“Superman returns”

I whispered this in hushed tones to Aarthi, who was sitting next to me. My heart was pounding, my head was soaring with John Williams’ score and I had goosebumps all over. We had just witnessed Superman herald his return by saving a space shuttle from destruction in the way only Superman can.

Superman returns.

Wow.

As you can tell by now, I spent most of today in the local IMAX theatre. I was watching the first-day, first-showing of ‘Superman Returns’ along with the entire Developer Tools team from Microsoft here. I guess Microsoft pulled a few strings to get its employees first-day tickets to the most anticipated movie of the year :-)

For me, it was an almost religious experience. I’m a huge Superman fan, my obsession with the Man of Steel borders on fanaticism at times. Most of it is due to my childhood – I grew up adoring Superman. I watched all the movies. I had the action figures. I ran around the house with a red cape and a ‘S’ on my chest. I learnt to draw by mimicking the comics I loved so much.

Being such a fan of the Superman movies, the last 10 years was hard. I watched as effort after effort to revive the Superman franchise failed. I was distraught when Christopher Reeve passed away.

All that changed today. In fact, anyone who has been unfortunate enough to be stuck with me for the last week or so got an earful on Superman. And it all culminated for me today. When the familiar theme started playing over the speakers and the X-Ray blue title sequence started to roll, I was in heaven. I was 10 years old again :-)

I’m not going to spoil the movie for you. Don’t walk – run to the nearest theater if you haven’t seen this yet. Or better yet – fly. In fact, that’s what I’m going to do tomorrow – I’m watching the movie again.

Random thoughts

• Bryan Singer is a fan of the original movies and it shows in every scene. From the opening credits to the little in-jokes from the first 2 movies to the theme, this is a movie which stays faithful to the Superman created by Donner, Salkind and Christopher Reeve. This movie *feels* like a Superman movie. It may even be, dare I say it, the best of them all, if not the best superhero movie of all time.
  
• Brandon Routh has pulled off the impossible. I had made up my mind long back that no one could be Christopher Reeve. But Brandon somehow convinced me that he *is* Superman. He has an uncanny similarity to Christopher Reeve which I’m sure is deliberate. Sometimes, I almost got the feeling I was watching Christopher Reeve and not Brandon. This feeling was especially strong during the Clark Kent scenes. Brandon has Clark down perfect, from the fumbles and the diffident speech to the general ‘bumbling do-gooder’ air around the mild-mannered reporter.
  
  Brandon’s Superman is a slightly different story. This new Superman is darker, more brooding and doesn’t have the twinkle in his eye that he did before, as if he knew a joke but wasn’t going to let you in on it. However, this new Superman is more emotional, more human. He hurts and it shows. He makes you care about him and his well-being.
  
  In the climactic scene where he falls to the ground after saving the planet in one last great act of super-heroism, I could see the entire theater wince. People cared for him, cared about him.
  
• I’m in love with Bryan Singer for sticking to John Williams’ original score. In fact, they’ve taken it and improved it. The new score feels stronger, deeper. It reaches into you and vibrates deep inside you. It stays in your head for hours afterward. Over the years, no one song has cheered me up as much as this score and I’m delighted in the polish it has got for this movie.
  
  You can watch the studio recording of the new score here http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7m5pnQB8v2s .
  
  
• The flying sequences are very well done. The tagline for the first movie was "You'll believe a man can fly". Even if you didn't believe it then, you will now. Superman flies in this movie, as opposed to move in front of a big animated backdrop. You can almost feel the wind blowing his hair back
  
  
• The space shuttle resuce was one of the best action sequences I've ever seen. At the end of it, there is this sense of Superman 'returning' - of him coming back to where he belongs. You feel like standing up, applauding and shouting "Welcome back!".
  
• This is the first movie I’ve seen where 3d has added value to the movie. I’m lucky to have got to experience the 3d by virtue of being in a city with a Imax theater. I was apprehensive about the 3d stuff due to a bad experience sitting through the absolutely inhumanly horrid Spy Kids 3D. I wish it were a crime to make movies as bad as that one.
  
  Today was different. Though I had people telling me about getting headaches, I didn’t experience any discomforts. The best 3d sequence of the movie was the first one where a young Clark Kent experiments with his powers.
  
  The 3d parts were done by computer by converting them from 2d using a computer. Read more about that at http://www.movieweb.com/news/82/12882.php
  
• I’ll admit it – I’m not a fan of the new suit. The red and the blue are too dull for me and the ‘S’ emblem is too small. I prefer the old brighter colors from the older movies and the comics.
  
• I like Kevin Spacey as Lex Luthor. He does a few of the Gene Hackman mannerisms, especially pronounced in the scene with Lois and her kid. However, he’s darker and more menacing and not as much a comedian as Gene Hackman’s Lex Luthor was.
  
• I loved the increased… emotional depth in this movie. The love story between Lois and Superman was nicely played out. However, I heard folks around me complain that the romance was too drawn out for a superhero movie. I disagree – Superman is a person and it is nice to see the vulnerable and emotional side of him.

References to the earlier movies

The movie had tons of references to the older movies. I listed out the ones I spotted here. After I wrote this up, I saw a bigger list at Wikipedia(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Superman_Returns#Trivia) .

• Superman’s line on flying being the safest way to travel to Lois. It is weird (or by design) that both the movies start with Superman rescuing Lois Lane in from an aircraft mishap.
• Clark Kent lending his stapler to Lois
• Lois struggling for spelling (‘How many ‘f’s in ‘catastrophe’?)
• Lex’s line about what his father used to tell him about land. In the first movie, Ms Telemachus, like Kitty here, tells him
• Clark struggling to get through revolving doors.
• The kryptonite being found in a meteor which had crashed in Addis Ababa
• Clark Kent saying 'Swell'. In the first movie, Lois makes fun of him for using that word. Even the Wikipedians didn't catch this one
  
• And though Aarthi doesn’t agree (but Wikipedia does), the final sequence where Superman flies by the camera and smiles at it going by.

Superman is much more than just a superhero. Much more than a caped comic character. Superman, to me atleast, is a sign that there exists hope and a greater good.

He evokes memories of a childhood spent looking up at the stars at night. Dressed in my red cape, I would stand on my terrace and dream away gazing at the twinkling above me. When I stretched out my arms and closed my eyes, I could fool myself for a moment…just a moment…that I could actually fly. That I could do all those amazing things he could.

That I could be a superhero.

He evokes memories of a childhood talking about superheroes and other galaxies with my father. I used to annoy my dad with questions like “How can nothing exist before the beginning of time? What is present outside the universe? What is the border between this and the outside?”. When I was not doing this, I would be seated in a corner of the house, busy with my paper and color pens, busy sketching away…Superman.

Superman returns.

Welcome back, Superman.

We missed you.

# Friday, June 30, 2006 1:16 PM