As Man Of Steel racked up box-office dollars and prompted instant talk of sequels and Justice League spinoffs, my heart began to ache for Superman Returns. Its status as a weird also-ran in the cinematic comic-book canon was already well cemented. Made with a budget reported between $206 and $270 million in 2006, it grossed a lackluster $391 million worldwide, a figure Zack Snyder’s reboot should blast through in the coming weeks. It also began building a reputation as a bizarre curio, an action movie without a lot of action sequences, and a re-launch of a character that was still tied to Christopher Reeve’s iconic portrayal.
Oliver Sava quite rightly asked why it’s so hard to make a good Superman movie. But I’d argue that Superman Returns, for all its flaws and stutters, its cautiousness, and its gentle approach to thrills, is the great Superman movie. It takes the stirring American-dream hero of the Richard Donner/Christopher Reeve films but tamps down their campiness and spends no time bogged down in Superman’s oft-told origin story. It explores his status as a Christ figure for the modern era—a god among men, but raised among them, wrestling with his godhood, often taking advantage of it in ways any weak mortal might. It’s remarkably sensitive and quiet for a blockbuster studio film, with more than one action sequence especially notable for a sense of stillness. It has none of the crunching bombast of Snyder’s action-fest, but also none of its disdain for innocent citizens.
Some of Warner’s decisions in green-lighting Superman Returns make perfect sense. Superhero movies were back in style, and Batman Begins came out a year before to great acclaim. Bryan Singer was the man who made comic-book movies cool again with his work on the X-Men series, striking a balance between fan service and studio demands that left most people happy. But the pitch of the movie really is baffling. As a sort-of sequel to Superman II, it supposes that Superman left Earth for years, prompting Lex Luthor’s release from prison and a Pulitzer Prize-winning piece by Lois Lane saying the world didn’t need Superman anymore. I don’t know what’s weirder—that reporter Lois Lane won a Pulitzer for an opinion piece, or that Superman was really the only person on the planet who could testify to Luthor’s misdeeds in court.
The most surprising plot choice is the slow build to the revelation that Superman fathered a super-child with Lois, although her new beau Richard White (James Marsden) thinks the kid (played by stock moppet Tristan Lake Leabu) is his. This ties into a whole half-baked father-son metaphor, overlaid by Marlon Brando’s monologues from the 1978 Superman, that contrasts with Superman’s sometimes reluctant status as protector of the planet. It doesn’t have quite enough room to breathe and it probably would have horribly hamstrung any sequel. But it also doesn’t deserve the scorn heaped on it by Superman fans who hate the idea of their hero felled by kitchen-sink drama. Superman as a deadbeat dad? Why muddy the waters with that when there’s hero business to be done? Because it raises the stakes on our hero’s humanity. Even as a lover to Lois, he’s still very much an alien, alluring in his otherness, but as the father of an adorable, asthmatic child he’s that much more tied to Earth.