Doesn’t this

sort of make you miss this:

I mean, just a little bit?

As I mentioned in an earlier post (which is where you’ll find all of my major criticisms about Superman Returns), I’ve kept an ear to the ground for several years now, listening to the buzz about a possible new Superman movie. Now that one exists — and is actually opening next month — I’ve been paying even closer attention. The teaser trailer for Superman Returns didn’t do very much to alleviate some concerns I’d had about the movie, particularly that quick cut at the end of Superman glaring at the earth like a two-year-old before zooming down to it from space.

But as the trailers have kept coming, I’ve found a way to stop worrying and enjoy them. I’m pretty sure it’s because of the obvious references to the earlier movies — elements of John Williams’ classic score, Brando’s voiceovers — that I’ve been able to suspend my disbelief. I am still wary, but I’m hopeful, too. I want this movie to be good. I don’t think it’s capable of greatness; I think that blow was struck with the series’ first two movies. But it shouldn’t take much for it to outdo Superman III and Superman IV.

The trailers have gotten progressively better, and have revealed a little more of Kevin Spacey’s Lex Luthor, which I’m hoping is indicative of his performance as a whole. Because it’s very good. In fact — though I reserve the right to withdraw this comment after seeing the movie — it might even be better than Gene Hackman’s. Let me qualify that by saying that I’ve always loved Hackman’s Luthor. He’s zany, he’s menacing… but he was never quite menacing enough. From what I’ve seen of Spacey’s interpretation, it looks like he’s playing Luthor with a harder edge — certainly whimsical, but with a very taut line of batshit crazy anger strung beneath.

The international trailer was released a few days ago, and it seems to show the other side of Superman Returns. Where the first couple of trailers really go out of their way to sell the majesty of Superman — which is exactly what the presence of the original score has done — this trailer shows off several of the high-action scenes and includes quite a bit more dialogue, as well as our first real glimpse at Brandon Routh doing something more than flying and trying to look regal. The flight sequences in these trailers are impressive, though they’re obviously enhanced with very good effects work; you won’t come away from this movie believing that a man can fly, as the original convinced you. But what undermines the stronger sequences of the trailer are the last few seconds, when we see a bullet crush itself against Superman’s eyeball and fall to the ground. It’s cornball, it’s unnecessary, it’s looking at Superman under a microscope, and it unravels my hope, just a little, that the movie won’t resort to such obvious bullshit.

So I slipped the original movie into the DVD player and watched it, and tried to be a little more critical of it. It’s hard to be hard on a movie you’ve watched for your whole life, but I tried. And I couldn’t do it, not really. I mean, you can’t really critique the effects or costumes; they’re dated, but they hold up. Christopher Reeve plays Superman as the sort of guy who saves the day, then waves and says “Bye” as he lifts into the sky; he’s unsurpassable in this role. The movie still delivers on that sense of wonder we all want from it and movies like it. Watching Superman spin time backwards to save Lois Lane’s life is still an incredibly powerful moment.

And that’s another thing that worries me. In an interview in Wired, Bryan Singer said this:

“Yeah, well, that’s a moment when the death of Lois Lane stimulates him to do the unthinkable, to fly faster than he’s supposed to. That had a romantic logic, but in my opinion, it broke several rules. After all, the idea that flying around the Earth would cause time to go backward, when really if you stop the planet that would just basically cause everyone on Earth to fly off. We don’t have anything quite like that in this film.”

Do we really need — do we really want — that kind of logic to infiltrate a movie about a man who can fly? I don’t want to hear Singer talk about the rules. I want my jaw to drop and my head to spin.

I’m as anxious as anybody to find out if the new movie is any good. Since watching the original, I’ve been whistling the theme while I work. Superman: The Movie was the very first square in my movie geek quilt. So I’ll be there on opening day, dragging Susan behind me and sitting on crossed fingers, just hoping that there’s a little magic left.

Friday, May 26, 2006   

1. Pierce wrote:
   May 26th, 2006 at 5:25 am

   Aw, man. The time-reversal thing has been one of the most irritating moments in film for me since I was about 10 years old. I’m not one of those guys who sits in front of a sci-fi and points out what would and wouldn’t work. I enjoy the whole suspension of belief thing. This is different though.

   I was even going to make a sarcastic comment about it until I got to the last third of this.

   Still, it seems weird for Singer to talk about it. He sounds like a Battlestar Galactica nerd giving out about StarTrek.

2. Jg wrote:
   May 26th, 2006 at 11:37 am

   Yeah, it’s not everybody’s favorite scene, but it hits me right there, man. Weird, I know.

3. Sean wrote:
   June 17th, 2006 at 10:46 pm

   The whole spinning thing has been discussed to death. He didn’t spin the earth backwards, he went faster than light, thus causing him to go back in time (Einstein folks). It just looked like it because of how they shot it. Why Singer doesn’t know this worries me. Earlier in the film Superman’s limitles speed and ablity to change history are mentoned. He is forbidden by his father to change history, not alter events. Even if spinning the earh backwards made rivers run backwards and damage heal itself, that would be altering an event, not changing history (time trave) and it certainly wouldn’t bring people back to life.

4. Alex wrote:
   June 20th, 2006 at 10:11 pm

   Come on, lighten up…just think, it’ll be easier to make (well, hopefully easier) a really good new superman movie than any and all of the truly watered-down x-men movies…

   What is really strange though, is how much you hate the eyeball scene!
   The fact of the matter is, if you get over the obvious “triumph” that the directer et al wants you to feel by designing that little scene, is that it is truly the only moment, from what we have seen in the ads, that serves to in any way unify the old Reeves portrayal and the new Routh portrayal; when the bullet drops and he looks up at the shooter, there is NO MALICE in his gaze at all…it is just like he found another thug who thought he had discovered a chink in the man-of-steel’s defences…and the thing is that in that moment, he actually kind of looks like Reeves, who played his entire run as superman without any malice at all, no matter how much he went through…

   Come on and lighten up just a little, give this one a chance…if you really want to be critical about something from the trailers, it would be better to hack apart the scripting of “it’s not…easy..being…like, me, ok…keeping secrets and stuff…” like a bad Buffy episode…

   *or worse, party of 5…shivers!*

   Anyways, yeah, if it sucks…then hopefully kevin spacey can do his thing long enough to keep it worth watching till the end!

   Either way, I’m glad they gave this role to a relative nobody, with potential, rather than miscasting some hollywood standard chump to fill the role and put an awful spin on a once great theme and character…

   Till then,

   A.

5. DLUX wrote:
   July 3rd, 2006 at 1:25 am

   They did not know any better back then, they were probably low on special effects money for the big finish!

6. Pat Pending wrote:
   July 20th, 2008 at 1:19 pm

   Regarding the spinning-the-earth-backwards business, this will explain everything:

   http://www.theferret.org.uk/articleDetail.php?articleID=186

the blog and design portfolio of Jason Gurley. (Learn more.) This site has been around since 1998; me, since 1978. In 2005 I drove 3,000 miles to see a movie. 2009 is pretty aimless so far, but I'm sure I'll get around to something sooner or later.

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01. dreaming of falling
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08. anyone earthbound
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