| Overall Grade: |
D- |
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| Story: |
D- |
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| Acting: |
D- |
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| Direction: |
D |
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| Visuals: |
B+ |
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Throw Singer from a cliff and see if he can fly
by wraith (movies profile)
Nov 23, 2007
44
of
57 people found this review helpful
There are so many things wrong I don't know where to start.
The pacing of the film...there's no flow to it. The first hour feels rushed. There's no time given to anything. The movie just jumps back and forth between Luthor's plan (I'll get to how ridiculous that was later) and little moments that don't amount to much. Clark makes a cameo on the farm, has a few lines of pitiful dialogue with his mother (terribly acted by the way), has a little flashback to his youth and the next thing you know the guy is back in Metropolis and gets his job back in a throw-away line. Even the first action scene is rushed. Supes has been gone for almost two decades so you would think the first shirt rip and "welcome back" would be iconic along with the music. It's not. It's a half second shirt rip and the next thing you know we have a pilot saying "we have an unidentified bogey coming". I thought the clips online were edited but it turns out they're not. It's those little things that irritated the hell out of me. It felt like X3 all over again.
The musical score. This score (specifically the choir) just beats you over the head. You would think something epic was happening on screen when the choir kicked in but more often than not there wasn't and it made me chuckle to myself a couple of times. It was like the music was trying to make the action scenes more than they really were.
And speaking of the action....repetitive comes to mind. There's only so many times I can watch Superman catch or lift something before it starts to get stale. As the movie goes on he lifts heavier objects...great. I swear I almost think they repeated him catching the same guy in the movie. The very hyped plane rescue was underwhelming to say the least. I heard this scene was supposed to be 10+ minutes. Felt more like around 3 minutes. Most of the footage during that sequence is Lois and passengers bouncing around the plane. And then on top of that they have to ruin the end of that scene with a line Christopher Reeve said 10x better.
Also this felt more like a natural disaster flick than a Superman movie. There are more "tremor" scenes in Superman Returns than the Jurassic Park movies combined. You always know when something big was going to happen because you would see a closeup of a pencil holder or some random object shaking on the desk ad nauseum. The 3rd or 4th time I saw it (I seriously lost count) I was almost tempted to leave. I honestly couldn't believe the mediocrity I was watching.
Which leads me to Luthor's plan. One of the worst plots I've ever seen in a comic film. The worst aspect of this plan is the execution of it takes up so much time that could have been spent on more important matters...you know, like character development. From the start of the movie this plan gets a lot of attention and it goes NOWHERE. By the time the third act rolls around (after Lex has executed his little plan) and you see Lex, Kitty and his henchmen sitting around on this desolate rock looking bored I wonder what the hell it was all for. Luthor and his crew had nothing. No food, no water, nowhere to sleep. Those jackasses didn't even remember to bring extra fuel for the helicopter. This is supposed to be the work of an "evil genius"?
The performances....
Superman/Clark Kent - The performance of Routh was underwhelming and I can't blame him. I blame the writers. Routh is given absolutely nothing to say as Superman or Clark Kent. He's just THERE. If the guy isn't staring obsessively, floating in the sky or lifting something he's non-existent. Maybe they decided he couldn't act and scrapped his lines...I don't know. Anyway, how am I supposed to care for him? Lines like "Are you alright?", "Goodnight Lois", "I'm always around" is not what I call character building.
Lois Lane - She's given plenty to say...but her character was so cold throughout the whole film I honestly didn't give a damn about her either. She just has a bitchy look about her that I couldn't warm up to. Her chemistry with Superman is nowhere to be seen. The only reason I can see Superman and Lois have a romantic history is because of the past movies. There's never any substantial conversations between the two.
Lex Luthor - Spacey sleptwalk through this movie...maybe because he can play this kind of character in his sleep. After all the (camp or menace) threads it turns out Lex is basically the same as Hackman. He has his Ms. Tesmacher 2.0, same wigs, same plan (except a lot more assinine). The only difference is he gets his licks in on Superman. Their little showdown was a VERY underwhelming scene mainly because Superman stands there like a statue and says NOTHING before getting his ass kicked.
This is getting long in the tooth so I'll just say the rest of the cast was adequate.
As far as the big revelation with the kid goes....I was so disgusted with S:R by the time it happened that I really just didn't care anymore.
Overall I would say this movie is a colossal failure on all levels.
The only good thing I can say about Superman Returns is some scenes were very pretty to look at. That's about it. |
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