Superman Returns (with Oliver Harper)

[00:00:04] Welcome to Movie Oubliette, the film review podcast for movies that most people have mercifully forgotten. I'm Dan. And I'm Conrad. And in each episode, we drag a forsaken film out of the Oubliette. Discuss it and judge it to decide whether it should be set free. Or whether it should be thrown back and consigned to oblivion forever. Movie Oubliette

[00:00:29] Review the films others tend to forget. Come with us and let the movie Oubliette. Welcome to episode 177 of Movie Oubliette, the cross-continental podcast for forgotten fantastical films with me, Conrad, sweating profusely in Cambridge, UK.

[00:00:52] Yes, and me, Dan, trying to work out how to install child car seats here in Melbourne, Australia. We focus on forgotten fantasy, sci-fi and horror films because we love ghosting our exes for five years, out of control crystal water gardens and cannibalistic Pomeranians. Of course. So it's hot, Conrad. It's summer. It's summer. We've got a heat wave here.

[00:01:20] It's reaching the heights of 31, which I'm sure doesn't impress you. That's the ideal temperature in Australia. What are you talking about? Yeah, this is true. But I mean, if you bear in mind, it was like 15 last week. So it's a bit steep. Yeah. Wow. Yeah. So we're all sweating cobs here. How about you fighting with your child seats? Yeah.

[00:01:48] So my sister and her two kids are coming to visit and stay with us for a while. So we've had to buy some car seats and I don't have a child. So this is a new experience trying to install car seats. There's just so many straps. There's just bits that go everywhere. I just don't know where anything goes. It's been quite an education. I can imagine. And you don't want to get any of it wrong, do you? Of course.

[00:02:15] Because you want child to be secure. Yeah, exactly. So that's what we've been doing today. But yes, it's been educational. So Conrad, anything in the mailbag for today? Yes. And we have a new patron. So hello to Joseph. Thanks for supporting the show. Hello, Joseph. Yeah. Welcome on board.

[00:02:41] Yes, we heard from Matthew Faggiani on 28 Weeks Later. He said, hugely underrated movie. I love it. Oh, yeah, I agree. People, please. We covered that one. Wicked Person got in touch to comment on my reference about phantom cars being digitally removed from Lord of the Rings. Oh, yes. And he said, the idea that a car is in Lord of the Rings is fairly widely believed, but it does not appear

[00:03:11] to be true. What it seems to be down to is that part of how they achieved the Hobbit homes was having chimneys with smoke pots inside them. So in the scene when Sam remarks that this is the farthest he's ever stepped beyond the Shire, there is what is meant to be a chimney with smoke in the background. But people have spread the rumor that it's a cloud of dust being raised by a car driving by on a road in the background. Oh. There you go. Oh, OK. I did not know that. No, I did not know that.

[00:03:40] I feel like there's a lot of trivia and details about Lord of the Rings that everyone seems to know. The only one I always remember is, of course, Vigo breaking his toe when he kicks the helmet away. Yes. Right. Everyone remembers that one. And, of course, we heard from Serge of Cold Crash Pictures. Hello, Serge. Hello, Serge. And he says, 28 weeks later was the first film I saw in lockdown.

[00:04:08] And after five years of hindsight, I really think it's more optimistic than people give it credit for. It imagines a government whose number one priority is saving millions of people at any cost instead of millions of dollars. So you might say, they're killing thousands in order to prevent the spread of infection. Yeah, that's bad. But can you imagine if they were doing it just to keep Applebee's open? Yeah, that's a good point. It is a good point. It's a very good point.

[00:04:38] Yeah, I hadn't thought of that. So thanks, everyone, for getting in touch. We always love hearing from you. Yes, we do. So, Dan, what will we be doing today? Yes. Well, I'll just go grab it. Wow. I think I'm in the Fortress of Solitude. Wow. Is Marlon Brando there? Only in some sort of weird crystal hologram thing. Okay. Oh, I think the movie's on this sort of pedestal.

[00:05:08] A lot of crystals. Shouldn't drop them in the water or anything. Okay. Coming back. Welcome back, Dan. Yes. So what do you have for us? I think the location might be a clue. Oh, yes. It might be a dead giveaway. It is, of course, from 2006, Superman Returns. Yeah.

