This Superman doesn’t fly

Look, up in the sky! It’s a bird! It’s a plane! It’s a … oh, wait—it is a bird … a big ol’ fat turkey in fact, unwieldy and anachronistic in its flight back into the multiplex after a 19-year absence.

After all that time, one would assume the studio suits would have whipped up a sumptuous buffet for the next generation of potential Man of Steel fans, but instead they have brought nothing new to the table but a tarted-up platter of leftovers pulled stale from the bones of the first two Superman entries back in ‘78 and ‘80. Old vignettes are retooled and iconic dialogue is paraphrased—and that’s what passes for a new script in Hollywood.

The structure of Superman Returns is built on the thinly defined premise that Superman (Brandon Routh, creepily evocative of Christopher Reeve)—and by implication Clark Kent—went AWOL from the world stage five years ago and they have only now returned. What was up? He was checking out a rumor that his home planet Krypton might not have blown up completely.

Well, that’s pretty much it for the catalyst of the movie—and roughly the amount of time director Bryan Singer and his band of crayon-wielding monkeys dwell on that aspect of the plot.

In the interim, Lois Lane has had a kid and coerced some schmuck (James Marsden, Cyclops of X-Men and seeming professional cuckold) into thinking it is his. Meanwhile, Superman drops by to rescue her and make nice. But our plucky Pulitzer Prize-winning reporter (a somnambulistic Kate Bosworth as the unpluckiest reporter on Earth) ain’t havin’ none of that, what with some issues about him being the Man of Steel away for five friggin’ years after having knocked her up. So for the rest of the movie everyone just orbits about each other with furrowed, resentful brows, except for Jimmy Olsen, who seems really, really excited that Clark Kent is back. Meanwhile, Superman bides his time hovering outside Lois’ house, using his X-ray vision to spy on her and the family.

Look, Ma! Superman’s a stalker!

Oh, yeah … Lex Luthor (Kevin Spacey) is sort of in the mix, but that may as well have been a whole different movie. He and Superman don’t even share a scene until deep into one of the many endings of the film. But Luthor has a mad scheme up his sleeve—he may be mad but he’s not stupid, and his scheme is so stupid that I’m surprised one of his stupid henchmen didn’t point out how stupid it was.

It doesn’t help matters much that there is absolutely no suspense involved here—Superman is deux ex machina 24/7 and so nothing bad ever happens, or even appears about to happen. Actually, in Singer’s hands, Superman isn’t the Machine of God, he is God. Or Jesus. Or both at the same time, and Singer makes sure to hamfistedly point out the allusion frequently.

Adding to the woe, Routh is pretty much nothing more than a smirking impersonation of Reeve. Back in the day, Reeve was bad enough, an amusing Clark Kent but as Superman coming across like Alan Alda in fetish pajamas, so to cast a Reeve-lite seems questionable.

I did enjoy what they did with Superman’s cape. It has an organic feel, flapping about in the breeze, free at last from wires. Too bad it was the only organic aspect of this sluggishly paced, Cliff’s Notes rendering of a film.