Little boy blue

Noel Vera

With "Superman Returns" Bryan Singer--who I've always thought more
clever than talented--pretty much remakes the 1978 movie with
updated special effects, a younger cast, and his own slant on the
story. Maybe the thing I like most about the film is Singer's
subversions; maybe the things I like least are the cast (save for a
few exceptions), the largely undistinguished visual style, and the
basic material altogether.

I'll have to make an admission right off: I've never thought much of
Superman. He's the elemental superhero, fine, but rarely if ever has
anyone made anything interesting about it (Alan Moore's "Miracleman"
series is a better attack, I think). Maybe the few times anyone did
were in two works written by the aforementioned Moore (the
short "For the Man Who Has Everything," the two-part "Whatever
Happened to the Man of Tomorrow?").

If I ever did like the big blue cheese, it's mainly because of the
brilliantly animated Fleischer cartoons--which are straightforward
and unpretentious in a way that's inimitably of its time--and
because of the two big-budget Superman films which (then being from
a more cynical age) treat the legend with a fair amount of humor and
skepticism, the second one especially. Hence, Christopher Reeve's
Clark Kent is a constant bumbler; Gene Hackman's Lex Luthor an
ambitious real estate salesman; Margot Kidder's Lois Lane a hard-
edged New Yorker with little patience for Clark's awkward
cluelessness.

Donner's action scenes in the first "Superman" are adequate
setpieces (though the early middle-America sequences have a lovely
burnish (thanks to the camerawork and lighting of the late Geoffrey
Unsworth) that none of the succeeding films have ever quite
captured); what really succeeds is the triangle at the heart of the
film: Clark loves Lois loves Superman, who is really Clark in
disguise. Reeve and Kidder have a marvelous comic chemistry
together, one that (interestingly) works whether Reeve plays Clark
or Superman. As Clark, Reeve makes his six-foot-plus height work for
him; he's constantly slouching, constantly trying to make himself
look smaller. He's a god trying to pass himself off as a nebbish,
and the joke is that it's partly successful; all that handsome brawn
poured into a suit just a shade too small for him, the better to
play up his discomfort (you expect him to bump into things--he's too
big not to do otherwise). The joke is even funnier when Reeve's
Clark lurches behind Kidder's Lois; the image you have is of an
intense Chihuahua trailing a clumsy Great Dane (once in a while she
turns to yap, and the Dane rears back in terror). To become Superman
all Reeve has to do (and in one scene--their rooftop date--you
actually see him do it) is raise his chin and straighten his posture
and suddenly he's a god again; the joke, which is constantly on poor
Clark, turns out to be on Lois all along.

Kidder's Lois is like Lucy to Reeve's Charlie Brown of a Clark--she
has the New Yorker expectation that everyone keep up with her or
keep out of the way, and she's exasperated that Clark can't seem to
do either. When she confronts Superman, however, she becomes a dewy
debutant, and what makes this moving is that she's such an unlikely
looking debutant. With sharp chin, sharper cheekbones, tough
demeanor, and the faint air of faded youth (Kidder is four years
older than Reeve), in her hero's presence she blooms and becomes an
awkward girl on a first date; if Superman acting out Clark is funny,
Lois acting lovestruck is funny yet poignant, a reminder (if you
will) of the power of passion to transform a woman.

Easy to see where I'm going here: with the youthful Routh, you get
some attempt at bumbling--I suppose at one point Singer just gave up
and told him "if you can't be funny, just stand there and look
gorgeous" (he has a thick pompadour for hair and thick eyebrows to
match). Reeve had a gift and presence for comedy that I miss (he was
superb in "Deathtrap," "Switching Channels," and I even liked him in
the otherwise misbegotten "Noises Off"); he and Routh are as
different as a Robert Crumb sketch and a blank sheet of paper.
Combined with Kate Bosworth--who, ironically, IS a dewy debutant (I
laughed my head off when Routh discovers she had won the Pulitzer
Prize; she looks more like she should be getting her diploma)--and
you've got nada plus nada equaling nada. Terrible scenes together,
can't believe she has a five-year-old (what happened, a teenage
pregnancy?), and when she tries for "hard-edged" and "ambitious" I
had to laugh again (the film is funny, but not, I suspect, in the
way the makers intended).

Richard Lester's "Superman 2" (1980) upped the stakes about as far
as they can go--Lois learns of Superman's secret identity, Superman
has to choose between being god and being human, and--choosing love--
they go to bed together (what woman can resist such a sacrifice?).
The film also includes probably the best villain in any Superman
movie ever, Terence Stamp with his preternaturally beautiful eyes as
General Zod (I love it that he stalks through the picture with a
slightly disassociated air--as if, being British, he's suggesting
that he's too good for this sort of thing).

