Desi Train

The man in red and blue silently enters the bedroom of someone special. With tears in his eyes he softly speaks the words once spoken to him by his own father, Jor–El.

Flashback to reality, somewhere between 1974 and 1988. If around this time you were born, alive and could make sense of the world around you and by some sudden act of fate, you had this intense desire - “I want to see a military camp”, then all you had to do is pick up the phone and call… oz.

The problem was there was only one cadet in this camp. oz. You would have found two others. The Marshals of this camp. Mom and Dad. And life was hell (though I love them… so don’t get me wrong). I never got to hear a bed-time story from my parents. Instead it was a Math test paper each night prepared by dear Dad. I hardly got to go out on Sundays for a picnic or an outing. Sunday 9 to 12 was the weekly Algebra or Physics test… the test paper, again duly prepared by dear Dad.

I longed to have someone tell me a story, show me dreams, lead me into the land where everything was soft, cushy and filled with love. I hated friends who would tell me what story their mom had told them the night before. If I could, I would have kicked them, beaten them black and blue for making me so jealous… which I did a couple of times.

At the age of 12, I found my escape. I found the other mom who would tell me stories… make me laugh and cry. It was the cinema theater half a mile away from my house. And I would escape and spend hours sitting there. Away from the army boot camp. Away from those test papers. Away from the harshness that was living and breathing at home.

Something else happened at that age. Someone handed me a Superman comic. My life changed. I had found a friend, a mentor, perhaps even an elder brother whom I would hide below my pillow and pretend to go to sleep, and then wake up and read my dearest friend’s adventures. I would dream I had powers like him. Then I would fly away from the boot camp I was stuck in. I dreamt of helping people. And yes I dreamt of carrying Rita Mathur 2 years my senior at school, in my big strong 12 year old arms and kiss her, carry her up in the sky and show her the world.

And then in 1978, my friend flew down to Eros Theater at Churchgate in Bombay. After much pleading, Dad agreed and took us to the theater. And that was the most precious gift he gave me as a kid. 90 minutes with Superman.

With all that magical closeness with a fictional character, it isn’t easy for a Super hero fanatic to go all out and watch Bryan Singer’s Superman Returns from a neutral standpoint. But it is essential, for the big screen never lies. It shows you the virtual truth at point blank range and so it’s time to begin with a short brief of what the story of Superman Returns is…

The movie opens with a background story that Superman was away from Earth visiting Krypton, his birth planet, or whatever was left of it. He comes home and tries to squeeze back into his life he had left hanging high and dry - his job and his girlfriend Louis Lane. Louis has moved on. Has a son and a boyfriend.

In between this story, Singer runs a parallel track of Lex Luthor who is out of prison after 5 years, has swindled a dying woman of all her money and is out to get revenge on who else… but Superman. His journey leads him back to Superman’s mini-Krypton home somewhere at the corner of the Earth… where he hatches a plan that will destroy Superman and also make him, Lex Luthor, a very rich man.

Back to Track 1, Singer makes the viewer realize that Louis still has feelings for Superman and has been carrying a secret which is revealed towards the end. So Singer jumps between Tracks 1 and 2, until they both merge roughly about 30 minutes before the end.

So let’s begin with the CGI. The special effects. Suffice to say, they are riveting. It’s as if Singer takes a staple gun and pins you down to your seat. The never-ending-stretch-of-imagination in Bryan Singer was quite visible X-Men and X-2. Here his boundaries of imagination go on a jet overdrive.

The brilliant way in which he captures a wingless plane spinning around its axis while Superman nose dives to save it from crashing is to be seen on never ending replay mode when the DVD is released. This guy (Singer) has the ability to make the effects look so real and embedded into a normal natural flow of life (the story), it simply leaves you with an open mouth.

Creatively depicted are Superman’s super hearing and his X-Ray vision. Another interesting aspect was the way Singer showed how Superman would always arrive to help. Flying up in space and looking back at Earth, he closes his eyes and lets all the sound bytes coming from all over the Earth flow through his ears… a cry for help in all those bytes would have him opening his eyes and flying down towards the cry.

And my favorite : Have you ever imagined what would happen if a gun is pointed an inch away from Superman’s eye and someone pulls the trigger? Watch Singer’s version.