[00:05:30] The belated sequel superhero movie directed by Bryan Singer with writing credits from Michael Doherty, Dan Harris, and Bryan Singer with the cast of Brandon Routh, Kate Bosworth, Kevin Spacey, James Marsden, Parker Posey, and Frank Langella. Yeah. I always forget that Michael Doherty was one of the screenwriters on this movie. Yeah. Yes. So what happens in this movie?

[00:06:00] Well, after a five-year absence investigating his home planet, Krypton, the Man of Steel, Superman returns to Earth. Herein unfolds two separate movies. One with Superman pining over his love, Lois Lane, who now has a five-year-old son and is engaged to Cyclops, I mean, Richard, the other movie, follows Lex Luthor in his quest for real

[00:06:25] estate in the form of sharp, pointy, mostly uninhabitable, grown crystal islands with the help of Superman's Fortress of Solitude. Oh, and let's throw in a plummeting aeroplane and bulletproof eyeballs in the mix to keep us all enthralled. However, after Lois accidentally orchestrates her and her son's own kidnapping, finally, Superman and Lex Luthor go head-to-head in the final act of the film.

[00:06:53] Will Lex, Kitty, Kuma, and the other dim-witted henchmen kill Superman? Or will Richard come to the rescue to only be betrayed by everyone he loves and Superman himself just because he got vegetable and tofu wraps that one time? We'll find out in Superman Returns. We will, and we'll be joined by a special guest. Yes, yes we will.

[00:07:30] Joining us today is the creator and host of one of the best retrospective review channels on YouTube, who's also written and directed highly respected documentaries and accidentally become the go-to editor for 80s-style action movies. It is, of course, returning champion and my Laserdisc-collecting spirit guide, Oliver Harper. Hello, sir. Hello, Dan. Hello, Conrad. Welcome back. Welcome back. How have you been? Yeah, I've been very good. Very busy the last few months.

[00:08:00] It's been absolutely chaotic, editing a film, editing a documentary, and juggling YouTube as well. A bit of a nightmare being a one-man band, essentially. Yeah. Wow. But yeah, I'm coping. So what are the new things you have in all of those categories that we should be looking out for? Well, most of the stuff I've been working on is out next year. So we have a new action movie. Oh, wow. I edited called Lion Fist, which is kind of somewhat inspired by the Karate Kid in places.

[00:08:29] It's got some kind of B-movie action stars returning with Gary Daniels is in it and Kurt McKinney. And obviously, Kurt McKinney was the star of No Retreat, No Surrender from 1985. So I've been doing a documentary on that, celebrating its kind of legacy and covering the sequels, which had no connection to the film. And it was massive in Germany. So you have this other series, which is called Karate Tiger. And all the films are renamed Karate Tiger.

[00:08:58] And even Bloodsport was called Karate Tiger 4, something like that. Oh, wow. So it's very confusing. Best of the best is Karate Tiger 5. What? So all that's covered. Yeah, it's mad. Absolutely mad. So yeah, very amusing stuff. Right. So that's two action films you've done now? Yes. Yes. Two I've edited. Yeah. And this one was a really quick turnaround. So it was a bit of a struggle. But yeah, I managed to get it done in time. And now it's currently just being graded at the moment.

[00:09:28] So and we've got a composer involved. He's doing the music. And he's been told to go in the direction of something like Cobra Kai with the music. So I was like, oh, OK. OK. Interesting. You can't get Bill Conti. You get someone else, you know, to sort of recreate that music. Yeah. That sounds amazing. I don't know how you find the time, to be honest. Nor do I, Conrad, to be honest. So that's the thing. When you do these big projects, I have to sort of put retrospectives on the side because,

[00:09:57] you know, trying to edit a film and trying to creatively write is really difficult. And so I sort of put out stuff which is kind of easier for me to do. But then people complain and go, oh, Wally, I don't want this. Can you do a retrospective instead? I'm like, I don't have the time. So just give it a month or two, OK? Yeah. Time flies. And this year has flown by. Wow. Yeah. It's quite scary. As a kid, all you're waiting for is Christmas and birthdays, right? Yeah. You don't have a job. Everything goes by so slowly.

