Superman Returns

After 19 years without a Superman movie... 19 years! Can you believe it? It's Superman, for cripe's sake! With all the comic book movies coming out... and Supes being THE mascot for comic books in general... How on Earth did it take so long? He's one of the biggest cultural icons in the world! I guess that tells you just how bad "Superman 4: The Quest for Peace" really was, that nobody wanted to touch the property for such a long time. I'm so glad Batman was able to recover after "Batman and Robin", I'd hate to have had to wait 19 years for "Batman Begins"...

I'm getting off track here. *Ahem*

After 19 years without a Superman movie, the series returns with huge success. And I do mean "series". Unlike Batman Begins, which starts the series over, Superman Returns is more or less a direct sequel to the Christopher Reeve movies. And it does it sooooo well. It really feels like one of the series - same musical score, same sense of humor, same feeling of over-grand fantastic-ness. Brandon Routh does a great job in emulating the Reeves version of Clark Kent. The rest of the cast reinvents their characters, and in most cases it's a great improvement. Nothing against Gene Hackman - I loved his Luthor - but Kevin Spacey is a god. And the new Lois is nothing like Margot Kidder, but she still makes a great Lois.

Okay, I'm gushing. I swore I wouldn't gush.

But here's what I really liked... the special effects. Superman needs good special effects. In the movie's best action scene, he saves an airplane from crashing. Hey, didn't he do that in the first Superman movie? Well, sure. But in the original movie, Supes grabs onto a wing, and acts like an engine. Nice, but kind of boring. In Superman Returns, he's fighting G-forces, the wings are shredding off, the tail is on fire, and so on. While the original movies made everything look so easy for Supes, this one showed how difficult things really were. Having super strength and being able to fly does NOT mean you can just grab an airplane and carry it to the ground; you're going to have to overcome a lot of laws of science.

Which is not to say the movie gets the science right. It's still a fantasy, and if you have a reasonable understanding of physics, you'll see plenty of holes. But if you're looking for holes, you shouldn't be buying tickets to comic book movies.

Seriously, the only thing I didn't like about the movie was that I saw it on IMAX. This "select scenes are shown in 3D" is for the birds. Having a flashing indicator telling you when to put the glasses on was very distracting. Also, the 3D wasn't that great. This was supposed to be the first movie shot with some new sort of 3D technology, but I was not impressed. Note, this might vary from person to person, or from theater to theater... For still images, the 3D looked like a picture from a viewmaster. Each layer of the scene looked like a 2D cardboard cutout, floating in front of the other cutouts. But when there was movement, it was just a blurry mess. My eyes simply could not focus fast enough to keep up with the action.

Where is the new technology? There's been great 3D movies in Disney theme parks for decades. The 3D in Superman Returns wasn't even half as good as the films I saw at Epcot 20 years ago. A tip, if you do see it on IMAX: don't push the glasses all the way up the bridge of your nose. Experiment with different distances from your eyes. I had to rest the glasses on the tip of my nose to see the 3D properly.

I also question their decisions of which scenes to film in 3D. There were only four (possible spoilers)... the space plane scene, the flashback with young clark running through the fields, the scene where the boat broke in half, and the final shot of Superman flying off right before the credits. I was surprised they didn't make the opening in 3D... with all the computer-rendered planets and the opening credits flying out, it seemed like a natural for the 3D treatment. And it would have been a great way blow the audience away right from the start.

To sum up, I loved the movie but hated the theater. So bring on the sequels! (And try not to screw it up this time!)