Thanks to Nick for the Heads up on this one. The first Superman Returns Reviews!
The very first screening of Superman Returns happened for some press on Thrusday night, and the very first reviews are now coming in… and man they look GOOD! Here is what some of them have to say:
THE BOSTON HERALD SAID:
Singer & Co. can be content knowing they’ve managed not only to resurrect an American icon but done it with smarts, grace and even poetry. It’s going to be hard for any superhero movie to beat the magisterial bearing Singer so emphatically summons as in one memorable shot Superman is seen suspended in space, his dusty-colored cape twirling, an ancient god come from the heavens.JEFFERY BRIDGES SAID:
This movie is far greater than I could have ever anticipated, and I went in with extremely high expectations.HOLLYWOOD ELSEWHERE SAID:
I’ve echoed in this space the general interpretation of WB’s decision to open Bryan Singer’s film on Wednesday, 6.28, instead of the originally announced 6.30 debut, as a desire to maximize the holiday take before the dreaded onslaught of Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man’s Chest the following weekend. This view was, in hindsight, partially misleading because it suggested that a better pure-entertainment, bang-for-your-buck element would be coming from Pirates. That will obviously be a matter of perspective as the days advance, but it seems highly unlikely (I almost wrote “inconceivable”) that Pirates will surpass Superman Returns in terms of emotionality and embodying a resonant, fully developed theme.COMIC BOOK REVIEW SAID:
My anticipation for the film “Superman Returns” was off the charts, which concerned me – was there any chance this movie could live up to my expectations? Well, CBR News was invited to a screening of the film Thursday night and I can say with total confidence that it was everything a comics fan – and movie fan – could hope for. Yes, it’s that good.
To put it simply, every single critic that I’ve read that was actually there on Thrusday night is just GUSHING about Superman Returns without exception! That does it… my anticipation has now officially gone through the roof!
I dont know how such positive reviews could be given to such a dull piece of pap. Slice an hour off and it might be barely watchable.
IF YOU HAVE NOT SEEN IT DON’T READ THIS.
that movie was not all that. lex luther’s plot was so childish and stupid, i could not believe they actually wrote that. I mean who wants their own continent especially a big gigantic piece of black crystal that you can’t grow anything on, its impossible to be a habitat for any creature. Bottomline this movie did not suck but it wasn’t all that good and no where near as good as the old ones. AND WHATS UP WITH THE KID! Ok, if superman got louis pregnant than left and stayed gone for six years, why does that guy in the movie (cyclops) think its his baby unless louis was kicking it with him as soon as superman left, i mean not even a month after he disappeared.
Pls explain.
I am a verry big fan of the man of steel. I did not thing superman retuns was a good movies. I liked superman 2 a lot better.
Let me get this off my chest first:
Parker Posey, amazingly enough, both sucks and blows. How she has
gotten the reputation she has astounds me. The reality of it is this –
you could, literally, cut every shot of her out of the new Superman
movie, every line of dialogue, and it wouldn’t change the film one bit.
Her part is not only completely superfluous, but is utterly pointless.
And that may be the only thing “super” about Superman Returns.
Superman Returns isn’t a bad movie. Not at all. But it is a boring
one. And that’s a special kind of sin when it comes to superhero
movies.
That being said, it‚Äôs the sheer number of duplication from the 1978 Superman movie, annoyances all, that take you ‚Äòout‚Äô of the movie experience. Here are the Grand Annoyances that make up this film…
At 2 hours and 34 minutes, it is way, way too long. To say you could cut an hour out of this movie would be generous. With the amount of “plot” involved, this could easily have been a 1-hour TV show.
Seriously.
While it’s not exactly a remake of the 1978 Christopher Reeve movie,
it’s about as close as you can get sometimes. While one line is very
close to a line in that film, two others are repeated verbatim. Lex
Luthor, and his gal pal (who doesn’t like him, and longs for/is sorry
for Superman) plan to kill millions of people and then make millions in
real estate. A piece of Kryptonite from Addis Ababa plays a key role.
Which film? Both !!
The young actor playing Superman? He’s not bad at all, really. But he
doesn’t play Superman; he does an impression of Christopher Reeve doing
Superman. Don’t get me wrong, he does it well. But did we need that?
Speaking of which, did we need Kate Bosworth as Lois Lane? About as
integral as Katie Holmes or whoever it was in latest Batman movie, this
‘sleepwalk’ role of a nothing character could have been played by anyone. Even that Marsden guy (who sleepwalked through 3 X-Men movies, turning team leader Cyclops into a nothing character), could’ve played Lois Lane. Oh, but wait. He was busy sleepwalking through the role of Lois Lane’s husband !
Frank Langella, who hasn’t been good since he played Dracula 30 years ago, is equally useless.
Daily Planet boy scout in residence, Jimmy Olsen, however, manages to
drink a beer and say “pissed.” Which is a nice step forward. But let’s
face it, unless you’re waiting for a Spin Doctors reunion tour, no one
cares about Jimmy Olsen’s Blues.
Superman Returns is not a bad film. It’s a long, sometimes boring,
exercise by someone who really wanted to make a Superman movie.
You won’t laugh, you won’t cry.
You’ll just kiss 8 bucks goodbye.
And then wonder . . .
Why…?
It’s a C +.
SPOILER ALERT
This movie is great for the first hour, BUT then “the kid” part comes out. It is downhill from there. Stick to the real story Singer. This movie had great potential, but I’ll take 1978’s Superman and Superman 2 over this slow garbage any day. WHAT A LET DOWN! What’s nexr, son of Superman?
I went to see the sneak preview this morning. I made a point to be first in line to see….. I could not wait to get out of the theatre. I fell asleep on this movie. Bryan Singer is a great director, I have a problem with the writers.
