Superman Returns

It took me too attempts to watch this one. The cinema had a power cut on the first attempt (at a rather apt moment in the film), so i had to wait for a few days then go back for a second attempt, which was well, well worth it!

Bryan Singer, shot to fame with The Usual Suspects, which in itself is a brilliant film, kinda dissapeared for a bit, then directed X-Men, HELLO! and welcome back big budget superhero movies!

A few years down the line and we have Superman Returns, set five years after Superman II and thankfully before III & IV, astronomers discovered the remains of Krypton so Supes obviously had to go and have a lookie. So five years later he returns, and funnily enough things have changed, Lois has a fiance and a kid, Lex Luthor's out of prison and the world's pretty much gone to shit. This he finds a little upsetting, but not to be out-done (after all he's Superman!) he sets out to put things straight.

Lex Luthor (Kevin Spacey) is on top form, hammy, over the top, and the "WRONG!" bit even made me jump slightly, despite being in the trailer. He is doing his usual world conquering stuff and Supes has to stop him.

I really REALLY enjoyed this film, just perusing the IMDb comments, there's a lot of slagging off going on, but then that's to be expected on there, it's vary rare for anyone on there to say anything nice! But then that's a different post (maybe I'll stick it on my blog).

Brandon Routh is pretty good as the big S and the same sized C, I can see the similarities with the late Christopher Reeve's interpretation of the character, but that to me is not a big deal. It's widely known that Singer directly referenced and homaged Donner's original vision, so of course they're gonna be similar! But still he makes the role his own, which I for one could see and was greatful for.

Kate Bosworth, well, I think someone slightly more mature looking at least would've felt better, but then Routh's not exactly old either.

The film's long, but doesn't really feel it, there's a couple of scenes that drag a little, but overall the pace was good, the actions scenes are as you'd expect from a film of this type, one particular Supes/Lex et al scene is positively brutal and is something I wasn't expecting but feel it really added to the film and is the sort of thing that is what brings this up to date.

As much as it pains me to say, as I've never really been a big Superman fan, I think it's taken the top spot in my list of fave super hero movies, knocking Spider-Man 1 & 2 into joint second.


Superman Returns - 9/10