Skip to main content
Search
Services
ENTERTAINMENT
Entertainment Weekly

EW review: 'Superman' is only average, man

A well-made movie, but it lacks a certain magic

By Owen Gleiberman
Entertainment Weekly

Superman
Brandon Routh plays Superman in "Superman Returns."

YOUR E-MAIL ALERTS

Review
Movies

(Entertainment Weekly) -- It's touching to think that when Richard Donner's Superman was released in 1978, the ads could tempt audiences with the line "You'll believe a man can fly."

Nearly three decades later, it's hard to find a man in the movies who doesn't fly. Special-effects comic-book fantasy is the atmosphere we breathe, and when you go to see Bryan Singer's "Superman Returns," it's with the expectation that you'll believe a man can fly, and also speed through blasts of underground fire, land a crashing airplane, and stop a bullet, in slow motion, with his left eyeball -- all of which Superman does, without breaking a supersweat. He's still a sleek marvel of fun, though, even if we now take his powers for granted. (Story: Why did it take so long?)

The surprise of "Superman Returns" is that it isn't a funky, ambitious reimagining, like last summer's "Batman Begins." This really is your father's Superman; it re-creates -- and updates, though just barely -- the universe Donner invented.

Opening with the voice of Marlon Brando as he murmurs cosmic gibberish, the movie then blasts us with those lasery blue "X-ray vision" credits, which now look about as eye-popping as a game of Pong. John Williams' theme music has been revived, and so has the crystal-chintz Fortress of Solitude. Lex Luthor (Kevin Spacey), cue-ball-headed and deeply insecure, once again leads a fumbly team of camp thugs as he plots to be the ultimate real estate pig.

And Superman? He's been gone for five years, having left Earth to attend to the tragic remains of his planet. It's never clear why this would take him more than a long weekend, but at a Superman movie it's best not to spend much time questioning the logic. What matters is that Brandon Routh has Christopher Reeve's dimples, streaky eyebrows, and Olympic-gymnast facial planes, and that he plays Superman by unabashedly mimicking Reeve's performance.

As the twittery nerd Clark Kent, Routh stammers with mock anxiety, bowing his head as he pushes his glasses up with his index finger, and he's all sexy, straight-staring chivalry as the clear-eyed, rock-chested Superman, a god too noble to be a stud, even when he's coursing through space with Lois Lane (Kate Bosworth) in his arms.

Routh, it must be said, isn't nearly as nimble a comedian as the hulking yet light-footed Reeve, who made Clark a figure of fun, playing up the way this office dweeb was really an actor. Routh, who actually resembles a tall, buff Jason Schwartzman, lacks that authority. His Superman isn't quite a man -- he's closer to an eager adolescent -- and Kate Bosworth, as Lois, seems more like a corporate lawyer than a sassy reporter.

Yet Routh and Bosworth have a puppyish connection that grows on you, and it's tapped by a shrewd romantic story. Superman Returns expands the love "triangle" of Lois/Clark/Superman by having Lois caught between Richard (James Marsden), her spirited fiancé, and the hero she's still craving. Bosworth turns Lois' still-burning attraction to the Man of Steel into a haunted metaphor for the dream of white-knight perfection that every woman, potentially, gives up when she settles down.

I wish that "Superman Returns" were more original, and (in its first 45 minutes) better paced, but Singer has become a commanding orchestrator of pop spectacle. The movie gets tighter and fiercer as it goes along. Kevin Spacey lends a hungry gravitas to Lex's dreams, and as Luthor creates a crystalline fortress of megalomania, which evokes the remains of the World Trade Center, Singer does his grandest work to date.

I was happy, in the end, that Superman came back, though I hope next time he does something I can hardly believe.

EW Grade: B

(This is an edited version of Owen Gleiberman's original EW review. For the full review, click hereexternal link.)


Click Hereexternal link to Try 2 RISK FREE issues of Entertainment Weekly

Story Tools
Subscribe to Time for $1.99 cover
Top Stories
Get up-to-the minute news from CNN
CNN.com gives you the latest stories and video from the around the world, with in-depth coverage of U.S. news, politics, entertainment, health, crime, tech and more.
Top Stories
Get up-to-the minute news from CNN
CNN.com gives you the latest stories and video from the around the world, with in-depth coverage of U.S. news, politics, entertainment, health, crime, tech and more.
Search JobsMORE OPTIONS


 
Search
© 2007 Cable News Network.
A Time Warner Company. All Rights Reserved.
Terms under which this service is provided to you.
Read our privacy guidelines. Contact us. Site Map.
Offsite Icon External sites open in new window; not endorsed by CNN.com
Pipeline Icon Pay service with live and archived video. Learn more
Radio News Icon Download audio news  |  RSS Feed Add RSS headlines