SUPERMAN RETURNS

“And so the son becomes a father, and the father becomes a son.”

Surprisingly melancholic, though never dour, Superman Returns is at once a glorious comic book hymn to mythological heroes and a bittersweet meditation on sons assuming the mantles of their fathers while still forging their own unique paths.

The story involves Superman (newcomer Brandon Routh) returning to Earth after disappearing five years previously, to search for the remains of his home planet, Krypton. Things have changed: Lois Lane (Kate Bosworth) has a son, a steady partner (Richard White, played by X-Men alum James Marsden), and a Pulitzer Prize for an article entitled “Why the World Doesn’t Need Superman.” And some things never change. Lex Luthor (Kevin Spacey) is on the loose, cooking up a gargantuan scheme involving personal gain, the destruction of millions of people, and the death of arch-enemy Superman.

Refreshingly, Superman Returns emphasizes plot, character, and subtext at the expense of whiz-bang f/x, and not the other way around, as is usually the case with films like this. A complicated romantic triangle—Lois, White, and Superman/Kent—adds emotional conflict and depth. The father/son relationship between Superman and his dead father Jor-El (Marlon Brando, appearing in outtakes from 1978’s Superman: The Movie), the mantle of responsibility and duty passing on, and the turmoil that can result.

Bryan Singer, who left the X-Men series to helm this film, is the perfect director for Superman Returns. He directs imaginatively, with great feel for character and many stirring, iconic shots such as Superman floating high above the earth, cape billowing out. One brief but impressive shot has Superman in close up slowly turning to face the camera as he rapidly ascends to the sky against the side of a building. Singer obviously has a vivid visual imagination, and he uses digital effects to enhance the action, not replace it. The action sequences are edited with clarity and a feel for space and coherence; we are never lost in spasmodic Moulinex-blender cutting.

Part of the quality Singer imbrues the film with is a pleasant, but at times sad, nostalgia. John Williams’ Superman theme music, resurrected here in John Ottman’s score, still stiffens up the sinews and summons up the blood, but is also a longing for heroes and a simpler age that has passed.

The mythical/religious aspect of the Superman canon is visually referenced many times in Superman Returns. Jor-El, in voiceover, affirms that, because of humanity’s capacity for goodness, he has sent us his only son. In another mythic shot, Superman, like Atlas, carries the world on his shoulders, in the shape of the Daily Planet globe that has fallen from the newspaper’s building in an earthquake. And Superman floating on his back over the Earth, arms outstretched, is an obvious messiah/saviour reference. It is to Singer’s great credit that none of these visual references come across as cornball.

From the opening credits, done in the swooshing style of the 1978 film and scored to its theme, Superman Returns is a smart, stirring mythical epic, that is ultimately a success because it keeps its roots firmly in character and story, and never forgets that the great comic book heroes are legendary archetypes for our modern age.

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Directed by Bryan Singer

Written by Michael Dougherty & Dan Harris
Based on a story by Bryan Singer & Michael Dougherty & Dan Harris
Based on characters created by Jerry Siegel & Joe Shuster

Starring:
Brandon Routh....Clark Kent/Superman
Kate Bosworth....Lois Lane
Kevin Spacey....Lex Luthor
James Marsden....Richard White
Parker Posey....Kitty Kowalski
Frank Langella....Perry White
Sam Huntington....Jimmy Olsen
Eva Marie Saint....Martha Kent
Marlon Brando....Jor-El (archive footage)

Ocean's 12

Ocean’s 12 is cinema as glossy magazine collage. The pictures are shiny and pretty and arranged in a hip, stylish mosaic of gorgeous people in pretty clothes draped by vivid, exotic locations. Scatter in photo captions that toss off quips that are intended to be dryly amusing and attempt to link everything narratively, and--presto--you have Ocean’s 12, popping into the lounge to down a dry martini and toss out some forgettable prattle.

Not that it’s an unpleasant experience per se. It’s just like being in the company of a vain, self-consciously hip lounge lizard with all the depth of a Petri-dish. The occasional guffaw-inducing witticism doesn’t disguise the fact that the film is a bloated, insufferable bore that avoids any connection with not only the ‘real world,’ but with anything remotely resembling an involving narrative or engrossing characters.

I won’t bore you with a detailed recital of the plot. It’s some nonsensical babble about Benedict (Andy Garcia) demanding repayment by Danny Ocean (George Clooney) and his gang of thieves of the money they stole from his Las Vegas casino in the first film (at least I think that happened in the first film; it has evaporated from my mind). Their attempts to find a score that pays enough for the repayment leads them afoul of a master thief (Vincent Cassel). Nothing happens of any great interest, really, and this nothing happens to people we couldn’t give a toss about. A long menu of Hollywood stars, plus a surprise cameo by, uh, a Hollywood star, barely raises the eyelids. As in math, nothing times nothing equals, well, nothing.

