This is a job for Green Lantern, Thundra, or possibly Ghost Rider.
Superman Returns.
As I wrote in my X-men 3 post :
For better or worse, Superman represents the USA better than any character in the media today. Evolved to be the most powerful, filled with a God-like arsenal, and left with few equal enemies in the world. Superman’s great struggle is that he should rule the Earth, subject them to his will, yet he chooses to do the right thing, to protect them, and to hear their cries of despair. How far he (and the US) should intervene is always the problem: to meddle too much makes the society reliant, and often causes terrible collateral damage, causing hatred and repulsion; lack of action causes envy, resentment, and can often lead to chaos in the filling the power vacuum.
++++
Loving Superman comes easily as a child, it becomes hard as a teenager, and ultimately if you are still reading comics by the time one hits 20, it’s highly unlikely the Man of Steel is still high on the must read list.
The struggle comes with writing compelling stories, and the only notable story in the comic pages for Superman of the last 30 years was his death. There was Bizzaro Superman in the first 40 years, which means they had an existential meta look at the character BEFORE the 60’s and 70’s.
A writer can always do wonders with Batman, he is a man who is tremendously well trained, funded, and fights because of an iron will against crime. Batman Begins nailed everything about who Batman is and what he represents with the final line of the movie.
Jim Gordon: I never got to say thank you.
Bruce Wayne: And you'll never have to
Gets me every time because it finishes the evolution of the movie and why Batman fights, because he knows why, and he’ll do it till the end.
Batman has been taken to the end of his power in The Dark Night Returns, and back to the beginning in Year One. Batman was the character in the center of the best comic book movie of all time (Batman Begins) and the best cartoon (the 90’s one that looked like it was set in the 40’s). He has two of the best villains in the Joker and Two-Face, and the stories with them work because of their humanity (or lack of superpowers); in the end it’s about two men fighting the battle of greed vs. one standing in the way.
When it comes to Superman, writers tend to fail because it’s hard to answer the dilemma without resorting to tacky devices or mega villains or world threatening machines: Simply how do you beat a God?
What could possibly give a challenger the upper hand? Sure there is kryptonite, but what good is a device that only limits Superman? In the end, there is always a way to get rid of the kryptonite, it’s impossible to get rid of The Man of Steel.
Superman tends to spawn some of the worst plot points, such as turning the world backwards, a ridiculous character who has to power to not only survive Supe’s attacks (named Doomsday of all things) who had the ability to kill him, and in Superman Returns, an island that rises out of the sea laced with Kryptonite. Even Bizzaro-Superman is a ludicrous idea, and the later writers have taken the character in humorous directions.
+++++
If you can’t beat em, join em.
And that’s where the movie has it’s most success, just aligning it’s self with Superman. From the joy of the Airplane sequence, where we get a tease of some of the powers we know him best for. Superman brings down the plane safely into a Baseball stadium, and there is a pure joy of connecting two things that are definitively American, Superman and our national pastime.
Watching the crowd erupt to him is a meta-release of joy like the finale of the Spiderman 2 train sequence. Just seeing a hero come through, the joy of seeing a superhero with an audience allows for a harmonious escapism, reflecting our love as the viewer on the screen; how can one not cheer a guy like this?
The films central subtext flows from the notion of having someone like Superman come back, one side is that we don’t need him; the other is that we certainly could use him. Lois Lane’s angle for the film revolves around her son and her article which won the Pulitzer titled “Why the world doesn’t need Superman.” She has moved on romantically and yet we understand all of her character by having her faint at her first sight of him; she and the world can get along fine, but man, did we miss Superman.
While there are many flaws in the film, they never stop the flow of the film because waiting in the wings, we have a presence that can overcome any problem and damnit if it’s not worth a bad scene or two.
The first third of the film has many characters wondering “where did Superman go” and the film uses this to it’s advantage in terms of driving force as well, because after a 19 year wait, after numerous rumors of Tim Burton, McG, Brett Ratner, JJ Abrams as directors, hearing that Cage, Freddie Prince JR, etc, etc, would play the part, it’s extremely comforting to see a competent director like Singer and an actor like Routh (who does his best, but still seems a little young and lacks a full presence of a Reeve or Bale, and seems to fresh faced to allow the audience to connect with him) come back to us in movie form.
Singer gets this, both in his aligning the return of Superman as an ex returning to ones life in terms of emotional impacts, to using the Superman score by John Williams –which really does give the Star Wars and Indiana Jones themes serious competition for best ever—and the opening 3-d style graphic from the ’78 film. He knows that the biggest appeal of the franchise is simply bringing the saga back; he is entrenched in the roots and mythology, the film is meant to feel like the sequel to the superb Superman II and not to the miserable Superman IV, and he carries over everything about the first films that was good to this 2006 version.
