Why the world needs Superman

awhile back i put the blogger squeeze (ooh. scary) on Bryan Singer for leaving X-men 3 in the lurch. i made the or-else suggestive statement somewhere along the lines of how the new Superman movie better deliver.

happily, it does. when Bryan Singer pulls out all the stops, he, well, pulls out all the stops.

i was, however, oddly disappointed by Kevin Spacey's Lex Luthor, which, i suspect, never really having read the comics myself, owes more to Gene Hackman than Siegel and Shuster. (at least, that's how it appears from certain episodes of Justice League featuring the too-cool-for-hair archvillain. i may, of course, have it the other way around.) i also suspect my disappointment has more to do with having raised my expectations unreasonably high for the man who was both Keyser Soze and John-Doe-by-choice. after all, Spacey's Lex was still cooler than cool, and definitely still too cool for hair.

Superman Returns, if nothing else, justifies the disappointment that Singer left X-men 3 to become.

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making films, particularly film adaptations, of anything from books to TV shows to other films, is a particularly dodgy way of making art. particularly with a story and character as iconic as Superman.

when Singer switched villains from Keyser Soze to Magneto, it was difficult to know exactly what to expect.

in the end, for better or worse, Singer made the film versions (the successful film versions) of the X-men distinctly, undeniably, his own.

that he should do something similar with Superman is almost unthinkable, and yet undeniably essential for any true artiste to maintain the much sought after artistic integrity amidst the cheap ubiquity of pop art and culture.

and yet this is where Singer succeeds admirably with Superman. Singer has made a Superman movie through and through, and though some cinematic moments and bits of humor are undoubtedly Signature Singer, they are never intrusive, or out of place.

in the end, for better or worse, Singer made Superman distinctly, undeniably, his own.

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some of the funnest things for me, when watching film adaptations of comic books, is waiting for the comic book character cliches. it's almost a game screenwriters play, trying to find creative new ways to insert the lines that make comic book characters comic book characters, doing their best to catch the audience off guard. Superman Returns delivers some of the best versions of comic book cliches i've ever seen, from Spacey's understated So long, Superman, to the classic It's a bird, it's a plane, it's...

it's also fun to see the way film-making technology allows film-makers to play around with details that have made their way into the collective subconscious as by-products of the limitations of old film-making technologies... such as watching Daleks climb stairs.

in Superman Returns, all doubts are erased; now we know exactly what would happen if the bad guys shot Superman in the head, rather than wasting ammo on more obviously impervious bits of him. in the eye, no less.

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Superman is as alien to the modern world as he was when he first crashed in his crystalline crib-escape-pod-ship. Superman pits sincerity against deviousness, taking a direct, brute force approach to Lex's scheming, wheeling and dealing. in the real world, we all know who would win.

but so what? escapism gets a bad rap these days. Superman is escapist on the purest level.

revel in it.