B-


It's such a deeply flawed film that I don't even know where to begin...

It is not bad. Fantastic Four, last summer, certainly was a worse movie on all accounts and while I liked the last X-Men film more than this one, it was a bigger disappointment as it was coming off a masterpiece. This one, I had little expectations for and I didn't like it very much, but it has proven me wrong on some points, but also sadly cofirmed some of my other worries.

Brandon Routh is a great pick for Clark Kent/Superman. That just needs to be said. I didn't think he was and I was not exactly a fan of his casting. Judging by the trailers and other promotional material it seemed to me that Lex Luthor would steal the show and Superman would be very bland. It did not turn out this way. Routh has the physical presence and the acting chops to hold his own here. He's no Christian Bale, but he does his job very adequately, even though he isn't given much to do overall. It was a successful bit of casting and far better than the idea to give the role of Lois Lane to a way too young Kate Bosworth. Here I come to one of my main qualms over the film. Routh and Bosworth have no chemistry whatsoever in this one. All Bosworth does is whining and complaining. She was just not right for the role. There are no sparks between her and Routh. The same goes for Holmes and Bale in Batman, but here, Lois and Supes are much more integral to the plot, so it hurts the movie more.

The kid bothered me. Just flat out bothered me and it was never a good choice to put him in the film to begin with. Olsen and Perry White are adequate, but underwritten. Now we come to the villain...Spacey pulls off a good over-the-top performance on Luthor, but I have seen him better before and he wasn't as much of a scene stealer as I thought. Who really szole some scenes was the brilliant Parker Posey. She played off Spacey very very well. Loved her character and I hope she's back for the sequel.

The main problem with the film is the simple lack of action here. As simple as that. There can be good, "sophisticated" comic book adaptations, but even they need their great bursts of excitement every now and then. Batman Begins isn't exactly known for its great action, but the movie is just paced so much better than Superman Returns and the action, when it is on screen is far more exciting. I can't think of a single big budget film of the recent years who needed more action as badly as this movie. It is fine to have some slow stretches in the film, but not if the film is over 150 minutes long and all on action that you have are two 5-minutes scenes. Moreover, the whole "action" here consists of Superman lifting and carrying things. Not exactly exciting. It is all the same. The...uhh..."showdown" at the end just sucks. This is not even Singer's fault. It's just the fact that Superman is mostly a boring character and Lex Luthor is a generally lame "main" villain. As a side villain, he's great, but in the lead it was just boring. The whole overdrawn, yet unexciting finale almost put me to sleep...not to speak of the whole laughable hospital portion.

That's sad because the first hour of the movie was very promising. One thing the movie excels it are the visuals. I believe we'll hear more of those once the Oscar time arrives. The art direction and the whole design of the movie are great. Metropolis looks splendid. The visual effects are first rate. The shuttle-rescue scene is thrilling and extremely well-done. It's the only bit of good action in the film (even though it still consists of lifting and carrying on Superman's part...). All the little bits and pieces in the design of Luthor's yacht, of Daily Planet and so on are superb.The score is great as well. Singer can create Metropolis as we've never seen it before. He also works well with the character of Superman.

After the first hour, it starts the downwards spiral. After two hours I simply stopped caring for the on-screen proceedings. The movie reminds of of Hulk, an essentially decent, but very flawed flick. Part of the flaw in both films was the general lack of excitement and a rather poor choice of a villain.

One of the most lopsided movies I have ever seen. The first half is pure perfection, great action sequences, light hearted humour, likeable characters but the whole thing becomes a lumpen mess in the second half. Very hard for me to grade this so I'd go with a .............B

Lecters review sums it up very well.

I can not WAIT for the sequel...

ONLY if they get a major villain... like the ones discussed heavily in the Supes-Villains Thread...

But if they put another lame ass villain...

I'll kill someone.

That would mean they would have to supply the Christian Bale version of Batman with wit, which may be near-impossible.

lecter i dont see how you say they have no chemistry, it seems most critics went out of their way to note just how unnusually picture-perfect bosworth looked with routh.....

Lecter doesn't need critics to prop up his feelings about a film.

I don't think they had chemistry either.

No amount of tomatos will prove otherwise for me.

Neither will any amount of excels prove it differently to me. No chemistry. Now Spacey and Posey did have chemistry.....

Even your own quote reveals the truth...

i do agree, posey played off spacey fantastially.

D+, Wow what a piece of shit. This was worse than The Hulk and almost comparable to Batman and Robin.

7/10
Very nice visuals and Routh was very good as Superman. But the movie is about 20/25 min too long and the action scenes........Well you could do so kickass action with Superman....why dont they do it.....Well the movie is ok. I just hope for a sequel that will feel a bit more epic.

Ouch. Just seen first half (tomorrow whole movie), and quite quite liked it. And now read your post. Damn you Gulli.

Superman Returns has a higher IMDb grade than Spider-Man 3

B-

The running time is what killed it for me. It should have been cut back to abour 2hrs. And when you have a movie this long, there MUST be something that makes you want to see what happens next. Well, SR was missing that. I thought there may at least be a good showdown at the end, but nope, it was missing that too. And Routh and Bosworth didn't work for me.

I didn't really like much of the movie until Superman landing on Krypto-Land! I really liked how vulnerable he was there, when he wasn't superman. Even the muffled yells while they are dragging him by his face.

However, then all of the sudden he can lift the island made of kryptonite and launch it into space? So is superman now impervious to everything?

**

The entire island isn't made out of pure kryptonite because it is mixed with that rock, and because Luthor messed with it. That's the only reason (That and after he got the shit kicked out of him and is rescued by Lois, he flies up towards the sun to get fully recharged to lift the island) he's able to pick it up for the period of time he did. When the kryptonite came out of the rock though towards the end, it still almost ended up killing him so he wasn't impervious towards it. If he didn't recharge, blast a chunk of the rock away with his laser eyes and if the island was pure kryptonite, he wouldn't have been able to do it.

I'm all for suspension of disbelief, but that is just plain unbelievable...

Why (I'm tired )? It's drawn out step by step at the end.

I agree as far as Superman mythos goes, its all in the realm. Superman gets weaker and weaker when with Kryptonite, he didnt notice for the 5 minutes he was talking to Luthor, hence he saw the sweat and knew it was working.

Disappointing. Too long and the action scenes weren't as good as they could have been. Brandon Routh was a good choice for Superman though. I hope with the sequel they include a ton of more action sequences. B

A good superhero film. It was very pretty to look at, but once you got past that and Routh's good performance, there wasn't much. The story was lame and predictable, the climatic action sequences weren't exciting. The only WOW sequence was the plane crash, but the rest were meh. Overall the film is rather heartless and you just can't relate to any of the characters.

B

It stinks the general public overlooked this one...in my opinion, it's miles better than Dead Man's Chest, the film that clobbered it two years ago. It was great because it captured the feel of the old Superman movies yet at the same time reinvented it for modern audiences. It's the definition of a great reboot. Films like Batman Begins just reinvented it, and while the reinvention was better than the original work, it sure doesn't tie together nicely with all the old films. SR, however, fits perfectly into the Superman Anthology. And Kevin Spacey was great.

A-