A small digression here, but the other triumph of this movie is how funny it is. The jokes come in dry fashion, made from the characters and dialogue, not from easy visual gimmicks and weak rehash of the lore. The line about Lois having “done” Superman before is a great joke. As I left the film, one of the things that lingered with me was how much I enjoyed the humor of the film. From the little bits about the dogs, to Parker Posey just playing Parker Posey as we want to see her, and Spacey loving the moment (and killing the Prometheus angle), there is a lot of joy from how the film takes it self seriously, but the characters are still having fun in the whole of it.
There is also a lot of buzz about Singer making Superman a Christ figure. There is a lot of playing to this in the film, with talk of fathers and sons, the history of existence given from a god/Brando fueled Kal-El in the Fortress of Solitude and the trailers which feature the folly and strengths of man. In the final third of the film, we are even given a Jesus Christ Pose as Superman falls back to Earth. It’s not heavy-handed enough to detract, yet it’s not convincing either. That ’s not who Superman is, or even what he truly can be.
Jesus? Nah, he’s more like America, a belief of love, freedom, and boundless potential, the embodiment of everything we hold aloft as good, and only a moment away from becoming selfish.
He is the vessel character, the direct link between viewers and readers about what we could be. He embodies what we want to be, and his character is not perfectly constructed with backstory and origins like a Spawn, Batman, or an X-men, who are meant to draw from their past to their ultimate goal. He is a character who is so potent, the only part of his history that matters is the fact he was raised the right way, so that he lives his charmed life to it’s rightfully good path. It’s not great power and great responsibility; it’s the ultimate powers, and the will to act for good.
Superman stands as the one character in the world that cannot be defeated. That’s what draws kids to him, and what brings people back to him every time a movie like Superman in 78, a show like Smallville or films like Superman Returns. He is the savior, the last line of defense, the ultimate hope for humanity. He continues to do the right thing, and we continue to watch a fictional version of a vessel that doesn’t take the easy path. (I really wish they found a way to let Tom Welling play Superman in the movies, he’s a fantastic Clark Kent, and he is one of the few actors who makes you identify with his plight simply on the first glance, he’s one of the best reasons to watch a WB show. If they had waited until 2008 when the show ends and let the man who played Clark Kent transform into Superman, well, my joy would have been close to rapturous)
In Superman Returns, we get a very sharp look at where heroes are needed today. We can live without them, but god do we miss them. The biggest joy of the movie comes from watching him come back, to his family, to Lois, to Metropolis, to us. Singer and company know what they are doing here, embracing the core appeal of the character. When we see Superman on screen, it’s hard to find any fault with how they have done it.
The plot didn’t have to be on the level of Batman Begins, or even on the level of Spiderman, Superman doesn’t need that kind of build to make his story work for modern times, he’s been around long enough that everyone knows what he stands for. All a director has to do is play the John Williams theme, have an extra shout “Look it’s a bird…” and have a guy in blue tights and a red cape, and we’re there. And Singer, Routh, and the writers do this so well it’s nothing short of mesmerizing.
But they don’t go very far with it. The problems of the film are that Routh is unsure enough he doesn’t add little details to the character – there isn’t a moment when I thought, that’s an active choice for acting, like with Bale in the “Pray to ME” scene, or Reeve giving a little oomph to the “I’ve got you” line (one last side note, it takes nearly 80 minutes in the first Donner film for the Superman logo to emerge, and when Superman finally comes out, god it’s breathtaking), or Tobey in Spiderman 2 with the “I’m Back, I’m BACK!! My Back, MY BACK.” line. Routh is channeling Superman, and while he is good with Clark, nothing he does makes the Man of Steel a Routh role, it’s the opposite, and you wish there was something a little better.
So too is the plight with Lois Lane and Kate Bosworth. She just doesn’t seem old enough, there isn’t any gravitas. Would it have killed them to cast Gwyneth Paltrow? She would have been perfect.
This is the new version of Superman, and they get by with rejuvenating this saga, but they don’t progress it where they should have. I’d like to say, that once again, it’s the story that lets Superman down.
But it’s a collective lack of maturity, everyone went out of their way to make it Superman and co. seem like it was the same as he ever was. They just don’t make it better, making camp for the next ascent instead of going for the peak. Superman is a testament to the past we grew up on, and it’s wonderful in those moments. But we can’t keep living off nostalgia, even when it makes us feel so good to do so, succeeding off collective love. They were too fearful to go forward and instead channeled the good of the character. And I love that for what it was.
But I think back to the end of the Nolan masterpiece.
Batman didn’t do it for the gratitude of him being there. It wasn't who he was underneath, it was what he did that defined him.
