I remember back in 1978,

seeing Richard Donner's SUPERMAN for the first time, and leaving the theatre thinking "Holy Crap a man CAN fly"! After this first film, Superman 2 came out, then the other sequels that really didn't make much of an impression, in fact, for the purposes of this post, let's pretend they DIDN'T even happen.. they were just a bad dream. Unfortunately, those sequels pretty much killed the Superman Franchise, and its laid dormant for over 20 years.

Now, after this long hiatus, and with a TON of fanfare, Warner has resurrected the Superman franchise with director Bryan Singer jumping ship from the X-Men franchise (unfortunately) to bring the man of steel back to the screen in SUPERMAN RETURNS.

Singer dispenses with backstory trying to tell the origins of Superman, and jumps right in to the story, which gives this a feel of a CONTINUATION of Donner's Superman and of course Superman 2. Superman goes back to check out the remnants of his home planet, and comes home after being gone for 5 years. When he returns, he finds a different world and Lois Lane (Kate Bosworth) now has a son, is engaged to be married, and has won a Pulitzer for her article "Why the World doesn't need Superman". Also coming back into the picture is Lex Luthor (Kevin Spacey) who wants revenge on the man of steel.

SUPERMAN RETURNS not only tries to deal with the SUPER in Superman, but the MAN as well. Singer has given Superman/Clark Kent an inner conflict, where he has to deal with his emotions of finding out that Lois has moved on, and also keeping up with his fighting the bad guys. The movie is sometimes a little too heavy handed, using the "Christ" metaphor a little to liberally.. with shots of Superman falling to earth, arms outstretched like he's being crucified, and dialog like "You say that the world doesn't need a saviour, but every night I hear people calling for one". There is also the shot of Superman in a pose like the God Atlas. When you see the movie, you'll get all the religious references.

What you might also get are all the HOMAGES to all the different incarnations of Superman himself, especially the Donner film, which starts with the opening credits, and sprays them liberally throughout, even down to the pacing, which is almost the same as the '78 version.

Some critics have said that the movie has lost the "fun" aspect of the Donner film by bringing the Human aspect into Superman. I disagree with that. I think what Singer has done is try to pull off a balancing act with this movie.. Kickstart the Superman franchise after a 19 year absence, while trying to make the movie a homage to all the other incarnations before it. I think he did a good job.

Superman Returns: B

As I noted in an earlier post, Superman Returns is the first film that uses the new IMAX process of converting a film shot normally into 3D. The 20 minutes of footage in 3D I thought looked impressive. If you've seen it in 3D, tell me what you thought of it.