But Lester's lasting contribution to the film, I think, is the
attention he gives to Lois and Clark. Kidder and Reeve's scenes
here, particularly when Clark's true identity is revealed, have a no-
nonsense feel more real than anything else in the movie (or, for
that matter, any other Superman movies). All pretense of Clark the
stumblebum is dropped now; this is an anxious, even unhappy
relationship between two adults who found love, had sex, and
discovered that their backgrounds and duties make it impossible for
them to stay together. Lester is an unsentimental verging on
misogynistic (some would drop the words 'verging on') filmmaker on
love ("Robin and Marian" anyone?); the film, ironically, is Lester's
most openly romantic (if, compared to other onscreen romances,
unnervingly anguished and unsentimental) picture ever.

It's a lot more adult than the predicament Routh's Superman finds
himself in--he's left the Earth for five years without even saying
goodbye ("Why?" we ask, and so does Lois; Routh's Clark can only
offer a vague "maybe he found it too painful"), returns to find Lois
with child and new boyfriend (the equally bland James Marsden, who
was perfect as Cyclops in the "X Men" movies because Hugh Jackman
upstaged him so easily). There's a question of whether or not the
child is Clark's or the boyfriend's, but the child is such a cipher
(he could have wandered in from "The Omen" set) the question doesn't
really generate much interest; more to the point, Routh and Bosworth
and Marsden are so bland together (nada cubed) you wish a real actor
would walk onscreen and claim the empty center stage.

Enter Kevin Spacey--or at least you keep hoping he would; he seems
undecided whether to give a genuinely Spacey performance or channel
Gene Hackman's glorified real-estate agent (a quick word on Hackman:
his Luthor could easily have been a diminution of the comic-book
legend, only Hackman's comic performances ("Young
Frankenstein," "The Royal Tenenbaums") are so good and rare his two
turns as the bald arch-villain are to be treasured, not vilified).
Parker Posey gives us a few subversive looks here and there, and has
this moment early in the film where her car is about to crash (but
doesn't) with more lyricism and feeling than anything Bosworth could
muster (Singer, unfortunately, has assigned her to the role of fan-
girl, and gives her little else to do than clutch Superman's bright
blue sleeve). Frank Langella seems overqualified to play Perry
White; he has exactly one good line--"Great Caesar's Ghost!"--which
is about it (Caesar's ghost doesn't even bother showing up). Give me
J.K. Simmons' J. Jonah Jameson anytime.

Did I find anything to like? Actually, yes: Spacey's Luthor (thanks
to Singer, I suspect) takes on a Bushlike quality in the way he
steals power from the rightful owners (2000 and 2004, anyone?),
creates a new world (or at least continent) according to his vision
of technological superiority (Iraq and Afghanistan, anyone?) and to
hell with political, ethical, or environmental consequences
(Antagonized Muslims, Guantanamo prisons, and global warming,
anyone?); he even says "Bring them on!" aping Bush's chronic
overconfidence (the continent Luthor creates--an ugly, Mordor-like
parody of Superman's home planet--is like an apt visual metaphor for
where Bush stands at the moment).

Singer also picks up the Christ theme suggested by Marlon Brando's
(digitally resurrected) line of dialogue "I give them you, my only
son") and runs with it. Superman upon landing on Earth is cradled by
his Earth mother (Eva Marie Saint) in a brief "Pieta" pose, is often
seen floating in cruciform formation, and ponders the question "do
they or don't they need a savior" (he assures Lois that, thanks to
his super-hearing, he keeps hearing people asking for one). Luthor
gangs up on Superman and beats him up "Passion of the Christ" style,
complete with a spear to the side (actually kidney, but close
enough); later, he's resurrected in all his messianic glory.

If only for that--for Lex Dubya and his ultimately ironic fate (from
Singer's lips to God's ears); for Posey and her moments of comic
sluttishness; for the brief parodies of Mel Gibson's snuff flick--I
suppose the movie's worth seeing. Given a choice, though, I'd rather
see my own personal list of favorite big-screen comic-book
adaptations (in ascending order): Richard Lester's "Superman 2,"
Guillermo del Toro's "Hellboy," Robert Altman's "Popeye," Tim
Burton's "Batman Returns." This solemn "Superman" remake is mostly
for the boys.

7/5/06