[00:10:25] When you get a job, blimey, it ticks away at this age. Yeah. Where's my life gone? Yeah. All of a sudden, it's the summer and all the summer movies are coming out. So that's what we're talking about today. It's the revival of a very famous franchise, Superman. He's returning to theatres in yet another reboot. But there were previous attempts to reboot Superman. And that's what we're going to be looking at today because I think it often gets overlooked.

[00:10:55] Superman Returns, Bryan Singer's movie from 2006. Oliver, what's your life experience with Superman Returns? Well, OK. If we go back to 2005, I was on this website forum. The website was called Superman Cinema. Ah. And they had a forum called The Fortress of Solitude. And that's where everyone went to talk about the Christopher Reeve movies.

[00:11:20] And once this was announced that Bryan Singer was going to be doing Superman, I think it was 2004, because obviously the Superman flyby thing had come to an end with McG directing. And Bryan Singer obviously famously sort of brought back the superhero films around the same time as Sam Raimi with X-Men. And then X-Men 2 was really big, wasn't it? It was still a great sequel.

[00:11:40] So when he kind of pitched his idea for a new Superman film, which would be this kind of sequel to Superman 2, ignoring Superman 3 and 4, everyone was quite excited. Because we'd been through this weird process of them trying to reboot Superman. And famously with Tim Burton, Nicolas Cage was going to be Man of Steel. And John Peters had famously purchased the rights and the soul kinds. And he had all these mad ideas of giant spider and polar bears as guards at the Fortress of Solitude. Wow.

[00:12:10] Superman didn't fly, which he claimed was like his outfit was too faggy or something like that. You know, awful things he would say, which he also would deny when he was famously interviewed for that documentary, Superman Lives, you know, what happened, whatever. So all that stuff in the background, me as a Superman fan, I was so worried about what they were going to do. And then Bryan Singer comes in, I'm just going to stick to the Richard Donner universe and do this new take. Great. Really happy about that.

[00:12:37] So when they put out video journals online, very low res now when you watch them. But the process of making the film was all quite exciting because you've got the John Williams score being used in the background. They're showing you the sort of concept designs and Marlon Brando is going to be back in it. Obviously, they paid for his likeness, which cost a fortune. But that obviously gave them the opportunity to then do the Richard Donner cut Superman 2. So they cleared all that legal rubbish surrounding it all. And on this forum, there was this guy who was commenting about the making of the film.

[00:13:04] But clearly someone on the production who was kind of leaking out little bits of information and kind of got me concerned about how bad Kate Bosworth's wig was for Lois Lane and all these other little bits going on. And I was like, oh, a bit concerned. Then they put out Cambridge Evening News newspaper. You know, Conrad would know that paper. And I think one of the pages into it, it showed you the costume of Brandon Ralph as Superman.

[00:13:30] And I was like, I'm not sure about this because it's like the colours are all wrong. It's kind of intense there with the famous trunks are there. I think it's a lot smaller in terms of like proportions and a big massive anorak cape. I was like, oh, I don't know. I'm not sure about this. But they put the teaser out. The teaser was amazing. Still one of the best teasers for a movie with Brando's voice and all this stuff. And I was a projectionist at the time when this came out at Cineworld in Cambridge. And I remember the BBC were looking for people to talk about the film.

[00:13:59] And someone had phoned me up through a friend of mine. And it was also a little bit too late because I was like, oh, I've seen the film yet. I'm going to be seeing it tonight to preview it before it plays for a general audience. And I watched it and I kind of sat there after watching the film thinking I'm not sure. I couldn't collect my thoughts about it. I was expecting it to have a lot more action. I wanted to really connect with the material and I didn't. There was parts of it I liked, but other parts I was very frustrated with or just wish they had covered more things and not repeat themselves.

[00:14:29] So, yeah, I was always a bit on the fence with Superman Returns. And then, you know, I obviously bought it like everyone else did on DVD and then eventually Blu-ray. I've gone back to it a number of times. And there's parts when you watch it in isolation. It's very good. And other parts where you think it's too long, not enough action. It plods along. You know, it's got a myriad of problems. But I think the intent behind it all was quite good. But it's a frustrating watch as a fan of Richard Donner's Superman and what they're going to do with it. And weirdly, it ends up not being a sequel.

