Superman Returns (2006)
Directed by Bryan Singer
Superman returns to discover his 5-year absence has allowed Lex Luthor to walk free, and that those he was closest to felt abandoned and have moved on. Luthor plots his ultimate revenge that could see millions killed and change the face of the planet forever, as well as ridding himself of the Man of Steel.
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What critics compared Superman Returns to
It doesn’t copy the William’s, Zimmer’s, Romer’s, or Ottman’s score, but it feels like it’s honoring every single theme.
It wasn’t enough that director Bryan Singer did the exact same thing in his SUPERMAN RETURNS back in 2006?
Much like Donner’s original, Bryan Singer’s Superman Returns and Snyder’s Dawn Of Justice, Gunn’s film once again sees David Corenswet’s Superman take on Lex Luthor…
Jumping ahead to the 21st century, this Superman is the third attempt at a live action film franchise for the Last Son of Krypton in the last 20 years, after Superman Returns (dir. Bryan Singer, 2006) and Man of Steel (dir. Zack Snyder, 2013).
Bryan Singer’s Superman Returns is a misbegotten mess…
…with various versions of the characters coming across as glum, dour, or whatever Superman Returns was supposed to be.
Nor are the flying sequences, in the longest of which he’s pitted against some fighter jets, especially impressive, particularly when they’re compared, for instance, to the far more elegant ones Bryan Singer contrived for “Superman Returns” a couple of years back.
Plus, the character and Downey are simply a lot more fun than that block of wood, Brandon Routh, who plays Superman in Superman Returns (2006)—not that Superman in any incarnation is exactly a firkin of simians.
Watching the scenes of Iron Man flying through the stratosphere made me wax nostalgic not just for the acrobatic post-adolescent "Yahoo!" of those vertiginous scenes of web-slinging through gleaming Manhattan canyons in the Spider-Man movies, but also, briefly, for Superman Returns--unwieldy as that movie was, its scenes of flight had a sense of wonder and majesty that humanized the hero, rather than just his earthbound alter-ego.
If Batman Begins and Superman Returns capture how Americans think of themselves in their darkest, most introspective moments, Iron Man offers a glimpse into how Americans project themselves into the world as a giant, swinging, turgid dick.
In this regard he shares the moral qualities underlying the adventures of Spider-Man, Batman and the revamped (and underrated) Superman Returns.
The first feature “Superman” series began in 1978 — and it was 28 years before Hollywood felt it had to completely start all over again in 2006, with “Superman Returns.”
Sometimes dull and mostly uninspired, it’s much less a satisfying reboot like “Batman Begins’’ than a pointless rehash in the mode of “Superman Returns.’’
In concocting this scenario, the scripters turn Parker’s story even more than was true in the comics into one of personal loss that’s not unlike the premise of the undervalued “Superman Returns,” which was suffused with a similar longing for home and family.
Fans of Smallville or Superman Returns will be reminded of young Clark Kent’s fantastic leaps before he learned to fly.
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My bigger complaint is how Mendes comes perilously close to making the mistake Bryan Singer did in Superman Returns : paying such homage to your predecessors you fail to establish your own identity.
The whole thing smacks of 2006, when a passionate superhero auteur named Bryan Singer gave the world a lavish, modern version of the Man of Steel in Superman Returns.
Bryan Singer’s Superman Returns injected real human drama into a cosmic one.
If it’s a failure, as many critics insist, it’s a failure like Ang Lee’s “ Hulk ,” “ Superman Returns ” or “ The Dark Knight Rises ,” which is to say that it’s much more distinctively personal than most of the superhero movies whose titles are synonyms for success.
Chris Evans (the Human Torch in "Fantastic Four" and soon to be Captain America) and Brandon Routh (who played the Man of Steel in "Superman Returns") both play exes, sending up their previous superhero roles.
The video-game-style battles go by in a series of set-piece flurries as Scott confronts enemies that include a pompous movie star (Chris Evans) and his horde of stunt doubles on the steps of Casa Loma, and a vegan stud (Superman Returns star Brandon Routh), confronted after a concert at Toronto rock club Lee’s Palace.
Director Edgar Wright (Shaun of the Dead) understands the anarchy and insane hopes of youth, and amplifies the cinema-ready devices of Bryan Lee O'Malley's graphic novels by using split screens as mobile panels and CGI to animate words (love floats like smoke across the screen) and demonize one of the exes (a very funny Brandon Routh, of Superman Returns).
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Miri hopes to seduce her old crush Bobby (Brandon Routh, "Superman Returns") at the bash, but Zack discovers Bobby's sexual orientation in talking to Bobby's date Brandon (Justin Long, "Dodgeball: A True Underdog Story," "Alvin and the Chipmunks"), a gay porn actor who switches on a light bulb for the coffee jockeying schlub.
He makes Miri act and talk like a guy — notably trying to hook up with high-school-crush Brandon Routh ("Superman Returns"), who happens to be the boyfriend of gay porn star Justin Long.
Fate intervenes when they attend their 10th high school reunion and bump into an old classmate (Brandon Routh of Superman Returns) whose boyfriend (Justin Long) is a gay porn star.
For all their teasing camaraderie, Zack and Miri are drearily uptight about each other; the most outrageous laughs come in an early high school reunion scene when the class dreamboat (Brandon Routh of "Superman Returns") brings his husband, a gay porn star played with all stops out by Justin Long.
But that doesn’t stop them from attending their 10-year class reunion, where Miri hopes bedding high-school stud Bobby Long (Brandon Routh of Superman Returns ) will solve her woes.
What Abrams offers in “The Force Awakens” is essentially a clone of the original trilogy—an inventively engineered and highly entertaining one, to be sure, but basically a retread in much the same way Bryan Singer’s “Superman Returns” was of Richard Donner’s “Superman”—that effectively sets the stage for the myriad further adventures Disney obviously has in the planning stages.