I’m just gonna throw it out there. No matter how this movie turned out, I had a feeling I’d like it just because of the extensive use of the John Williams original Superman theme. That song’s so good, man! It’s so epic, and I used to listen to it when I drove to high school. The movie itself was also relatively epic. From the opening shot reminiscent of Star Trek VI to the credits that were styled after those cool, blue laser-lookin’ credits from the original series, it’s hard to not be amazed at being able to really put Superman on screen like that.
Superman Returns begins with us reading that Superman left to find his home of Krypton. A little bit later in the movie, well… he returns. However coming back and saving the world isn’t that simple. He has to deal with love lost of Lois Lane and the lousy life of Lex Luthor (and your fill of alliteration). Luthor has some deadly scheme that must be stopped and both Clark Kent and Superman have to deal with the fact that Lois is engaged and has a son.
One thing that was spurred on in my mind by the credits is the faithfulness to the other Superman. Not only did Bryan Singer include some famed Marlon Brando footage cut from Superman II and follow up a bit on the story begun in the other 4 (of course with much younger characters, but I’ll look past that), but also, I get the impression that each actor was forced to channel their predecessor. Kevin Spacey injects the same humor and maliciousness into Luthor that Gene Hackman once did, but puts his own brilliant touch that nearly steals the movie. I was more than pleased with Brandon Routh’s performance. His Clark Kent was disarmingly likeable (and he even included some subtle Christopher Reeve-like mannerisms. In fact, this movie sort of throws the Clark Kent character more by the wayside than I would have liked. It’s just that Routh pulled it off so well, I didn’t want to see Clark Kent go. And I know David Carradine’s speech in Kill Bill: Volume II about how Clark Kent isn’t the