[00:14:59] It ends up being this kind of weird hybrid of a remake and somewhat of a lackluster kind of take. Yeah, it does. It's a peculiar one. How about you, Dan? Because you come to this without so much exposure to the Richard Donner movie, I think. No. His sequels, certainly. Yeah. So, I'm probably the least Superman fan in the world. I've seen Superman 1 and possibly some of the others. I've recently watched Superman 2 for a minute, so that's fresh.

[00:15:29] And I never really watched any of the 90s stuff like Lewis and Clark or Smallville. I wasn't a huge fan. And I don't know, Superman for me is, I don't know, my least favorite superhero. He's like too strong. But then when he's in the skies, it's ridiculous. Because, I mean, come on. He just got glasses on. It just wasn't convincing for me. And so, yeah, I was never a big fan. So, is this a sequel to Superman 1?

[00:15:58] Because Superman 2, Lex does go to the Fortress of Solitude. But in Superman Returns, this is his first time discovering the Fortress, right? Yes. Well, they were saying it was a sequel to Superman 2 because he then would leave Lois, then come back. And implying that he's left Lois and also he then slept before he'd left. Right. So, she's pregnant. And he comes back. Oh, he finds out it's his child.

[00:16:23] But, yeah, as you say, Lex does go to the Fortress in Sumerity Returns and doesn't understand why. You know, he points out that, oh, he's dead. You know, he thinks I'm his son. Yeah. So, he's already been there. Yeah. You know what I mean? So, that kind of, that didn't quite work. I think they may have written that for the audience to understand the situation. I don't know. Yeah. Yeah. Because there's also the fact that in Superman Returns, Lois doesn't know Superman is Clark, right? But in Superman 2, she definitely knows.

[00:16:51] Well, she knows, but then he wipes her memory with a super kiss. Oh, is that what happened? Yeah. I wasn't sure about that. Yeah. Because I haven't seen 3 and 4. I wasn't sure whether she was pretending or whether, yeah, the super kiss was like some sort of like Men in Black memory wipe or something. I'm not sure. Kind of is. Yeah. It also poses problems for the relationship because they tie off the relationship quite well in two. I think Superman's come to the conclusion he can't have a relationship with a human woman. It's not fair on Lois.

[00:17:21] It's dangerous for her. It's dangerous for him. Mm-hmm. So he erases her memory, commits to being Superman, and that's the end of the movie. But then apparently in this one, he's gone away for five years and she's been pining the whole time. Yeah. So it doesn't quite track. So you're right, Oliver. It's not quite a sequel to 2. Yeah. It's not even a sequel to the Richard Donner cut of 2. It's sort of like a in the spirit of 1 and 2 semi-reboot cul-de-sac.

[00:17:48] Because you've also got the problem that he went away for five years but he's come back and all of a sudden there are flat screen TVs and flip phones and it's 2006. Yeah, it's not the 80s anymore. No. They had intended to have a different opening to the film where the kid who plays his son was supposed to narrate the opening. We have a comic book again like the first film. They have a cinema screen, auditorium, the curtains open, and the kid's doing a voiceover. And the comic book is Superman the movie. And then it goes into the title sequence and you see Krypton explode.

[00:18:16] So that is shown in the big three-hour documentary they did because they show you at the end where the kid's sitting there. It's so long. It would have made the film a lot longer. And also they dropped the famous kind of sequence where he travels back to Krypton, which is a really expensive visual effect where he goes in a crystal-like ship and discovers the remains of Krypton. And he gets there and it's like, oh, there's loads of Kryptonite. I better go home. Yeah. Being a bit silly. You should have known that. Yeah.

[00:18:41] But I think they're toying with the idea was they were going to re-release Superman Returns in IMAX and include this sequence. And that never happened because the film, despite, I think, made more than Batman Begins, but it just cost a huge amount of money. Yeah. And the profit margins were so small. They were like, well, we've got to scrap this. There was a lot of interviews with Bryan Singer around this time because Parts of the Caribbean 2 just destroyed Superman Returns at the box office. Right, yeah. And everyone was saying to Bryan Singer, oh, Superman Returns isn't performing well. It was like, well, it's made like 400 million.

