REVIEWED - SUPERMAN RETURNS: An angelic Man of Steel is back in a moody and surprisingly moving summer popcorn extravaganza, writes Donald Clarke
IN THE years since Superman left us, Lois Lane, now an intermittently literate unmarried mother, has, it transpires, been awarded the Pulitzer Prize for an article entitled "Why the World Doesn't Need Superman". This information - as well as suggesting that the prestigious award is now presented to the authors of glib think-pieces - invites reviewers to join Lois in wondering whether the Man of Steel still has anything to offer us.
Well, the literal-minded will, in the last third of Bryan Singer's persuasive epic, find irrefutable evidence with which to rebut Lane's thesis. Lex Luthor, recently released from prison and, following a dalliance with an elderly widow, now hugely wealthy again, uses Superman's own magic crystals to construct a new continent, whose rise will, in a few weeks or so, cause billions on neighbouring landmasses to drown. The countering of such a threat would surely stretch the resources of the Department of Homeland Security. Of course the world needs Superman.
One imagines, however, that Singer and Lane mean us to address the question from a more metaphysical perspective. Does the modern world have time for a hero with such a square jaw, such old-fashioned manners and such uncomplicated dedication to upholding virtue?
It would be naive to suggest that the America of 1978, which encountered Christopher Reeve's first appearance as Superman, was any less complicated or divided than that country is today. Vietnam and Watergate were, after all, still fresh in the memory. But what has changed, thanks to gloomy entities such as Singer's X-Men films, is that we now expect our superheroes to reflect the angst around them.
Sure enough, this latest Superman, played by an eerily inorganic Brandon Routh, seems more aware of his responsibilities and limitations than any previous wearer of the red shorts. Hovering in the ionosphere, his cape fluttering behind him like crumpled wings, he frowns while listening to the world's whispered problems - too many even for him - with that super-sensitive hearing. One is reminded of Bruno Ganz's sad angel in Wings of Desire. But Singer, who has Marlon Brando, the superhero's father in the Reeve version, remind us that "I have sent you my only son", sees his protagonist as being higher even than the angels.
Working in allusions to the Pietà and the crucifixion, the director draws quite audacious parallels between Superman, the creation of two Jewish cartoonists, and Jesus Christ, a different sort of saviour. Remembering the strife-ridden news footage - wars, revolutions, sectarian hatred - that Clark Kent, Superman's benign alter ego, watches after he returns from a five-year sojourn to his home planet, one can't help but speculate that the belief in divine redeemers causes as much conflict as it does reconciliation. Singer's gorgeous cinematic iconography should, however, prove sufficiently persuasive to make believers of even the most profound sceptics.
More impressive still are the film's successful attempts to insinuate Superman, often a conservative figure, into a less traditional family unit. Since her hero vanished from the planet, Kate Bosworth's somewhat hollow Lois has had a child and acquired a new man. The notion that Superman, the ex-boyfriend, might take up a supporting role in such an arrangement sounds sufficiently PC to induce spontaneous gagging and nausea. But the script by Michael Dougherty and Dan Harris allows the four-way relationship to evolve gently, without conspicuously forcing any agenda upon us.
So, Superman Returns, both literally and figuratively a grey film, makes cogent sociological observations. It plays intriguing games with its hero's quasi-mythical status. But isn't this supposed to be a popcorn movie? The unfortunate truth is that, as in the X-Men films, the efforts to deliver a treatise on the form and function of the superhero somewhat overpower the action sequences. There are, it is true, some fine set-pieces - bullets bounce off Superman's eye, the hero deposits a stricken aircraft in a packed baseball stadium - but the final conflict, in which Kevin Spacey's by-the-numbers Luthor cackles on his evolving land mass, feels vague, perfunctory and confusing.
Perhaps the time has come for Singer to direct a superhero film with no action in it whatsoever. The caped crusaders could, perhaps, sit around pine tables discussing oblivion in the manner of characters from an Ingmar Bergman picture. Of course, such a venture would make no money. And the Man of Steel's ability to generate revenue is what really persuades the world - or, at least, Warner Brothers - that it still needs Superman.
