Superman Returns

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Review by Vives Anunciacion
Inquirer Libre June 28 2006


Directed by Bryan Singer
Written by Michael Dougherty, Dan Harris
Based on the comic book character created by Jerry Siegel & Joe Shuster
Starring Brandon Routh, Kevin Spacey, Kate Bosworth
G / 153minutes
Warner Brothers/ Legendary Pictures/ DC Comics


Call me a sentimental idiot. Christopher Reeve will always be my Superman, and when he died I thought he brought the Man of Steel with him for good. Many others will wear the suit, but Reeve will always be the only Superman, right? Wrong.

So how was Superman Returns? Kate Bosworth is a little off as reporter Lois Lane, and Kevin Spacey shifts from great to good as a brooding Lex Luthor. The surprise is Brandon Routh who practically owns Superman. He is the new Man of Steel. By default, I’m now a fan.

I didn’t expect to like Superman Returns that much – no, I didn’t expect to love it. I was reduced into a giddy kid again, amazed at how much magic this movie has taken hold of me. Is it that good? It still could be better, but right now it’s already breathtaking.

At the heart of Superman Returns is a strong emotional core about a man who must assert his significance to a world in denial that it needs him. Yes, there are spellbinding special effects but this superhero is all about emo.

The magic starts as the screen bursts into a kaleidoscopic space travel from Krypton to Earth with the familiar laser blue credits design marching to the crescendo of John William’s legendary musical score. That by itself is a show worth the price of admission.

In the years during Superman’s absence, criminal businessman Lex Luthor is out from prison and has found a rich benefactor to fund his evil schemes. Lois Lane has won a Pulitzer Prize, is a mother, and engaged to Richard White (James Marsden), nephew of Daily Planet editor Perry White (Frank Langella). In other words, the world has conveniently moved on without the Man of Steel.

On his return to Earth, Kal-El (Brandon Routh) learns the world didn’t seem to miss either Clark Kent or Superman. Only Jimmy Olsen (Sam Huntington) welcomes him back warmly in Metropolis. After a showstopping airplane rescue reintroduces Superman to the world, the superhero quickly resumes his role as savior of his adopted home. But on top of these is a protracted relationship with Lois that needs closure.

Great performances abound, but then no movie’s perfect. The movie soars in all of its Superman scenes, especially each time Supes uses his powers to save people. Routh is magnetic as Superman, a joy as Clark Kent, but looks unsure as Kal-El. Maybe because those characters are developed differently, Superman having the best scenes and Kal-El having the least – if only Clark had more scenes in the movie. Routh may remind people of Chris Reeve, but this Superman is definitely his own. Great job for an absolute newcomer.

Plotwise the weakest points are Luthor’s real estate plans and the thing with the kid, which take elements from Superman I and II, but tries to make its own story regardless of any clear backstory. However, Spacey’s lines are potential cult quotables. Least effective is the average musical score, which underwhelms as a superhero’s accompaniment and never soars when Superman does.

The Jesus/ Superman messianic parallels are not an accident. Singer elevates the Blue Boy Scout to the status of divinity, both in imagery and text, as he does when Superman descends to the earth unconscious in a crucified pose or when he floats in space to listen to the events down below; and most especially in the recurring “the son becomes the father, and the father the son” theme as Kal-El repeats the voice of the father inside him in Routh’s best performance at the end of the film.

While the Dark Knight shows that people can overcome their personal demons, and those mutants prove that politics is what we make of it, when the going gets really tough, it is never a crime to look up and seek comfort from the guy in the sky.

This is no mere fantasy - no careless product of imagination. Superman Returns is a spellbinding amalgam of the hero created in 1938 and in the Richard Donner movies, and pays grand tribute to the sentimental favorites for existing fans while rebooting the super franchise for the next generation of believers.

There will be many versions of Superman; other Reeves and Rouths will wear the suit and cape. It is not the person or the actor, but the unpolluted spirit within the suit that is legend. Superman Returns resurrects the original superhero in all his glory.

And he shall live forever and ever.

Thinking men

Review by Vives Anunciacion
Inquirer Libre June 21 2006

There’s the French film festival currently ongoing at Shangri-La for the subtitle-addicted; for the rest who simply crave for Hollywood movies that are a little outside of the box, here are two worth thinking about.

Inside Man
Directed by Spike Lee
Written by Russel Gerwitz
Starring Denzel Washington, Jodie Foster, Clive Owen
PG13 / 129 minutes
Universal Pictures

Dalton Russel (Clive Owen) and his accomplices carefully execute the “perfect bank robbery” in the middle of Manhattan. They hold up the bank, take everyone inside hostage and demand a getaway plane from the police. They do everything very fast, but they hesitate and stall the ending. In this crime caper, everything about the movie is taking control – control over events, over actions, over emotions and even control over fate.

The NYPD negotiator is an upcoming detective Keith Frazier (Denzel Washington) who takes the rule books seriously and tries to keep his cool at all times, even though Russel out-cools him most of the time as they try to outwit each other’s actions in Russel’s carefully-planned operation.

A few complications arise on the appearance of Madeline White (2-time Oscar winner Jodie Foster), a power broker for the elite who is hired to secure from Russel extremely sensitive documents owned by Arthur Case (Christopher Plummer), the bank’s owner. Mr. Case doesn’t want his secrets revealed to the world at all costs, so he hires Madeline to secure these for him from the bank robbers. Ms. Foster looks like she’s enjoying her role as she catwalks in front of armed men double her size – in a movie about male biases, Madeline personifies the phrase “the powers that be.”