[00:19:11] But in comparison to the Pirates sequels, they dominated the summer. But yeah, it got stronger views, though. I mean, from the press. I just think the press saw this film as a very sort of arthouse kind of slightly different take on the superhero genre. It was doing something that wasn't so formulaic. It had Bryan Singer behind it, of course. And everyone kind of loved what he did.

[00:19:31] But the fans were just like, we wanted something more than just let's have Lex kind of be obsessed with land again and treading over familiar ground and Superman not really doing much and being somewhat depressed throughout the film. It made it somewhat of an underwhelming experience. Yeah. It felt to me like it was like two separate movies.

[00:19:58] It's trying to be a sequel to the original Superman. So it's trying to appease those fans. But it's also being its own kind of reboot remake. And it's stuff that we've really seen. Like, we know how Superman became Superman. Like, we don't need to see him jumping and learning how to fly. We know his relationship with Lois. That's a given. So it feels like, oh, yeah, get on with the story.

[00:20:24] If you are already a Superman fan, you just want that to just go away and let's get on with the story. You've got the story of Lex trying to find land and the crystals and all that. And then you've got Superman not doing a lot of action and mainly pining for Lois. And that just goes along for, like, most of the movie separately. And then they finally connect at the end. And it just doesn't feel like there's any sense of direction that they would ever connect.

[00:20:51] Like, it felt like, yeah, you've got two movies going at the same time. Yeah. They don't really comment on each other, the two strands thematically. No. I mean, in terms of recreating the feeling of the Richard Donner movies, I think the whole team need to be commended. Because aesthetically, you've got the opening title sequence with the very distinctive graphics. You've got John Ottman adapting all of the John Williams themes to great effect.

[00:21:18] You've got Brandon Routh, who was 26 when the movie was released, same age as Christopher Reeve for the original movie. And I think, I mean, there are questions around his portrayal of Superman, but certainly he's very much channeling Reeve's version of Clark Kent, the bumbling guy in The Office. I thought that worked really well. And you think Kevin Spacey, who I know, along with the director, is kind of a triggering figure now, a controversial figure.

[00:21:47] But, I mean, he was flying high at the time. He was the most famous villain you could possibly get. And I think if you're looking for someone to follow on from Gene Hackman, I think he does a pretty good job of Lex Luthor, especially one who's more vengeful, more angry following his prison sentence. So I think that works. The one that got a lot of attention, a lot of criticism, I think, is Kate Bosworth's Lois. Some of it, I think, is the writing. Some of it, I think, is her age.

[00:22:14] Because I think she was 22 or 23 when the movie was released, whereas Margot Kidder was 30. And Margot's Lois is an experienced professional. She's very driven. She's incredibly intelligent. She's very fast. And she's so hyper-focused on her job that everything else in her life is a bit of a mess. And it's kind of endearing. And she's effortlessly charming and beautiful without really trying.

[00:22:41] Kate Bosworth's Lois is more, and this is the writing rather than her, I think, she's more pugnacious and self-righteous and difficult to like. And you don't really get a sense that she's great at her job, necessarily. And she doesn't have that sort of ditzy, forgetful element to her. I don't know. There are just some bits in it that really hit me as hitting the wrong note, like when she calls somebody a hooker or something at one point. He was too busy saving this hooker.

[00:23:10] She's proper bitchy in this way. She's very sort of like annoyed throughout because Superman had left her without saying goodbye. And she writes that article, Why the World Doesn't Need Superman, you know, just like, oh. For which you want a Pulitzer, yeah. I know. And then when he turns up on the, you know, he surprises her on the balcony where she's about to have a cigarette to sort of keep it in continuity that Lois smokes now and again. She goes, the world doesn't need you, nor do I, or something of that vein. I'm like, oh, you nasty woman.

[00:23:39] You know, so I never, yeah, I was never a fan of her because once she's too young, she's got an awful wig on, just ginormous forehead. Ah, I don't think so. Too bad. I always, she's more forehead now than woman. Yeah, she was, didn't fit the role. She's not well cast. Like, I think like Amy Adams is not well cast in Man of Steel. She's, I don't know who Amy Adams is playing in that film. She's just called a character called Lois and has no connection to the material.

