter to get into town so we can go see it together.

John, your comments had me laughing all weekend, thus making it difficult to write anything back in this thread.

From what I gather from the opinions around here, and being that many of you are comicbook fans, it would appear I'm going to end up enjoying SR quite a lot. Chris seems to refer to it being like "Unbreakable", which is probably my very favorite of the genre, so if it's thought provoking in that way then I'll love it. Usually when people that love the superhero genre refer to a film as just being "OK". I'm usually the odd guy out and end up loving it. For example, many of you dissed on "X-Men III" where I found it to be my favorite out of the series. However, I will agree with most all of you here, "The Hulk" did suck big time. ;)

Tim :D

Eddie:
And I had such hopes that X3 was a departure from what Singer would have done. Still hoping for a tighter Superman sequel which I'm sure is on the way. Though $84 million over the 5 days is somewhat disappointing for the studio.

Jason:
Well, this geek is useful only ofr pointless knowledge. God has blessed/cursed me with retention of minutae, so I serve no purpose in society, but I kick butt in Trivial Pursuit!

For example: Unscramble the letters to discover who shot Archduke Franz Ferdinand to incite World War 1- rippgil rancivo

Why do I know this crap?

Sean (...actually, i'm just pleased i can remember how to cr...)

Thanks Erik!

Sean and Eddie: I shall correct when I get home. I haven't seen Supes II in ages and no one corrected me when we talked it over after the movie. What ARE geeks good for anyway???

What exactly was "going on" to keep one absorbed?

All I could think while watching this movie was "When is something going to happen?" and then, as the final scenes kicked in: "You mean nothing's ever going to happen?"

I find this a difficult movie to have a strong reaction to either way. There's really nothing outright "bad" about the movie (except perhaps the casting of Bosworth) but then again there's nothing particularly good about it (except perhaps the plane rescue near the beginning.) To paraphrase Gertrude Stein, the trouble with "Superman Returns" is that there isn't any there there.

Sure woulda been nice if Clark Kent got more than a cameo in the movie. That's where Reeve really shined. Routh didn't get a chance to do anything with Kent.

Eddie,

For what it's worth, my sister-who did not want to see it-enjoyed it. Jim-who hates long movies and usually gets very antsy-also enjoyed it immensely. King Kong was overindulgent and dull for me. SR had enough going on and had me invested in the story. Shoot, it could have gone on for another three hours and it still would have been too short.

And I read maybe three Supes comics in my entire life, so you can't say I have a bias.

chris,

"the fast and the furious: tokyo drift" ran for less than two hours, and it was plenty fast and furious.

from most accounts, "superman returns" (like peter jackson's "king kong") is bloated and leaden.

if i want to doze off, then i'll do it for free at home, thank you very much. :x

eddie

And yet you're first in line to see "Tokyo Drift." No high horse for you, Mr. Feng. :)

[MINOR SPOILER ALERT FOR SUPERMAN RETURNS]


Marsden is getting relative praise because his character is the only active one in the film. Superman is about as passive a character as you'll ever find in one of these movies. Now mind you, I used to get sick of hearing screenwriting teachers tell us how the protagonist had to be an active character - cinema is replete with examples of greta passive characters - but you'd think a super-hero, esp. one who is nigh-omnipotent, would at least be somewhat active, or drive the story in some fashion. Instead, all he does is react, react, react... he doesn't even know that Lex is around until near the end of the movie, and then only because he accidentally wanders into a trap.

I guess superheroes are a reactive breed, in general (Punisher excepted). Crises occur, they fix them. But this took passivity to a new extreme in the genre.

I think the real problem is Lex. We need a super-villain for Superman. Next movie, I want to see either Brainiac, Apocalypse or Doomsday... or else! Or else what, I have no idea, but I mean or else!

Of course, my real preference would be for Supes to team up with Bizarro Superman against Mr. Mxyzptlk. But that's just a fanboy dream. :)