Superman is the archetypal superhero, a man who is the strongest man alive, he almost has an out of this world persona considering he is from the planet Krypton yet much like the British institution of Doctor Who, the depiction of Kar-El/Clark Kent has gone through some significant changes over the history of the visual medium since Superman first appeared in comic books in the 1930s.
The best portrayal of Supes remains that of Christopher Reeve in 1978 when you truly did believe a man could fly when Richard Donner took the reins of changing cinema and introducing the world to the idea of intellectual property.
Reeve donned the cape four times until 1986's woeful Quest for Peace. After that there were many hopes and ideals for a new Superman on the big screen, we were afforded a television adaptation with Dean Cain in The Adventures of Lois and Clark as well as a much touted adaptation by Tim Burton starring Nicholas Cage.
After several failed reboots, Bryan Singer gave us Superman Returns, a film that acts as a sequel to the original Superman and Superman II, events in the film coming straight afterwards that. Superman has disappeared for five years and returns to Earth with Lex Luthor (Kevin Spacey) released from prison and more meddling schemes afoot; Lois Lane (Kate Bosworth) has moved on and is engaged to Richard White (James Marsden), nephew of Daily Planet Editor, Perry (Frank Langella).
The film was made in Australia in 2004 by Warner Bros. and released in 2006. It cast the then (and still) unknown Brandon Routh as the Man of Steel and there in lies part of the problem and fondness of this new adaptation.
Singer - a director whose legacy has now become somewhat tainted - is a very capable director as his work in another superhero universe attests to, and while the X-Men films somewhat broke the mould by taking something that everybody said was unfilmable and making something legitimate and beloved.
In this instance, Singer chose a commodity such as Superman and instead of refreshing or giving Supes a new lease of life, what we got was a darker red on the pants and cape and a film that was very sentimental towards the legacy of Reeve's performance and the film that it came from. Routh, like Reeve, was an unknown when cast and the hope was that this lack of knowledge of his work would lead to a sense of wonder of how good the performer is, and yet the script is so besotted with the idea of Superman having to be with Lois and Superman is so concerned with Lois that it is hard to believe he cares about anybody else in his adopted world.
The use of Luthor is interesting and also looking back difficult due to the casting of the now tainted Spacey, his interaction with Kal Penn and Parker Posey are the better moments as ultimately the role of Routh lets this film down.
That may be unfair on Routh, yet his lack of charisma and effusiveness, is very apparent in a plodding film where set-pieces are few and far between with a domestic love triangle more to the fore, there is a chamber set quality within a would-be blockbuster. The pace of the film is too slow and the palette of the film is too pale for something that is meant to depict a patriotic and wholesome red, white and blue pastels.
Even though it took a $391m gross worldwide it was only the 9th highest grossing film of that year, and looking at that top ten list of films it makes for interesting reading as there is a sea change towards intellectual property and no pun intended when we say sea change as top of the list is the Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest, a sequel itself. The rest of the Top 10 consists of three other sequels (Mission Impossible 3, Ice Age: The Meltdown, X-Men: The Last Stand). Interestingly, every film on the list all had sequels, spin-offs, prequels made after it - the only original film was an animated one, Cars. The movie business was becoming a world of unoriginality and repeated models.
Yet despite that worldwide box office, there was no sequel as the film had hoped and left. Instead we were treated to another reboot helmed by Zach Snyder with Henry Cavill taking over from Routh in Man of Steel - which did just as much business but for me is a poorer film, so much darker in tone and conviction with huge metropolises being destroyed for the sake of it. Cavill while very good for the role, does not have the emotional heft required for the man from Krypton.
Superman Returns is a film that was fairly admired upon release, it currently has a 75% approval rating on Rotten Tomatoes, yet it is now somewhat forgotten about, this is partly due to it being devoid of any big wow marquee, shake the walls moments in the film and the involvement of both Singer and Spacey in the production.
However, it very much marks a demarcation point in the production of superhero movies - you could not make something noble and worthy, it had to be louder and bombastic than the last and make the superheroes as questionable as the villains they attempt to take down; this is very hard to do with the most noble of those in Superman.
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