[00:24:07] But in the case of Kate Bosworth, again, it's not a Lois I recognise. The Lois we saw, we grew up with, was Margot Kidder, or in the 90s with Terry Hatcher, who looked perfect as Lois Lane and she acted exactly like Lois Lane, where she's, as Conrad had highlighted, some of the, you know, the strength of Margot Kidder. Terry was, again, very similar. Also clumsy, got an ego, and she'd do anything to go get the news that she wants, all this sort of, the scoop she needs. Yes. And she's very selfish. But it's a charm to all that with her. Yeah.

[00:24:36] And she's like all gushy around Superman, but she's really quite bullish around Clark. And it's not really evident with Kate Bosworth. It's kind of the reverse with Kate Bosworth. She's kind of fine with Clark and quite bullish or kind of rude to Superman. Yeah, that's true. For obvious reasons. What did people think of Brandon Browth as Superman? I thought Brandon, you know, he looks the part, of course. He looks like Christopher Reeve. Sometimes he doesn't. In some angles, he's a spitting image of him. I just don't think he gets enough dialogue

[00:25:05] to really give a memorable performance. You know, I have a big soft spot for Brandon. And I think he's probably, has more to do with Clark in this, where he gets to be a little bit more the show who's acting chops. But as Superman, he's very sort of downbeat and doesn't have much to say. And that's complete opposite to Christopher Reeve, who was all smiles and charm as Superman, you know. And Brandon doesn't really have that. And the material there, and the direction is kind of pushing him in that direction.

[00:25:33] And it's not the right approach to handle Superman. Because again, the material is the thing that's kind of pushing him to be this somewhat dour character. Yeah, you're right. It's a really flubbed reappearance. That's the thing that I found the most surprising. Is that, you know, he crashes on the farm and he's reunited with his surrogate mother. But it's not sort of an emotional moment. He just sort of staggers up behind her and puts his hand on her back. And he doesn't say a word.

[00:26:01] And so the first line that we hear from Superman in this movie is, don't worry, I buried it this morning. Which is hardly a classic for the ages, is it really? Referring to the huge crystal that he brought home, which I'm not quite sure why he did. But anyway. It's like he took a massive dump in the garden. Yeah. And just said, oh, I buried it. Don't worry. And yet, when you get to the, probably the most celebrated sequence of this, which is the shuttle piggybacking on a 777 sequence where that's rescued. Ah, yes.

[00:26:31] Now, that's an impressive reveal and reintroduction to the character. So you kind of think, and I think Bryan Singer has said this in interviews since then, that if he'd cut the beginning off the movie and just started there, people would be engaged in the movie and be, see, what I remember fondly as a kid, yes, he's overpowered. Yes, he's not a very interesting character. It's a character that's difficult to write for. Let's put it that way. You have to find interesting ways to make him flawed, to give him an arc.

[00:27:00] But there was something just so optimistic. I mean, the catch line, of course, for the first movie was you'll believe a man can fly. And there was just this sense of optimism and joy and euphoria around this Boy Scout that would just show up and rescue people and do amazing things while the people of Metropolis cheered him on. And as a kid, it was just such a lovely thing to experience in the theatre. It was just a wonderful thing to watch. And you'd end up running around your garden with a towel wrapped around your neck with your arms outstretched.

[00:27:29] Oh, yes, I did that. Yeah. Oh, yes. I was known as a tea towel boy. All the builders will be building the extension back in the late 80s and I'll be running around the tea towels. Tea towel boy! They'd shout, you know. Amazing. So that's the spirit that you're expecting them to imbue the film with. But instead you get Mopey Guy talking about burying something in the garden. Right. And 35 minutes of nothing happening except people reproaching him

[00:27:58] for disappearing for five years. And he seems to spend the whole movie trying to figure out whether he still belongs because Lois has obviously trashed him in her own newspaper and got a prize for it. So there's just this sense that he's lost and unhappy and it's only through discovering that he has a son and that there's a legacy and he has a new reason for being and so on that he can readjust. I think that's the arc they're going for but it doesn't really make for a joyous film experience.

