Since I’m behind, in a hurry, and it’s been awhile since I saw this, I though I’d review it in haiku:

Beyond sophomoric,
Number two was freshmanic.
But powernerds unite.

Okay, I’m a nerd.  I’m thrilled with the CGI advances, which I believe is what generated the recent run of successful (and very good) comic book movies.  Now, back in the day I was more of a Marvel fan than a DC fan, so I was more excited about the X-men movies than the Superman movie(s).*  That said, I watched the latest run of Superman movies (Christopher Reeves’ Superman movies) as a kid, and I loved them.  Of course, I was too young to realize how bad the last few were, but I and II remain excellent films.

When I heard Bryan Singer had abandoned the X-men franchise to take the helm of Superman Returns, it was bittersweet.  One on hand, I was afraid for X3 (and rightly so — see here for details), but on the other hand I felt good about Superman.  Singer has a knack for bringing characters to life, which is especially important when dealing with comic book characters.  Because the body of work for each character is so deep (having been established over the course of 40 years or so), it’s difficult to get all the crucial aspects of the characters into a two hour movie.  And since the comics change writers and storylines over the years, the characters often transform in personality and ability between one continuum and another.  So as a writer or director, before you begin to write the script, you must decide at which point in the Superman universe the story will take place.

This particular plotline supposedly follows the events of Superman II, during which Superman shuns his heritage and becomes mortal in order to become involved with Lois Lane.  Of course, he has to go back to being Superman due to one disaster or another by the end of the movie.

Superman Returns is set 5 years after Superman II.  Superman’s home world, Krypton, is discovered by astronomers and he feels compelled to return and see for himself that it has been destroyed.  So, without a word to anyone (save his adopted mother), he flies off to check it out.  He thinks he’ll only be gone a few months (this valuable detail is never revealed in the story — I heard it from someone who read the novelization), but it actually takes 5 years roundtrip.

I’m not gonna discuss the plot in any detail, because I don’t want to give it away, but suffice it to say that I dislike the Superman in this movie.

The character, not the actor (Brandon Routh, who’s actually pretty good).  Superman makes choices in this movie that I have a hard time reconciling with the guy who’s always been a boy scout — who stands for truth, justice, and the American way (the ‘American way’ part of that line, by the way, they cut out of the script to avoid alienating the international audience). 

I’m not big on Lois Lane, either.  Kate Bosworth is so cute that you can’t help but like her, but by the end of this movie I just don’t have any sympathy for her.

Jimmy Olsen is just written a little too campy for me, as well.

Highlights: Kevin Spacey and Parker Posey.  I don’t think any two living actors are better equipped to play megalomaniacal evil genius and snotty terrifying bitch than those two.
The new suit is pretty cool, as is the logo.
James Marsden continues to impress.
The visuals were very cool, and CGI was well done.

Lowlights: As previously mentioned, I wanted to shake the shit out of Supe and Lois, and the people who wrote them.

So, if you’re a Superman fan or a comic book fan, go see this movie.  If not, skip it.

*for those who aren’t versed in the comics world, Marvel and DC are Pepsi and Coke.  Marvel is responsible for such characters as the Avengers, the Fantastic Four, Spiderman, Captain America, and the X-Men.  DC is responsible for Batman, Superman, the Green Lantern, Wonder Woman, and the Flash.  I personally always preferred Marvel’s comics.

  I’ve been looking forward to seeing this movie since the first trailers appeared, which I think was around 1997.  I’m a big Pixar fan, and this looked funny.  So Sunday night, Jeff, Will, and I went to check it out.

Maybe it’s a function of my high expectations, but I was a little disappointed with the whole thing.  It was funny, just not as funny as I’ve come to expect from Pixar.  The characters were all familiar stereotypes, the plot was a direct ripoff of the 80s movie Doc Hollywood (with Michael J. Fox), and the script was (for the most part)unremarkable.

The highlight was definitely the animation.  It was amazing, and I may buy the movie just to see how it looks on my TV — that’s how good the animation was.  It’s ridiculous the amount of progress they made in that area in the time since The Incredibles.  The static stuff and the shading was especially realistic, to the point were I was sure I wouldn’t have been able to distinguish between live and animated landscape shots.  The short before the film, One Man Band, was also very good.  Funny and interesting, and not a single word spoken.  The bit parts in the movie were the ones I really enjoyed, such as Bob Costas as the Nascar announcer (of course, they don’t call the racing circuit Nascar in the movie, but that’s what it is).  Michael Keaton as the main competitor to Owen Wilson on the track, George Carlin as the VW Van, and Jeremy Piven as Owen’s agent were two other good ones.  The James Taylor song during the climax of the movie was an excellent choice; I almost teared up.

The lowlight was the casting of Larry the Cable Guy as the sidekick in the movie.  I hate that guy with the fire of a thousand suns.  I know he’s not from Louisiana, but I’m convinced that with every word that comes out of his mouth he furthers the stereotype of the Southern Hick­­©.  And beyond that, I can’t see how anyone with a high school education can find him at all funny.  Fart jokes are great, but that guy is a moron.  Every time he spoke, I cringed.  And he spoke a lot.

Of course, it didn’t help that the crowd for this particular showing was awful.  10pm on a Sunday, and there were probably 30 kids under the age of 8 in the theatre.  Now, nothing against kids, but it’s been my experience that when they get tired, they get cranky.  And when they get cranky, they aren’t shy about expressing their tiredness in ways that make me want to puncture my eardrums with a salad fork.  Also, in addition to the kids, there were quite a few people who apparently didn’t graduate high school, or so I can only surmise from how hilarious they found every word spoken by LtCG.  Clearly, he was the only reason they came to the movie.  But they were laughing not only at lines that weren’t funny (the category that everything he said fell into), but at lines that weren’t even intended to be funny.  And laughing loud, too.

All in all, though, I had a good time.  Jeff, Will, and I managed to guess the voices for nearly every major character early on, which is always a fun game to play in animated movies.  The movie theatre switched brands of nacho chips, so they now fit in the cheese cup.  That is a major improvement in my movie watching experience, especially when it’s a ten o’clock show and I didn’t eat dinner.

On the plus side, now that Pixar and Disney split, we get twice as many big budget animated movies every year.  The next one (starring Patton Oswald as a mouse in a restaurant in Paris) looks like it’s gonna be hilarious.