Retro Post: Written 1/2008: Superman Returns

Let’s analyze this movie bit by bit. Warning: Spoilers abound.

Though in my opinion, if you haven’t seen it, you should just read this, as whatever shit I write will be much better than that fucking movie. So Superman returns from his five year trip to the remains of Krypton. He lands back in Kansas, reminiscent of his first landing.

Soon after, he commits his first act of douchebaggery. His dog wishes to play fetch with him. What does Superman do? He throws it as hard as he can, of course. The ball probably left earth orbit. His dog runs forward a bit, and then looks back with a whimper and a look on its face like, “you ass”. Who can argue with the lovable Golden Retriever?

Also, let’s look at Brandon Routh. Yes, the man is 6’3″, 235 pounds, but that’s all in his legs. Routh Superman looks like he couldn’t win a street fight, let alone lift Kryptonite Mountains [see below]. I have to admit though, he does a perfect “Clark Kent is a fucking loser” routine.

Then Lex Luthor comes in. Apparently, he married an old woman and showed her pleasures she never could of imagined, or pleasures out of this world. The exact wording doesn’t matter. What matter is, what exactly are these pleasures, and can they be shown without a NC-17 rating? You know, I don’t even want to know the answer to that question, because the lady looks 115. Whatever moral system you adhere to, I think we can all agree that that’s just fucking nasty. In any case, a la Anna Nicole, he has all her money now.

So then he goes to the Arctic, storms Superman’s Fortress of SOlitude, and takes all of his shit. Now I want to complain about accuracy with the source material. Sure, it’s in the arctic you say, it should be safe, you say. Well, obviously not. Apparently, not only is movie Superman a douchebag, he’s also an idiot. Comic book Superman at least has enough sense to lock his shit up. Also, in the comic books, everything in his fortress, information wise, is DNA encoded. Apparently movie Jor-El isn’t smart enough for this, and he’ll call anybody who waltzes up into the Fortress his son. I mean, look at Superman II, it wouldn’t be the first time people other than Superman have been in the Fortress, surely the great and wise Jor-El, who predicted his planet exploding ahead of all the other scientists in his advanced civilization, who had enough foresight to not only get his son off said planet, but bring with him an object that would build him a fucking fortress, could foresee the need to put a security system in said fortress.

Guess not.

Skip a few scenes, and Lois Lane is on a plane that has a space shuttle attached to it, and the space shuttle launches from the top of the plane. Can anybody say bad fucking idea? I can. Naturally, something goes wrong, though no fault of the people in control of this beast, and the shuttle starts exiting the atmosphere with the plane still attached.

Oops.

Skip some bullshit, and Superman is trying to stop the plane from smashing into the ground. First, he grabs the wing. Well, apparently the son is no smarter than the father. The plane is going fast as fuck towards the ground, and pulling back on the wing is just gonna make the wing tear off. Which it does. Which makes Superman scramble and he narrowly averts killing a whole stadium full of people.

Good job, Supes.

Then comes the most bad ass scene ever. The real reason everybody came to see this movie. And that’s to see Superman stop a bullet with his eye. We all knew he could do it theoretically, but we never actually SAW it. And then Bryan Singer answered all our prayers and put it in this movie. Thank you, Bryan.

Superman then proceeds to make up with Lois for five years of absence and a baby (more later). How does he do this? He grabs her and flies around with her. THAT’S IT. I know there are a whole bunch of men in the world who wished they could fly after seeing this.

Then the big rotating planet thing on top of the Daily Planet falls off. Superman catches. Yay. And then he does the douchiest thing ever. He puts it down, and crushes, some poor schmo’s Mercedes. Sure, you probably saved his life, but you crushed his car. Think about the financial hardship Superman has now put that man through. Will Superman come back and help this man financially?

Of course not.

Also, the man had a car in an area based on New York City. You know the traffic is terrible, but he probably needed it for work or something. Can you imagine going to your boss and saying you’re late because Superman crushed your car?

Next thing you know, Lex Luthor is creating hugeass Kryptonite landmasses in the middle of the fucking ocean.

Sure, I can go with that.

What I can’t go with is Superman picking the ENTIRE island up and taking it into space. An entire island made up of the shit that instantly weakens him and will kill him. Not only that, but he still has a shard of Kryptonite inside him?

Now at first, it can be explained away, since he drills deep into the Earth and picks it up that way. Soon after though, the Kryptonite starts breaking through, and yet he manages to overcome this and the Kryptonite inside him to not only pick up this huge ass island, which would be pushing it for him normally, but to launch it into space?

I think the official term for this is “suspension of disbelief”.

I call it bullshit.

Not only that, but he pushes it into space so weakly, that it’s probably still in Earth Orbit ready to fuck somebody’s day up.

So let’s talk about Superman’s kid. This movie takes place five years after Superman II, and in Superman II, Supes took Lois to the Fortress of Solitude for a little….action.

Apparently, he didn’t wrap it up.

And now Lois is the baby mama. Five years later, he knows that this kid is his child, and yet he won’t tell the child, or Richard White, the guy who thinks he’s the father.

“18 years, got you for 18 years, and on the 18th birthday he found out it wasn’t his?”

And then at the end of the movie, he whispers to his kid while the kid is asleep. Like he’s gonna protect his kid anymore than some random guy in the world. As if that counts.

I didn’t meet my father until I was 14, and let me just say, it doesn’t fucking count.

And apparently, this kid won’t even make it to 14, because rumor has it, he dies in the next movie. Come on DC, making him was lame enough, now you have to kill him off?

Two lames don’t make an awesome.

Apparently, DC is all about abdicating your duty to things you create.

Also, to add insult to injury, they made Superman a dead-beat dad to make him “more relatable” to us. I mean, really?

Really?

Let alone the whole fact Superman was created was so that people can have an ideal to aspire to. An ideal of goodness and justness, and of helping your fellow man. Now we should aspire to be dead-beat dads.

More relatable?

Really?

4/10 (At least it’s better than Superman III and IV)

Update 2010: You know, at the time I thought it was better than III/IV, but Superman III had Richard Pryor which makes it >> Superman Returns.