This is a dream cast for Oscar addicts, and to watch the three main actors in their elements isn’t only a delight but a marvel. Great ensemble acting, great cinematography. The story plays out like a game of chess between Russel and Frazier, and retains an element of calm as the narrative gently unfolds towards the inevitable end. Now if that hurried ending only made sense…


Kinsey
Written and Directed by Bill Condon
Starring Liam Neeson, Laura Linney, Peter Saarsgard
R18 / 118 minutes
Fox Searchlight Pictures
Exclusive At Ayala Cinemas Only

Dr. Alfred Kinsey (Liam Neeson) is the first American to publicly study human sexual behavior and in 1948 created sensational uproar over his book Sexual Behavior in the Human Male. Kinsey’s methods and findings were the stuff of controversy, but it was these studies that forced America, and the world, to talk about their sexuality in the open.

The movie by God and Monsters director Bill Condon delicately, if at times lightly, looks into the life of the man whose sole obsession was to put a statistical number beside a person’s bedside manners. So consumed was Kinsey was with his sexual research that he often took the people beside him for granted, especially his wife Clara (Laura Linney), who easily represents the perfect partner any person can dream of. Both Neeson and Linney thresh out their roles with spirit and verve, as Neeson’s Kinsey is remarkably quite different from his Oscar Schindler especially as the character ages in the film. Great music, great editing and another great ensemble cast.

These two movies are worth seeing if it means citing examples of movies that can make the audience think first before giving their opinions. While Inside Man excites as a clever crime thriller, it is also Spike Lee’s more pedestrian presentation on how Americans, New Yorkers at least, deal with everyday prejudices about race, religion and politics. Kinsey on the other hand would want its audience to leave their sexual prejudices and politics outside the cinema and take a clinical watch on how humans enjoy themselves.

Zoom, zoom, zoom

Review by Vives Anunciacion

Cars
Directed by John Lasseter
Written by Dan Fogelman, Robert L. Baird
Featuring the voices of Owen Wilson, Paul Newman, Bonnie Hunt
GP / 116 minutes
Walt Disney/ Pixar Animations

Who knows how far a car can get
Before you think about slowin' on down
- Aretha Franklin, Freeway of
Love

America’s love affair with the automobile turns hilarious with Cars, the latest model to emerge from the Disney-Pixar factory of adorable animation. Get your motor runnin’ for a fun journey with Cars.

The Disney and Pixar tandem so far has produced the best collection of studio animations (outside Japan) since Toy Story in 1995. Cars is a worthy addition to this collection, but it’s definitely not Pixar’s best since the studio raised the animation bar too high with the amazing The Incredibles in 2004.

Cars begins in the middle of the Piston Cup race where rookie Lightning McQueen (voiced by Owen Wilson) is preparing to take the championship from his idol, Strip “the King” Weathers (voiced by NASCAR Nextel Cup champ Richard Petty), who retires at the end of the season. Forever at the heels (bumper?) of the King is Chick Hicks (former Batman Michael Keaton), who will do anything in his means to be the champ.

Despite Lightning’s positive appeal, he is too self-centered to care for other things except win the trophy. His vanity quite literally causes his tires to burst, forcing a surprising three-way tie between The King, Hicks and McQueen. On the way to the championship race in California, Lightning gets sidetracked into the dusty old town of Radiator Springs, which sits along historic Route 66 (kinda like our National Hi-way, but longer). Once there, the story screeches down to cruising speed.

At Radiator Springs, Lightning meets a fleet of old-school cars – the town simpleton Mater (voiced by Larry the Cable Guy), sexy Sally (Bonnie Hunt) the Porsche lawyer, and the serious vintage Doc Hudson (Paul Newman), who seems to hide a secret past. Lightning’s accident forces him to stay in Radiator Springs until he fixes everything he damaged along the way. It is this extended stay in Radiator Springs that teaches Lightning how to take things on a stride and discover that life is more than just reaching the finish line.

There’s no doubt that Pixar’s animation and storytelling techniques are still miles away from competition. Compared to other Pixar animations featuring toys and cuddly animals, it is quite a challenge to make metallic cars as adorable as the fish in Finding Nemo. Cars looks very impressive.

But storywise, there’s an obvious similarity with the 1991 comedy Doc Hollywood starring Michael J. Fox, wherein a city doctor gets stranded in a backward town while serving community sentence. Youngsters won’t find anything wrong with this similarity, but those familiar with Doc Hollywood may be scratching their heads as to how Pixar failed to come up with something more substantially original. Funny lines do not make a movie memorable, most of the time characters do. Cars’ humanized cars are a little bland, no amount of shiny paint can make Lightning as cuddly as a bear.

Cars wants its audience to remember the glory days of the Highway, when people moved around to see places and meet people, instead of hurrying along the expressway in the pursuit of the metaphorical deadline. Maybe the animation Cars is trying to boost the stagnant US auto industry, which is why there are barey sny Japanese cars in the roster.

Filipinos can’t obsess with automobiles the same way Americans have since the T-Model Ford put them on wheels in1908 – not with weekly gas price increases and snarled EDSA traffic. But these Cars are an exception.