As I wrote in my X-men 3 post :
For better or worse, Superman represents the USA better than any character in the media today. Evolved to be the most powerful, filled with a God-like arsenal, and left with few equal enemies in the world. Superman’s great struggle is that he should rule the Earth, subject them to his will, yet he chooses to do the right thing, to protect them, and to hear their cries of despair. How far he (and the US) should intervene is always the problem: to meddle too much makes the society reliant, and often causes terrible collateral damage, causing hatred and repulsion; lack of action causes envy, resentment, and can often lead to chaos in the filling the power vacuum.
++++
Loving Superman comes easily as a child, it becomes hard as a teenager, and ultimately if you are still reading comics by the time one hits 20, it’s highly unlikely the Man of Steel is still high on the must read list.
The struggle comes with writing compelling stories, and the only notable story in the comic pages for Superman of the last 30 years was his death. There was Bizzaro Superman in the first 40 years, which means they had an existential meta look at the character BEFORE the 60’s and 70’s.
A writer can always do wonders with Batman, he is a man who is tremendously well trained, funded, and fights because of an iron will against crime. Batman Begins nailed everything about who Batman is and what he represents with the final line of the movie.
Jim Gordon: I never got to say thank you.
Bruce Wayne: And you'll never have to
Gets me every time because it finishes the evolution of the movie and why Batman fights, because he knows why, and he’ll do it till the end.
Batman has been taken to the end of his power in The Dark Night Returns, and back to the beginning in Year One. Batman was the character in the center of the best comic book movie of all time (Batman Begins) and the best cartoon (the 90’s one that looked like it was set in the 40’s). He has two of the best villains in the Joker and Two-Face, and the stories with them work because of their humanity (or lack of superpowers); in the end it’s about two men fighting the battle of greed vs. one standing in the way.
When it comes to Superman, writers tend to fail because it’s hard to answer the dilemma without resorting to tacky devices or mega villains or world threatening machines: Simply how do you beat a God?
What could possibly give a challenger the upper hand? Sure there is kryptonite, but what good is a device that only limits Superman? In the end, there is always a way to get rid of the kryptonite, it’s impossible to get rid of The Man of Steel.
Superman tends to spawn some of the worst plot points, such as turning the world backwards, a ridiculous character who has to power to not only survive Supe’s attacks (named Doomsday of all things) who had the ability to kill him, and in Superman Returns, an island that rises out of the sea laced with Kryptonite. Even Bizzaro-Superman is a ludicrous idea, and the later writers have taken the character in humorous directions.
+++++
If you can’t beat em, join em.
And that’s where the movie has it’s most success, just aligning it’s self with Superman. From the joy of the Airplane sequence, where we get a tease of some of the powers we know him best for. Superman brings down the plane safely into a Baseball stadium, and there is a pure joy of connecting two things that are definitively American, Superman and our national pastime.
Watching the crowd erupt to him is a meta-release of joy like the finale of the Spiderman 2 train sequence. Just seeing a hero come through, the joy of seeing a superhero with an audience allows for a harmonious escapism, reflecting our love as the viewer on the screen; how can one not cheer a guy like this?
The films central subtext flows from the notion of having someone like Superman come back, one side is that we don’t need him; the other is that we certainly could use him. Lois Lane’s angle for the film revolves around her son and her article which won the Pulitzer titled “Why the world doesn’t need Superman.” She has moved on romantically and yet we understand all of her character by having her faint at her first sight of him; she and the world can get along fine, but man, did we miss Superman.
While there are many flaws in the film, they never stop the flow of the film because waiting in the wings, we have a presence that can overcome any problem and damnit if it’s not worth a bad scene or two.
The first third of the film has many characters wondering “where did Superman go” and the film uses this to it’s advantage in terms of driving force as well, because after a 19 year wait, after numerous rumors of Tim Burton, McG, Brett Ratner, JJ Abrams as directors, hearing that Cage, Freddie Prince JR, etc, etc, would play the part, it’s extremely comforting to see a competent director like Singer and an actor like Routh (who does his best, but still seems a little young and lacks a full presence of a Reeve or Bale, and seems to fresh faced to allow the audience to connect with him) come back to us in movie form.
Singer gets this, both in his aligning the return of Superman as an ex returning to ones life in terms of emotional impacts, to using the Superman score by John Williams –which really does give the Star Wars and Indiana Jones themes serious competition for best ever—and the opening 3-d style graphic from the ’78 film. He knows that the biggest appeal of the franchise is simply bringing the saga back; he is entrenched in the roots and mythology, the film is meant to feel like the sequel to the superb Superman II and not to the miserable Superman IV, and he carries over everything about the first films that was good to this 2006 version.
