Okay, so you’ve worked out what this is about. To date, I count myself as the only person I know who really liked this film.
And it’s strange, because it was well received at the time, made lots of money, and certainly continued the trend of displaying Bryan Singer as a director who could treat comic book characters with respect and seriousness, whilst maintaining a lightness of touch and affection for the source material. And this was well before every comic book film decided they were going to do the whole Nolan thing, as if that’s the only measure of how to do this stuff for a contemporary audience.
But, back to the film. I was new to Superman, not a huge fan of the originals. I found the character somewhat bland, a bit pointless – what can you do with someone all powerful anyway? It’s just not dynamic for a narrative.
And yet I found myself captivated by this. Singer had managed to not only reboot (can we find a new word for reboot, please?) the character for the fans, but make the story and the mythology relevant for a modern audience and – more importantly – a modern audience post September 11.
This is key to me. Singer goes to pains to show how the character fits into the modern world. The mention of kids with phones getting better pictures than the media is only part of this. Superman himself references how America had become so sure of itself, so wrapped up in its specialness, that it didn’t need him anymore. And away he went. Tragedy strikes, and now all call for a saviour. All call for a quick fix to cure the world of all its ills. Singer echoes a Christian mythology here – the capture and brutalising of Superman by Luthor’s henchmen is eerily similar to a scouring and crucifixion. Here is America destroying its emblem, terrorising it even, and ultimately the only way back for the good guys in Singer’s film is by their own efforts and ingenuity, not the reliance on a superhero.
This type of story worked, and resonated for the audiences, yet strangely nobody was granted the right to a sequel. It wasn’t action-packed enough, apparently, not dark enough for the Batman Begins crowd, not silly enough for the Spiderman brigade, and certainly not near the violence of a 300 or Sin City-type audience. But it was the perfect film for this character, the perfect way to treat it. The score is wonderful, especially in big moments like the plane crash, and the visual style is just wonderful. It feels exactly as it should, visually, a golden age now gone bad, and the characters are framed large in a way that highlights them as archetypes for our own ideologies. The sequences of Superman’s childhood – where he discovers and explores his powers – are a joy, and handled all with pure cinematic style; dialogue-free and full of implication.
Lastly, it gives a reason for Superman as a character. A relevance. This isn’t a story about him teaching us how to look after ourselves – though that does happen – it gives him a reason to be here in the first place. And that isn’t mythological, or superheroic, or powerful. It’s to discover his humanity as a father.
And Brando’s voiceover kills me.
Macguffin & McGuffin 