Superman Returns

Year: 2006 Rating: PG-13 Overall Evaluation: 6.0 Significance Suppositions Story Style 6.0 / 10 7.0 / 10 4.0 / 10 10.0 / 10 Click HERE for evaluation criteria.

Style

Rated PG-13 for some intense action violence. Noting objectionable.

Story

OK here's the setup: This is a quasi-romantic superhero movie involving the return of Superman after having flown off for five years to look for his home planet or something. He comes back and no one seems to notice that Clark Kent and he arrive back in the city on the same day. Previous romantic interest Lois Lane has a kid now but won't marry the father although he is an admittedly great guy. Lex Luthor is back having escaped the justice system since Superman was not available to appear in court. Lex's new evil plans involve growing a new continent with some crystals from Krypton that ends up looking like the fortress of solitude and would be worthless for anything. Unfortunately that setup is also, basically, the whole story.

[SPOILER WARNING!]

The only interesting twist in this whole thing is that Lois' son is actually Superman's kid. He does nothing interesting in the whole movie and neither does anyone else.

Suppositions

The worldview is decent enough - fight evil and all that, but it is so lame and underplayed that it comes off as goofy. Come on, Lex, an island??? Of all the incredible foes Superman has faced and they pick this? It seems difficult to imagine how someone could make a boring Superman movie, but in this time or moral relativism and do-your-own-thing morality it should not be surprising that they can't even make decent bad guys anymore.

Significance

The message the movie sends is ambiguous. Superman is not very upstanding in his relationship with Lois, or her boyfriend, or the kid, and the "evil" Lex Luthor is so tame that Superman's "heroism" is barely worth noticing.