Incoherent Superman Returns Thoughts
Jul. 1st, 2006 02:23 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
dangermousieI saw Superman Returns. It was absolutely brilliant and joins the small but exclusive ranks of my favorite superhero movies. It's very hard to make pure goodness interesting (one of the most amazing things about Lord of the Rings was that they made Frodo a character I couldn't take my eyes off), but this pulled it off. For the first time ever, I am interested in Superman (and unlike in Smallville, not just because I want him to get it on with Lex).
What I loved the most is that it was, and I know it's an odd term to use, one of the most poetic movies I've ever seen. Visual poetry, poetry of emotion. To use a cliche term, this movie soared.
And all the powers shown, all of it, did not give me the feeling of 'look at our huge CGI budget' or even 'look at the hot guy's muscles' but a celebration of the human body and spirit pushed to the limits. Even Lex's twisted genius is an example of that: of the wonder and glorious craziness of the world (that moment with the guard and Lois' child playing piano together is surreal and worth the price of a ticket alone). But what really brings it across is Superman: when he flashbacks and we see kid Clark run around in the fields, what comes across is the sheer wonder and exuberance of pushing your body to the limits, and of how glorious a human body looks (in a completely asexual, artistic way) when that happens. Every time Superman flies through space, it is not a means of locomotion, but something beautiful, amazing. All the powers highlight and encapsulate emotion: when Clark uses his vision to see Lois ascend in the elevator, it makes me think about how it expresses his love, just as when he takes her flying, and it's noiseless and still and (to overuse the word) soaring, it reminds me of a distillation of what it feels like to be in love.
And this brings me to the whole Lois/Clark/Richard triangle. The movie feels very adult and that is a huge part of the reason why. Richard is not evil or weak. In fact,considering he has no superpowers at all and still does all that stuff, he is incredibly cool. He loves Lois and the child (though unless his math skills suck, he must know the kid isn't his), and the scene where he comes to their rescue and they all almost drown but he keeps holding them up so they'd have more air made my insides into jelly. And Lois won't leave him. Superman is a girl's impossible dream (a dream which left her for five years!), flights in the moonlight and moony eyes, but where is he going to take her to live? Fortress of Solitude? And her relation to the both men is so complex. There is a part of her heart that will always be Superman's. But she also loves Richard, and is happy with him (their domestic scene is adorable). And Richard? He is no dummy. He knows how ambivalent Lois is about Superman, and he has to live with this knowledge and he can. In fact, he gets her to go to visit him in the hospital. It takes a strong man to be able to bear that (reminds me of Kal Ho Na Ho and Saif's character). And of course, Clark wants her (I love him looking in at her) but he knows he can't have her. And he is somewhat at peace with that by the end.
The whole movie has a Greek God, mythic feel to it (which is quite appropriate as Superman is the least human, most powerful of superheroes). Heck, he even does the Zeus thing and gives a mortal woman a child who is raised by a mortal man. This is actually the first version of the Superman story, in any format, where I ended up feeling for him and loving the character. Normally, I find his too boy scout and dreadfully goody two shoes for my tastes, but here I was hooked from the moment he stood out an looked at the fields (Routh might look too pretty, but I thought he did a wonderful job: vulnerable, wistul, strong and, what an old-fashioned word, pure). He is a quiet, self-contained man, not given to much talking about things, but if you look at his actions (and remember the story-telling principle that if you see something in a dramatic context, it's done for the first time), it's clear that throughout the movie, he is figuring out exactly who he is. He's been gone for five years after all. Before he left, he might very well have been all Clark, with superhuman powers. If he pictured his ideal life, it was probably what Lois has with Richard now. There was no Krypton, after all, so he might as well be Kansan. But then he discovered about the planet and went to see it, and I think that is why he is coming to terms with himself. He is not Clark pretending to be Superman as he might have been earlier. Nor is he entirely just Superman putting on the Clark persona. It's a blend but it's a lot more alien than Clark and not as pure goal-doer as Superman. I think, real Clark is the quiet man in the beginning of the movie, in his parents' fields.
The character comes across as a demi-god (no wonder the Prometheus story keeps being bounced around. But is it Clark or Lex?). He literally becomes poetry in motion and so when the green kryptonite weakens him and he is crawling in the mud and being beaten, it just feels horrifyingly wrong: sort of like a titan being attacked by pygmies. What strikes one is the indignity: he should be in the sky, not trodden into the mud. And what a difference between the beautiful flight and the falling both from the cliff and near the end: robbed of all grace. And he comes across as this being of goodness, but in a realistic fashion (sort of a earthly Jesus figure I suppose. Not only because of 'savior' talk but because of when he falls at the end, he is in a classic Jesus pose). And what struck me is, he really is pure good but somehow, in this story, it's not boring at all: when he suffers near the end and still does the right thing, I root for him. Maybe it's because watching him fly is so glorious.
I also love the way violence is handled. The movie has some spectacular scenes but it comes across about how horrifyingly scary it must be in the middle of all this. And the nods to the fact than anyone could recognize Clark and Supes are the same person are endearing (like when the kid figures out and goes for his inhaler and no one pays any attention to him).