A small digression here, but the other triumph of this movie is how funny it is. The jokes come in dry fashion, made from the characters and dialogue, not from easy visual gimmicks and weak rehash of the lore. The line about Lois having “done” Superman before is a great joke. As I left the film, one of the things that lingered with me was how much I enjoyed the humor of the film. From the little bits about the dogs, to Parker Posey just playing Parker Posey as we want to see her, and Spacey loving the moment (and killing the Prometheus angle), there is a lot of joy from how the film takes it self seriously, but the characters are still having fun in the whole of it.
There is also a lot of buzz about Singer making Superman a Christ figure. There is a lot of playing to this in the film, with talk of fathers and sons, the history of existence given from a god/Brando fueled Kal-El in the Fortress of Solitude and the trailers which feature the folly and strengths of man. In the final third of the film, we are even given a Jesus Christ Pose as Superman falls back to Earth. It’s not heavy-handed enough to detract, yet it’s not convincing either. That ’s not who Superman is, or even what he truly can be.
Jesus? Nah, he’s more like America, a belief of love, freedom, and boundless potential, the embodiment of everything we hold aloft as good, and only a moment away from becoming selfish.
He is the vessel character, the direct link between viewers and readers about what we could be. He embodies what we want to be, and his character is not perfectly constructed with backstory and origins like a Spawn, Batman, or an X-men, who are meant to draw from their past to their ultimate goal. He is a character who is so potent, the only part of his history that matters is the fact he was raised the right way, so that he lives his charmed life to it’s rightfully good path. It’s not great power and great responsibility; it’s the ultimate powers, and the will to act for good.
Superman stands as the one character in the world that cannot be defeated. That’s what draws kids to him, and what brings people back to him every time a movie like Superman in 78, a show like Smallville or films like Superman Returns. He is the savior, the last line of defense, the ultimate hope for humanity. He continues to do the right thing, and we continue to watch a fictional version of a vessel that doesn’t take the easy path. (I really wish they found a way to let Tom Welling play Superman in the movies, he’s a fantastic Clark Kent, and he is one of the few actors who makes you identify with his plight simply on the first glance, he’s one of the best reasons to watch a WB show. If they had waited until 2008 when the show ends and let the man who played Clark Kent transform into Superman, well, my joy would have been close to rapturous)
In Superman Returns, we get a very sharp look at where heroes are needed today. We can live without them, but god do we miss them. The biggest joy of the movie comes from watching him come back, to his family, to Lois, to Metropolis, to us. Singer and company know what they are doing here, embracing the core appeal of the character. When we see Superman on screen, it’s hard to find any fault with how they have done it.
The plot didn’t have to be on the level of Batman Begins, or even on the level of Spiderman, Superman doesn’t need that kind of build to make his story work for modern times, he’s been around long enough that everyone knows what he stands for. All a director has to do is play the John Williams theme, have an extra shout “Look it’s a bird…” and have a guy in blue tights and a red cape, and we’re there. And Singer, Routh, and the writers do this so well it’s nothing short of mesmerizing.
But they don’t go very far with it. The problems of the film are that Routh is unsure enough he doesn’t add little details to the character – there isn’t a moment when I thought, that’s an active choice for acting, like with Bale in the “Pray to ME” scene, or Reeve giving a little oomph to the “I’ve got you” line (one last side note, it takes nearly 80 minutes in the first Donner film for the Superman logo to emerge, and when Superman finally comes out, god it’s breathtaking), or Tobey in Spiderman 2 with the “I’m Back, I’m BACK!! My Back, MY BACK.” line. Routh is channeling Superman, and while he is good with Clark, nothing he does makes the Man of Steel a Routh role, it’s the opposite, and you wish there was something a little better.
So too is the plight with Lois Lane and Kate Bosworth. She just doesn’t seem old enough, there isn’t any gravitas. Would it have killed them to cast Gwyneth Paltrow? She would have been perfect.
This is the new version of Superman, and they get by with rejuvenating this saga, but they don’t progress it where they should have. I’d like to say, that once again, it’s the story that lets Superman down.
But it’s a collective lack of maturity, everyone went out of their way to make it Superman and co. seem like it was the same as he ever was. They just don’t make it better, making camp for the next ascent instead of going for the peak. Superman is a testament to the past we grew up on, and it’s wonderful in those moments. But we can’t keep living off nostalgia, even when it makes us feel so good to do so, succeeding off collective love. They were too fearful to go forward and instead channeled the good of the character. And I love that for what it was.
But I think back to the end of the Nolan masterpiece.
Batman didn’t do it for the gratitude of him being there. It wasn't who he was underneath, it was what he did that defined him.
posted by Indiana at
12:09 PM
0 Comments:
Post a Comment
<< Home