The grand-daddy of em all!!

Faster than a speedin bullet!
More powerful than a locomotive!
Able to leap over tall buildings in a single bound!
Look!! Up in the Sky!!
Its a Bird!
Its a Plane!
No.. Its Su-perman!! (The famous Superman catch phrase of the 70's.. Note the pause after "Su" :D )


It seems to b the season of super heroes. The latest Superman Film hit theatres here at Trivandrum on 30-6-2006 at Both Dhanya and Remya! Me, being a hard core fan of the comics made sure I got to see it 1st day, 1st show as usual! :D After seeing Krrish, I was lookin forward to seein the Hollywood heavyweights showin the Indians.. or should I say.. the Roshans how its to b done..

The expectations were high. After all, its been released simultaneouly in 2 theatres! The film started with the legendary Superman music and I sat back and let the roller coaster begin..

The big idea of Superman Returns is everything that happened in the late 70's Superman films, notably I and II, happened. I'll ignore the badness that were Superman III and IV, and pick up the story 5 years after the events in Superman II. This would have been a brilliant and fine idea, if this movie came out, oh, TWENTY years ago! Singer(the director of Superman RETURNS) made the mistake of remaining too faithful to the classic two films. I mean it was as if I was in a time warp, and not in a good way. Why didnt the guy just restart the series like they did with Batman Begins and give us the updated Superman and his wide array of super villains?? Even Luthor posing as the common mad-scintist is kinda defeatin.. In the latest comics, he's a dynamic modern age businessman with shady dealings.

Everything in Superman Returns feels like a retread, a has been, done there, did that. Never once in this film did I feel like I was watching a Superman for the new millennium. With a reported $200 million dollar budget, I wanted to be awed, to see new filmmaking techniques, or at the very least have some decent cinematography. But then Singer films never had brilliant and vibrant colors, or super duper effects, even my favorite X-Men franchise were kind of dull to look at..

The prob with Superman is.. He's too powerful.. He is a GOD fer heaven's sake! Invulnerability, flight, heat vision, super cold breath, X-ray vision, super hearing, super speed , infinite strength..etc.. to name a few...(He gets these powers by processin earth's yellow sun,btw..). So.. the challenges 4 this man should be super too.. But this is where the film fails the most as U will see when u watch the film.. All the other heroes like spiderman,etc are beatable by their opponents.. unlike the opponents superman gets in this film. Where is Darkseid.., Doomsday.., Brainiac and the likes??

If you thought newcomer Brandon Routh was stiff and silent in the 2 minute trailer, then be prepared for two hrs of essentially the same thing. He rarely says anything throughout the film, he just broods and stares. Never once do you really feel like he's attached to what's going on around him. He doesn't hold your attention or have a presence like previous Supermen. He's no Reeves. That's for sure! Compared to him, Routh is a total lightweight.


In short.. Superman RETURNS was not the roller coaster I had expected.. but it was enjoyable nonetheless. No fans of the comics should dare pass it up.