This movie actually make me think about last year's Batman Begins. Batman, as a character, is a lot more accessible, but that is the whole point. Anyone, with proper stimuli can be Batman. But you are either Superman or you are not.
P.S. Michael Rosenbaum is way sexier than Kevin Spacey.
What I loved the most is that it was, and I know it's an odd term to use, one of the most poetic movies I've ever seen. Visual poetry, poetry of emotion. To use a cliche term, this movie soared.
And all the powers shown, all of it, did not give me the feeling of 'look at our huge CGI budget' or even 'look at the hot guy's muscles' but a celebration of the human body and spirit pushed to the limits. Even Lex's twisted genius is an example of that: of the wonder and glorious craziness of the world (that moment with the guard and Lois' child playing piano together is surreal and worth the price of a ticket alone). But what really brings it across is Superman: when he flashbacks and we see kid Clark run around in the fields, what comes across is the sheer wonder and exuberance of pushing your body to the limits, and of how glorious a human body looks (in a completely asexual, artistic way) when that happens. Every time Superman flies through space, it is not a means of locomotion, but something beautiful, amazing. All the powers highlight and encapsulate emotion: when Clark uses his vision to see Lois ascend in the elevator, it makes me think about how it expresses his love, just as when he takes her flying, and it's noiseless and still and (to overuse the word) soaring, it reminds me of a distillation of what it feels like to be in love.
And this brings me to the whole Lois/Clark/Richard triangle. The movie feels very adult and that is a huge part of the reason why. Richard is not evil or weak. In fact,considering he has no superpowers at all and still does all that stuff, he is incredibly cool. He loves Lois and the child (though unless his math skills suck, he must know the kid isn't his), and the scene where he comes to their rescue and they all almost drown but he keeps holding them up so they'd have more air made my insides into jelly. And Lois won't leave him. Superman is a girl's impossible dream (a dream which left her for five years!), flights in the moonlight and moony eyes, but where is he going to take her to live? Fortress of Solitude? And her relation to the both men is so complex. There is a part of her heart that will always be Superman's. But she also loves Richard, and is happy with him (their domestic scene is adorable). And Richard? He is no dummy. He knows how ambivalent Lois is about Superman, and he has to live with this knowledge and he can. In fact, he gets her to go to visit him in the hospital. It takes a strong man to be able to bear that (reminds me of Kal Ho Na Ho and Saif's character). And of course, Clark wants her (I love him looking in at her) but he knows he can't have her. And he is somewhat at peace with that by the end.
The whole movie has a Greek God, mythic feel to it (which is quite appropriate as Superman is the least human, most powerful of superheroes). Heck, he even does the Zeus thing and gives a mortal woman a child who is raised by a mortal man. This is actually the first version of the Superman story, in any format, where I ended up feeling for him and loving the character. Normally, I find his too boy scout and dreadfully goody two shoes for my tastes, but here I was hooked from the moment he stood out an looked at the fields (Routh might look too pretty, but I thought he did a wonderful job: vulnerable, wistul, strong and, what an old-fashioned word, pure). He is a quiet, self-contained man, not given to much talking about things, but if you look at his actions (and remember the story-telling principle that if you see something in a dramatic context, it's done for the first time), it's clear that throughout the movie, he is figuring out exactly who he is. He's been gone for five years after all. Before he left, he might very well have been all Clark, with superhuman powers. If he pictured his ideal life, it was probably what Lois has with Richard now. There was no Krypton, after all, so he might as well be Kansan. But then he discovered about the planet and went to see it, and I think that is why he is coming to terms with himself. He is not Clark pretending to be Superman as he might have been earlier. Nor is he entirely just Superman putting on the Clark persona. It's a blend but it's a lot more alien than Clark and not as pure goal-doer as Superman. I think, real Clark is the quiet man in the beginning of the movie, in his parents' fields.
The character comes across as a demi-god (no wonder the Prometheus story keeps being bounced around. But is it Clark or Lex?). He literally becomes poetry in motion and so when the green kryptonite weakens him and he is crawling in the mud and being beaten, it just feels horrifyingly wrong: sort of like a titan being attacked by pygmies. What strikes one is the indignity: he should be in the sky, not trodden into the mud. And what a difference between the beautiful flight and the falling both from the cliff and near the end: robbed of all grace. And he comes across as this being of goodness, but in a realistic fashion (sort of a earthly Jesus figure I suppose. Not only because of 'savior' talk but because of when he falls at the end, he is in a classic Jesus pose). And what struck me is, he really is pure good but somehow, in this story, it's not boring at all: when he suffers near the end and still does the right thing, I root for him. Maybe it's because watching him fly is so glorious.
I also love the way violence is handled. The movie has some spectacular scenes but it comes across about how horrifyingly scary it must be in the middle of all this. And the nods to the fact than anyone could recognize Clark and Supes are the same person are endearing (like when the kid figures out and goes for his inhaler and no one pays any attention to him).
This movie actually make me think about last year's Batman Begins. Batman, as a character, is a lot more accessible, but that is the whole point. Anyone, with proper stimuli can be Batman. But you are either Superman or you are not.
P.S. Michael Rosenbaum is way sexier than Kevin Spacey.