Director Steven Soderbergh gives us a stylishly good-looking nothing though. Why, for instance, flash the subtitle “Amsterdam” across the screen when you can flash it one letter at a time, with each letter over a different location in Amsterdam. Hey, that’s hip and cool and dryly interesting, right? Huh? Sorry, what was that? Excuse me, I nodded off for a while.

A solipsistic little puff of wind, Ocean’s 12 gives the impression that the stars and filmmakers wanted a bit of a holiday lark in some flashy European locations so they cooked up the idea for this film. Unfortunately, the joke’s on the audience.

Ocean’s 12 is available on DVD. You have been warned.

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Directed by Steven Soderbergh
Written by George Nolfi, based on characters created by George Clayton Johnson & Jack Golden Russell

Starring:
Brad Pitt....Rusty Ryan
Catherine Zeta-Jones....Isabel Lahiri
George Clooney....Danny Ocean
Julia Roberts....Tess Ocean
Andy Garcia....Terry Benedict
Bernie Mac....Frank Catton
Don Cheadle....Basher Tarr
Matt Damon....Linus Caldwell
Elliott Gould....Reuben Tishkoff
Robbie Coltrane....Matsui
Jeroen Krabbé....van der Woude
Vincent Cassel....François Toulour
Eddie Izzard....Roman Nagel

Good Night, and Good Luck

Minimalist and pellucid, George Clooney’s Good Night, and Good Luck (2005) invokes the ghost of a sociopolitical struggle from 1950s America and uses it to illuminate striking parallels between the McCarthy era and the current Neocon-dominated period in the United States.

Great character actor David Strathairn, a regular in John Sayles films, plays TV newsman Edward R. Murrow as he takes on Senator Joe McCarthy and his witch hunt for ‘Communist subversives.’ The gutsy mano-a-mano is precipitated by the dismissal of a member of the Air Force who is alleged to have family connections to the Communist Party. Condemned without trial, the pilot is not allowed to see the evidence against him and is not afforded the chance to answer his accusers. Producer Fred Friendly (Clooney) supports Murrow in his pursuit of McCarthy, which brings the newsman and his production team into conflict with William Paley (Frank Langella), the head of CBS, as the show loses sponsors and is put under political scrutiny and pressure.

Through a spare and unobtrusive attention to period detail and effective character sketches, Good Night, and Good Luck builds a convincing verisimilitude that results in an absorbing story. Murrow's newscasts are dramatized in the newsroom using actual newsreel footage of McCarthy, which Straithairn interacts with, and there are some nice touches that capture the pre-computer age tv news business. Friendly, for instance, cues Murrow by crouching down by his feet and tapping on his leg with a pencil. The period cameras, sets, and broadcasting equipment all look authentic, and the gorgeous black and white photography give an enduring sense of time and place.

With a refreshing lack of loquacity, the film strips the story to its core, though there is the puzzling inclusion of an entirely superflous subplot involving a husband and wife who work in the newsroom, a storyline that needlessly hogs screentime. Other than that, the story proceeds fluidly in a series of vignettes that are separated by footage of a vintage jazz band that sing old songs that appear to indirectly comment on the action (or was it my imagination?).

Good Night, and Good Luck argues that news media must abandon the necessity to blindly (and blandly) provide two sides to every story and should, out of an almost sacred duty, take a stand to expose moral hypocrisy, especially in our political leaders. Though it's perhaps presented with oversimplicity, it is a message that has, unfortunately, much relevance in our current era of lackadaisical, unquestioning media. The film also throws cold water on the notion, popular in the current U.S. administration, that disagreement with the government indicates lack of patriotism. In Murrow's own words, "We must not confuse dissent with disloyalty." The movie is in part a warning to guard against the restriction of freedoms by those who seek to repress opposing views.

Thankfully unpedantic, Good Night, and Good Luck delivers its message in a crisp, interesting, engaging slice of actor-oriented cinema.

Good Night, and Good Luck is available on DVD.

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Directed by George Clooney
Written by George Clooney and Grant Heslov

Starring:
David Strathairn....Edward R. Murrow
George Clooney....Fred Friendly
Frank Langella....William Paley
Jeff Daniels....Sig Mickelson
Patricia Clarkson....Shirley Wershba
Robert Downey Jr....Joe Wershba