I’m with Kristina. I’m a bit more excited to see it but I’m still not over the top about it.
SPOILER WARNING SPOILER WARNING SPOILER WARNING SPOILER WARNING
THERE IS A MINOR SPOILER IN THE REVIEW BELOW…..
….here is a review from AICN which doesn’t gush….or rave…but says it is very good. bbbbuuuuutttttt there is one sentence in there
that will have doug very very angry……..it got me angry too …I am sure you can figure it out……
ONCE AGAIN SPOILER WARNING
superman returns review
Remember that scene in Superman where Christopher Reeve had that chain with kryptonite around his neck and he couldn’t get rid of it? Well, Bryan Singer has a chain with Superman The Movie attached around his neck and he can’t liberate himself from it. I’m not saying the movie is a remake of Richard Donner’s (although it goes beyond an homage). But Singer’s respect for the original is a very heavy weight for it.
SR never reaches the emotional levels of Donner’s film, nor its very underrated sense of humor.
The pacing is a bit off.
Kevin Spacey’s is underused.
The Superman/Lois Lane night flight is unnecessary.
And its best moments are the ones that remind us of the first movie.
BUT… it’s a very good action-romance-adventure-soap opera movie, that should satisfy almost all kind of audiences (but MTV-influenced teenagers… it’s too slow for them), and it ends up being very emotional (the last 20 minutes, pure drama, are absolutely brilliant).
Not that many action scenes (the plane-shuttle rescue is just incredible): but I think that’s good, since I can’t stand useless directors (Ratner, Cohen and company) that add senseless noisy action with no purpose whatsoever.
And the actors are quite good: Brandon Routh is better as Superman than as Clark Kent (he tries too hard being Christopher Reeve instead of Clark Kent). Kate Bosworth is excellent as Lane (she doesn’t try to imitate Margot Kidder at all), Parker Posey seems bored to death (I missed terribly Valerie Perrine and Ned Betaty as Luthor’s sidekicks), SPOILER WARNING and Spacey needed more screen time and a final face off with Superman… that never happens.
END OF SPOILER
And what to say about John Williams’ music? SR would nothing without it.
By the way, the movie is dedicated to Christopher and Dana Reeve.
So, very good, but not brilliant.
This is fantastic news! Dougie should be made to pay a price for his vehement pessimism of the potential of this film: perhaps a performance of contrition with his ucalalee is in order!
it’s getting hard not to be a geek these days.
so many great comic movies coming out…
and they’re all fairly good….
I’ll dust off my pocket protector from high school once again and submit to my nerd heritage…
…and quietly count the seconds until “Superman Returns” to the theatres…
It will be shit. Superman is uninteresting and the only thing that could make it interesting would be if they took the path of “I’ve monitored this people and they need help, I will send you my son” and have Superman interacting with all sorts of governments etc trying to make the world better.
Seing the bastard trying to catch a plane….I mean if this was real he would fucking fly under the plane, match the speed of it and fly it upwards instead of this stupid shit that a 12year old could have come up with. Have him try and help humanity, dont have him try and save Lois Lane – his powers are bigger than that.
Ditch this bullshit.
I’m still not pumped.
best movie news ive heard all year… im really excited
This movie, with a Spider-Man 3 teaser, AND the Transformers teaser next month?!
HOW THE HELL AM I GOING TO LIVE LONG ENOUGH AFTER BEING BLOWN AWAY?!?
Augers well – keeping my expectations grounded.
Read some more reviews coming in. Most are liking it, calling the movie very solid. Not great, but very good.
Which is fine be me at this point. With the disappointment of some comic movies of late, like wasted DareDevil, melodramatic Hulk, uninteresting Electra, idiotic stupid Catwoman and especially X-men 3, The Last Peice of Crap! By Ratner!! That bastard!!! Stupid Bridge scene!! But wasted potential on all those movies.
If Singer pulls this off he will literally have entered the halls of the A list of directors!!
Let us all pray for the best! Up Up and away!!
hahaha, i love it. to all you nay sayers that said this movie is going to suck, hahahaahahahahahahahaah.
Hearing that made me wonder how awesome X3 could have been with Singer directing it. But what’s done is done and at least we have Superman Returns to look forward to.
This reminds me of the early reviews of both Spiderman 2 and Batman Begins
This is very exicting news as I have HUGE expectations going into this movie and now critics like me were the same with the expectations and came out getting everything they hoped for a more.
In the trailers we don’t get to see Superman using his powers much at all which even makes me more excited going into the movie knowing they didn’t show off the best parts in the trailers.
Read the post again Spidey…
Even JoBlo’s unamed and unpublished “source” says the film is “good”. That’s the worst review for Superman Returns yet… “good”.
Au Contraire Spidey!
Read all the comments on that JoBlo post and read the post carefully. JoBlo did not see the film. It’s from a second hand and unamed source.
As of right now John is 100% correct. Every single published look at Superman Returns by people who actually saw it on Thrusday night are praising it.
Get your facts straight Spidey
Au contraire! http://www.joblo.com/index.php?id=11668
Campea your bias grows every day. I hope this shit sinks! Ho Ho Ho Ho A Pirate’s Life For Me
Wow!!! This is so cool that the reviews are coming back positive!! God it makes me even more sad that he couldn’t direct X-men 3!! What The Last Stand could have really have been!!??
I’ve been waiting so long for this movie since the last two Supes films were so tragic!! Some of the worst films ever made! But if Supes Returns is this good….man I can’t wait now!!!
If this movie can surpass Supeerman the movie, Spidey one and Batman returns as the best comic movie ever, then I will be truly happy!!!
I’ve read all the reviews but i don’t think any of them mentions ‘the kid’. Maybe he has been cut from the film altogether. Unfortunately, living in the UK, i have to wait till mid July to see it.