wildcat

Well, it had to happen sooner or later. The following contains SPOILERS, duh, mere minutes after finishing Bryan Singer's Superman Returns. Laugh, cry, condemn me, winsomely claw at the screen, take pictures, whatever you need to do. There will also be Jimmy Olsen-related drool.

First of all: I liked this movie. I've seen and heard some pretty horrible things said about it and it wasn't bad. It was, in fact, good. By no means perfect, certainly - the scope of Lex's plan, for example, was a little off. But a lot of it worked.

I went to see this alone, which was sort of awkward given my tendency toward neurosis and anxiety, but this all dropped away when the opening credits began - Krypton exploding, all that jazz. Only one shall live.

And then we're in Kansas, outside Smallville, as a pick-up truck drives off and Martha Kent cleans up after a rousing night playing Scrabble with friends. The puppy snuggles in the corner of the kitchen while Martha does the dishes. And then she hears it - something's coming. The house shakes, and we're treating to some lovely overhead shots of scrabble pieces left out shuffling to the side.

I loved this opening scene with Martha, because in any other scenario, whoever's in the house is going to have that dawning comprehension that something very fast and very much on fire is streaking towards this little farm and would probably be screaming, panicking, possibly running to the cellar. Not Martha, no. We've seen this scene a hundred times in different movies, the UFO landing, and Martha in particular has seen something like this once before. She calmly watches the burning object streak over top of the house and embed itself about a mile or two away. Calm. And then she gets in her truck and goes to look. And there's this object, crystalline, the area around it practically an inferno and old Martha, she goes right up to it and investigates, because she's been here before. Pitch perfect.

Brandon Routh acquits himself nicely as the (new/old) Man of Steel returning to his adopted homeworld. The script calls for some potentially dodgy behaviour from Superman, sure, but it all makes sense given that the world has continued on without him and he's just spent five years in deep space without human contact, so you know - maybe a little funny in the head. He does a slightly better job than Kate Bosworth, who was competent but a little young for the role. Lois is given some good material to work with and demonstrates quite clearly why it's Lois and Clark, together, as a team.

I want to make a movie with Parker Posey. She was actually having genuine fun with her role, kids, and she was fabulous. I entertained thoughts of recasting the film with her as Lois Lane, and how weird and fucked up that would be, but I kind of like that idea. Kevin Spacey didn't favour the Gene Hackman foppish Luthor, but instead a cruel man just out of the big house who manages to attack Superman as if they were in an episode of Oz, which was both unsettling and highly effective. Luthor is primarily a man of the mind, meant in contrast to Superman's physicality, but the brutal scuffle underscored how much control Superman's presence has over his emotions. As I said before, Luthor's big plot isn't quite right for the movie, or at least they don't present it as being big enough for him. I wondered if they might consider adapting the "President Lex" storyline for the sequel - if there is one - because this Luthor is far too calculating. But the big plot was a little beneath him and lacked a certain imagination on the part of Singer and company. It had scope but failed to have the right dimension to it. Although I did love Luthor's secret train set miniature world.

Jimmy Olsen, sigh. Sam Huntington delivered a solid performance and was, er, extremely attractive in a bow-tie. He was also pretty funny, what with the taking Clark out to have a drink in the middle of the day - and he gets a little sauced - to, you know, console him over Lois moving on with her life while he was off "travelling the world" and Superman was flying across the galaxy. Consoling. Right, Olsen, all you want is to console, you certainly didn't bake Clark a cake or anything. Huntington and James Marsden, who plays "Richard White," the new man in Lois's life were very much a backbone to the cast, playing likable characters. I rooted for Lois to forget the Man of Steel - as both of them had relationship "issues" - to remind herself why she was marrying Richard, who was great for her.

There was action, weird Oz-type sequences, explosions, a decent love story that wasn't resolved in any real way, and some decent special effects. They had the big surprise twist in there as well - shocking, or something - but it wasn't that surprising and demonstrated an actual willingness to encourage growth in the franchise and move the narrative forward - shocking, I know, but eventually Lois found out who Superman was in the comics, and they actually got married, and the story survived without reverting to her as a ditzy girl trying to get the scoop on Superman. Growth is important, and it was delivered in such a way that it wasn't a particularly big surprise. The idea's been around since about the Fifties anyway, but usually only in "imaginary stories."

There's a lot of potential here. I'd like to see them move away from Lex in favour of, I don't know, Brainiac for the next one. Maybe they could have a big villain and a bunch of Superman's smaller villains. Or Mxyzltplk, the five-dimensional imp. Something beyond the fallible Superman/Luthor dynamic - while both actors worked well with their roles, ultimately the battle and Luthor's weak plan made me crave a different route, and the door's already been opened for that in other ways.

Incidentally, what's up with the guy who plays Kumar in Harold & Kumar Go to Whitecastle being in nearly fifty percent of the scenes in this film and not having a single line. He wasn't even a background character, he was one of Luthor's main henchmen! Geez.