Superman Returns English Movie

Jun 30, 2006 By Sevanand Gaddala

With Superman Returns, Hollywood seems to have finally got its superhero act together. Directed by Bryan Singer, the film not only continues the tradition of Batman and Spiderman, but takes the genre to a whole new level.

Long accused of being the most boring of all superheroes - too square and not internalising enough - Superman now returns to explain that a hero's job is never done, that the world never stops whistling for a saviour.

Here is a superhero with incredible powers but even he cannot be with the one person he loves. He is a saviour of humanity but is actually an alien.

Singer, who had walked away from the highly popular X-Men series, has justified his move with Superman Returns. He has brought in just the right amount of pulsating action with a sprinkling of emotional scenes evocative of a superhero's aching loneliness.

The movie begins with Superman (Brandon Routh) returning to earth after five years of trying to find out what happened to his people. He returns to find his love Lois Lane (Kate Bosworth) living with another man (James Marsden) while raising his son.

Steeped in melancholy, Superman also has to fight his arch nemesis Lex Luthor (Kevin Spacey) who has hatched a plan to create a whole new continent.

In one of the best action sequences in a movie adaptation of a comic book hero, Superman manages to grab hold of a plane in flames and even lands it ever so elegantly in the middle of a baseball pitch.

But the loveliest moment of the film that also exemplifies the inner conflicts of the characters is when Lois meets Superman on a terrace, slips off her shoes and steps on his toes for takeoff.

Spacey plays a deliciously malicious villain oozing evil charm while Routh and Bosworth secure their Hollywood future. Eva Marie Saint as Clark's mother puts in a fine supporting performance as do Marsden and Parker Posey, who plays Luthor's girlfriend with a conscience.

This mirror to Superman's inner ruminations is sure to bring in super-returns at the box office.