So yes. The CGI is fantastic and finds it way from an Oscar nomination, hopefully.

The Bad : The Screenplay. The Character design and definitions. The actors themselves.

It makes me wonder if the Quality of Special Effects in a movie is inversely proportional to the Quality of Screenplay and the acting.

They spent around 19 years on the 5th movie. From really weird stories to somewhere between having a “Superman v/s Batman” to some other crap, this is the script the studio ultimately gave the green signal to. Wasn’t 19 years enough to get one of the best spellbinding stories for the red and blue guy?

The plot is wafer thin. You can snap it right after 15 minutes. The surprise meant to be shown towards the end wasn’t a surprise at all. To put it mildly, the screenplay is flat, dull and very ordinary.

I mentioned earlier, the running of two parallel tracks in the movie. Notice how Track 2 - the Lex Luthor story moves at a good pace, but whenever Singer switches to Track 1 - Superman and Clark Kent, the pace gets slow and sluggish. This affects the flow. Jarring to say the least.

Why is it so difficult to understand that Superman’s helping-the-people scenes would look sharper, smoother and more interesting, if they were evenly spaced out in the movie? Though some of the scenes are, there is this huge block of Superman saving us Earth men scenes pushed into somewhere along the flow. It’s as if the team didn’t know what to do with these.

Surprisingly Singer fails where he is good at. His two X-Men had a sufficient mesmerizing strength to hold you over the concept of good men with powers v/s the army of evil. If he thought the impact would be the same by having a Lex Luthor, he’s messed it up. Royally.

Kevin Spacey as Lex Luthor is a 10 times toned down version of the great actor who originally played the character in the first two parts, Gene Hackman. Gross Miscasting. Lex Luthor is full of life, he has energy, he has charm, he has this snaky sense of humor. Spacey miscalculates. You hold your fist tight and wait for the energetic movement to spring from his body or his sharp wit to show up any moment… it never comes.

This just creates a dull vacuum for the Super Hero. Can we know why more than one villain wasn’t used in here? (Batman Begins is a good example on how things were spiced up all through)

Same goes for the characters of Perry White and Jimmy Olsen. If someone told me that Frank Langella’s version of Perry White is good, then he needs a serious re-reading of Superman’s comics to understand what Perry White is all about.

Sam Huntington does his best but as in the previous versions, Olsen is not given much scope or room to add to the story.

Coming to the lady of the Man. Louis Lane. So is Kate Bosworth the ideal choice? Though Kate does her best, you can’t see in her the peppiness, the charm and the woman with huge rose tinted glasses who keeps tripping over… Margot Kidder was born to be Louis Lane.

It doesn’t help any of the actors when their characters appear to be suppressed from expressing just about an inch above dead wood. What happened? Why was it done? Its as if all characters were toned down so extensively that they are this close to be called wooden. Perhaps Bryan Singer can help us understand on why tried to create his own version of characters when the originals are what we are so much in love with. A 21st century version of Superman and its characters is understandable, but having them play dead is not.

And finally the golden question. So is Brandon Routh the Superman for the 21st century?

You feel for the guy. Coming to take the role from the one and only the late Christopher Reeve was a big task. Bryan Singer’s characterization hasn’t helped him either. But yes I like the guy and can see him playing Superman. If only Singer could have developed the role and that of Clark Kent, it would have been a treat. Alas, Routh is reduced to mouth one liners or made to fleetingly attempt comedy as Kent.

It’s easy to see that Singer was more in a rush to reach the CGI scenes than spending time on the basic character itself. What he failed to understand was that we fell in love with Superman partly because of his super powers but a large part of it was because of what he was as a person… the care, the warmth, the sacrifices, the bumbling guy as Clark Kent and our selfless protector Superman.

B Minus. Watchable with friends, family and anyone else you go to movies with… For there was only one friend, one dream, one wish that I had as a kid. To fly with him away from the humdrum of life… my means to escape, my road leading to the skies, my hidden joys, my secret prayers… my only friend… my hero… Superman

This entry was posted on Wednesday, June 28th, 2006 at 9:52 pm and is filed under Movie Reactions, Movies, TV etc..
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