[00:28:29] It doesn't warrant its runtime. No, that's true. That story is ultimately quite wafer thin to be stretched out to nearly two and a half hours. Yes. And that's why you've got this sluggish pace throughout and if you've seen the deleted scenes it's kind of interesting stuff where you're seeing the reins have been burying the spacecraft. It's all great visual elements but again it would also kind of affect the story and that's why they dropped him returning to Krypton which I think would have been a great opening sequence. You wouldn't have had to

[00:28:58] have the shuttlecraft rescue being the actual opening of the movie because if you had that as the opening of the movie there isn't much else left to really get you excited because as the movie plays out the action is quite lacklustre and like when he's trying to save everyone in Metropolis it's all very quick and this happens and it's done and he flies out to the new Krypton that's been constructed by Lex with the green crystal or the crystals from the fortress and he just gets stabbed. I mean I have to ask as well

[00:29:26] did we like the Superman suit? I hated it. Wow. Really hated it. It's one of the worst Superman costumes. He's just like he's wearing like a swimsuit you know a diver would wear for the spandex sort of thing and the S is just this plastic thing shoved on so they have to make it smaller because they made it too big he couldn't move his arms around right? This big plastic lump on his chest and the cape is just this big anorak cape which I hated and the colours are all off

[00:29:55] but it all goes in step with really the colour palette of the movie where the production design takes on a very art deco more of a sort of throwback to the 1930s and 40s especially with The Daily Planet and its interior and exterior and everyone's wearing kind of beige and kind of brown outfits and then the film ends up with this kind of inherent muddy look with a wash of teal put over where the blues look icy blues and all of us apparently spent a fortune

[00:30:24] adding this teal effect and I was like God what have you done? Yeah because they shot it on these Panavision Genesis cameras which kind of lock it into this 2K resolution at most and Bryan Singer had shot Brandon Ralph's screen test on 65mm film he was like oh should I shoot on 65 and then this Genesis camera comes along I was like you mad man you could have shot it on yeah well he had the huge budget 65mm it would have looked stunning I don't know it looks I think the whole film needs to be regraded

[00:30:54] if they were going to put it out in 4K but they can't really it would just be an upscale won't it but going back to the costume it was I like that they kept the trunks and they kept sort of the look of Superman but the colours were all wrong and weirdly they dropped the S on the back of the cape I remember someone saying to me oh it was difficult for the visual effects guys to do I'm like well wait a minute you can create Jar Jar Jar Binks you can put an S on the back of his cape it ain't gonna be that difficult this is the second time

[00:31:23] we've had digital cape issues from this podcast this cropped up on the shadow as well when we did our previous episode with you where it disappeared in some shots because they couldn't manage it I was pleased to see for the new movie that's coming out that they've gone backwards somewhat I don't know if we want to ask Oliver for his opinion of that from what he's seen so far I'm used to it now I love how colourful it is with the James Gunn version and yellow S is on the back

[00:31:52] and he's got the right hair for Superman I mean Brandon Routh has the right hair for Superman because he's got the kiss curl in the hair but the hair's on the reverse side the partings are wrong this is nerdy stuff but it's like Clark has certain hair where he parts it on one side and when you Superman he parts it on the other and he's got the S in the hair but then Superman returns he has the S on the wrong side of his face that kind of bugged me I'm like come on man simple things but yeah if I was on set I'll be super nitpicky and his boots his bloody boots in the movie it's got

[00:32:22] I don't know like lifts on his feet like you know when Nike had done the boots for Batman to make it really comfortable for Michael Keaton just like this like Velcro like kids would wear like trainers right and they do the same with Superman returns they're not like designed by Nike as far as I'm aware but these big chunky boots with loads of S's all over the bottom of the boot just over designed over engineered stuff you know where Superman is kind of simple and they do kind of if you look at it it's a very simple outfit but when you get close

[00:32:52] it's all these tiny little S's everywhere I'm like this is just a bit too much you know it's that weird period isn't it of superhero costumes that kind of the 90s kind of style mixing into the 2000s where X-Men they weren't going to put them in the suits because it was embarrassing you know or look silly goofy and then they try to sort of combine that not look too silly but still retain the original design but you've got this kind of weird hybrid I think the costume designer said

