Superman Recycled

Hollywood's got nerve. We knew this, but still. Ripoffs abound. Bad enough theaters show you a half hour of bad commercials and charge you a grip to get in, then the big studios fail to deliver half the time. Now they serve leftovers.

On Saturday night, the Man wanted to go to the movies, which was fine. It was hot as all heck in the San Fernando Valley, a theater was the best spot to literally chill in. The Man also wanted to check out Superman Returns. Fine with me. I'm not a comic book fan by any stretch of the imagination (I had to be restrained from getting my money back within the first five minutes of Unbreakable, when that overrated Shyamalan character posted some superhero mythology gobbledygook onscreen at the top of the flick), but the first two X-Men movies were cool, and I dug Spiderman. OK.

Again, within the first five minutes of Superman Returns I smelled a rat. Starting with the opening credit sequence. Uh, that music sounds darned familiar. And the swooping blue holographic screen credits seem awfully been-there-done-that. Wake me, shake me, is it 1978? Why does director Bryan Singer recycle the same exact elements, John Williams score and all, from the 1978 Christopher Reeve flick? I know it was great the first time around, no question, but no updates, no add-ons, no remixes? I mean, that's just CHEAP. Like watching the TV movie version. As an audience member I already felt insulted and swindled, like a professor whose student grinningly turns in a plagiarized paper. Perhaps he meant it as an homage, but it felt more like frommage (uh, cheese). I guess that's what I get for being old enough to have experienced the first Superman in an actual movie theater. I wouldn't even have known if I was 20 years younger.

Spoiler Alert: (although how much of a spoiler could it be if you've already seen the weekend box office numbers?) Things did not, as they say, get better from there. The flick was just OK. The director banked on the audience already knowing the Superman story inside and out. And while he felt it necessary to waste a lot of time on fancy flashbacks with old Brando footage and a childhood cornfield sequence, he spent too little time on character development. We liked Superman once, hey -- we'll like him again! But that doesn't always work with a new actor (Kilmer, Clooney as Batman, anyone?)

Brandon Routh fills out his tights quite nicely (seems the suit is one of the things they spent money to update) but doesn't have much to say that's new or original or interesting and spends most of the flick imitating the dearly departed Chris Reeve or posing like cells from the original DC comic. And Kate Bosworth? Sweet girl, badly miscast. Lois Lane should have been played by Parker Posey, who livens up any flick, and who gamely injects humor and pathos into the minimal character of Lex Luthor's moll. Kevin Spacey strikes the right note of nastiness as Luthor and he has some great lines. I'd also throw a few Oscar nominations at the set designers and set dressers--nice art deco touches--but the costumes are a weird mix of 2006 and 1946. But the movie is looooooooong. Just when you think it's over, there's ... more. And more. And more.

Well, don't listen to me. I'm the ancient chick who went to the original Superman in a theater on 34th Street in New York where mice ran up and down the rows to get fallen candy. My screams should have summoned all the residents of Krypton.