On flying men in tights...or why underwear goes on the inside.

Well, basically, because most jeans itch otherwise, how I know ? Don't ask.

A week and a half after it's debut, I finally got to see Superman Returns. The Imax version opened first in Mexico, the regular won't be shown 'til next week. I don't think there's any difference story or scene ways, but for the record, that's the version I'm writing about.
The really really short version is: "I liked it, had a great time." Most of you people who haven't actually met my dear friend Bondwalker have no idea what a dangerous statement that is hehe. Is it perfect ? Not by a longshot. Is it Batman Begind good? Could be... (this is where she starts shouting at me) The thing is, I really wasn't expecting much more than what I got. I've always liked superman. I used to dress up like him for halloween. I liked the movies, and some of the cartoons. But I never really liked the comics. Oh, I like comic books... I just never really liked superman stories. So what did I expect ? I expected to feel like a little kid again, getting goose bumps while a guy in tights with misplaced underwear flew and threw heavy things around. To remember how I felt with the first movie (which to me has a lot of annoying parts too). And that's what I got.
Granted, it's not JLU superman. It's not even Donner's superman. They say this movie takes place after Superman 2. I'd say that's not the case. I think what happened was that this younger superman had the same adventures, but the timeline was moved a bit. Routh looks and plays a much younger Superman/Clark than Reeve ever did. You see the older movies and you easily think the guy is in his thirties. You see this one and you can almost bet he just stepped out of smallville. He played hero for a year, maybe two, and then left. He still isn't comfortable with the whole secret identity thing. The fact that he is almost a god and nobody else can understand what he deals with still gets to him. Sometimes he just feels alone, and I can understand that. And I think that from that perspective, the film makes much more sense. His real problem isn't that he puts his neck on the line everyday. He's freakin' superman with a freakin' super neck, he is never afraid he's going to get hurt. He's afraid how many regular people are going to get hurt if he doesn't get the job done. Batman never thinks he has the weight of the world or even his city on his shoulders. If someone gets mugged and shot on the other side of town while he was busy elsewhere, tough, he can't be in two places at once, he'll just kick the killers' butt later. Superman almost could be everywhere at the same time. He could stop a bullet in chicago and in two seconds stop an old lady from tripping with some branch in nepal. The choice of which branch and which bullet to stop is what finally gets to him. And having his mid-twenties crisis he gets the hell out to where nobody will bother him. I can buy that.
There were things I didn't like of course. As always, the kid seems to be the case. Actually, I had no problem with the fact that the kid was around. The whole lois as a sinlge mom thing was quite believable. Believe me, I know a lot of young moms with 5 year olds, and they're mostly doing stupid things while they get the hang of it. What I didn't like specifically? The piano scene. If they'd skipped that entirely and the only real "clue" that the kid was super was him spotting superman in the water, that would've worked better with the reveal at the end. That and that they dragged the whole "he might be dead" for a bit too long at the end. But shave some 10, 15 minutes off those parts, and I think you've got a damned good summer movie.
Singer did a good job with what he had. He played safe with the homage and risky with the kid. I think Xmen 2 was a much better movie than this one, but you could probably compare it to X1. Those of us who remembered that iceman, beast and angel were founding members of the xmen, that wolverine, rogue and storm showed up years before kitty pride, we had a lot of problems with his take on the first movie. Those guys weren't even close to what the xmen, character wise, that we knew. But, hey, we had fun with it, he made it work. And with that established universe, the second one was amazing.
I say wait to see what happens from here. It might just be great.
Let the shouting begin...