A heart-tugging tale -- Superman Returns
BALANCES TECHNOLOGY WITH ROMANCE: Superman Returns
Genre: Science fiction
Director: Bryan Singer
Cast: Brandon Routh (Superman), Kate Bosworth (Lois Lane) and Kevin Spacey (Lex Luthor)
Storyline: Superman comes back to earth as a Messiah of mankind.
Bottomline: Endearingly human.
Bryan Singer's `Superman Returns,' is, strictly speaking, a sequel to the first two films on him in the 1970s and the 1980s that had the late Christopher Reeve.
This work is bound to raise audience expectation and curiosity, partly because Reeve had become synonymous with the Man of Steel, and partly because of the long hiatus. `Superman Returns' comes after nearly two decades.
Singer's work does not quite disappoint us. The $200-million movie cleverly balances modern technical marvel with traditional old world charm, romance and emotion.
Even as the Superman flies from planet Krypton to earth and sees his old love, Lois Lane, with a cute little son and a fiancée in the comfort of a home, there are tears in his eyes. `Superman Returns' has exhilarating shots of him flying sometimes high above our planet, and at other times along a fascinating city skyline, its buildings bathed in the glowing light of electric bulbs.
Three dimensional special effects add a cocktail of thrill and suspense: we see the Superman gently bring down a plane, about to crash, on a football field, and blow out a huge ball of fire as it races to destroy a city.
But beyond these high-tech magnificence lies a more heart-tugging story of the Superman's deep love for Lois, a feeling that is warmly reciprocated. Warner Brothers and Singer have played this sentiment as more or less their trump card. That the Superman is a mortal like us is shown repeatedly.
His concern for Lois, when he asks her not to smoke, his near-death in the sea, when she saves him, and his affection for his foster mother make the Superman endearingly human. But we never know why he leaves Lois in the first place, or why he comes back to her in this movie.
The story is pretty straight. Lex Luthor is out of jail and plotting to sink a huge chunk of the U.S. to build his own continent. Lois is a newspaper journalist who has just got a Pulitzer Prize for her essay, "Why the World Does Not Need a Superman."
The Man of Steel comes down again to lead men and save them from catastrophic events.
Kevin Spacey as the demented genius, Luthor, infuses the character with comedy and anarchy, his best performance after `American Beauty.'
Brandon Routh does not quite meet the standards laid down by Reeve, and the new man is a cross between Tom Cruise and Reeve. Kate Bosworth as Lane injects the emotional quotient into the blue body suit.
While `Superman Returns' is not strong on the acting front, the film must be seen for its broad message. With a hint of the Superman being a Messiah of mankind, Singer and two other writers, Michael Dougherty and Dan Harris, seem to have worked on a fear psychosis that prevails post 9/11. The aircraft sequence conveys this.
Above all, Singer succeeds in reinventing the character, making him relevant to the present day. So what if the newspaper world has a 1930s look where there is no internet, and where the cub reporters wear bow ties.
GAUTAMAN BHASKARAN
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