[00:33:21] not everyone's going to like the look of the suit and yeah when I saw it I was like no I don't like it get rid of it yeah right I mean I felt like the suit wasn't too bad but I felt like Brandon's body type didn't quite suit it I don't know I felt like he was too blanky but he's still a muscly guy don't get me wrong he's tall isn't he he just didn't have the broadness that I'm used to in Superman he's a very

[00:33:51] top torso he's quite long so it's kind of all goes up and he's got this tiny S doesn't really like proportions wise with the S to his chest doesn't it all seems a bit out of whack yeah and with the sort of spandex sort of fabric of it it just made him look even longer and blankier like it didn't have the big broad shoulder that you that you see in with Christopher Reeve or Henry Cavill and yeah the colours the blue was too blue and maybe it's because

[00:34:21] the red was just not red at all it was like this kind of browny maroon colour which is kind of odd to see yeah you compare it to the Man of Steel movies where everything's just muted there's no colour at all it's just muted so it's yeah you were right maybe it's like a kind of in between like they wanted to go muted but still bright at the same time but maybe it's the grading that made it more blue than it should have been I'm not sure if you look at Man of Steel when you see the sort of

[00:34:51] behind the scenes stuff it's kind of the colours there for the most part it's not like really bright but it's like very different to what you see in the final product and Superman Returns kind of has that where some of the behind the scenes stuff oh that looks quite nice with the colour then you see it on film and you're like well what have you done here the early stuff they put out I think even the teaser trailer itself where they hadn't messed with the grading yet they hadn't applied that sort of teal effect that kind of gives you a window into what the film

[00:35:21] actually looked like before they released it they would fiddle with the colours yeah the highlight for me really for it is Kevin Spacey because he chews up the dialogue and he's having a blast playing Lex he was the guy everyone wanted even for the Tim Burton film they wanted Kevin Spacey right so he was always teed up to be Lex Luthor and kind of steals the show right

[00:35:50] because Brandon sadly isn't doing much yeah okay I don't know I don't have the history with Lex and what he's supposed to be is he supposed to be comical because he is quite comical in this movie what the film does is it still keeps a somewhat similar tone I think what it does successfully with the Donner films is that level of seriousness a bit of romance and comedy where as we saw in 2013 with Man of Steel they forget about the comedy and it becomes so straight it becomes a bit of a frustrating

[00:36:20] watch for if you want something a bit more light hearted Superman is all about being light hearted because it's Superman it's not Batman right so in Superman Returns they do deploy some good humorous moments and especially with Parker Posey where she sees the two dogs well one of them's left she goes weren't there two of those she's eating it the other dog's eating it so yeah I like Parker Posey's kitty as a replacement for Miss Tess Barker I think they've got that energy exactly Parker Posey she should have been Lois I think

[00:36:50] interesting she's older she looks like Lois and she's got that attitude which Lois should have right interesting yeah so my my only sort of exposure or history with Lex Luthor as a character is I think Smallville which I didn't really even watch but also like the animated universe of like Justice League and Superman and Lex and that sort of universe and he's always been very serious

[00:37:19] and very intelligent like much more intelligent than most other characters so it was so it was quite strange seeing him being so kind of silly and not really knowing what he was doing like he still had the master plan of taking over the world with real estate I guess but I don't know it just seemed ill-advised like it didn't sound it sounded like he didn't really know what he was doing but I guess that's that's him I mean I've watched Superman 2 recently and Gene Hackman

[00:37:48] is kind of that like that is the character that Lex is in that as well like he doesn't he's trying to swindle people he's more of a con man rather than an intellect yeah because Lex would change I think for the in 1980s with a John Byrne Superman comics called the Man of Steel comics where Lex sort of moved on to be this kind of entrepreneur kind of like you know billionaire who run companies and stuff where Lex was very much like in the Superman the movie just somewhat of a I don't know

[00:38:18] like the old days where he's like an evil scientist or something like that you know who's kind of scheming behind the scenes but he wasn't this tech billionaire who we see in the Lois and Clark TV show with Dean Cain and the animated show he had kind of influence yeah well this Lex again is very much cut from the same cloth as Hackman yeah right right right yeah I don't quite understand his real estate scheme this time because I'm not sure creating a continent out of volcanic crystals is going to create desirable beachfront property

[00:38:48] yeah and I'm also not sure that his claim that he's now untouchable because he has alien technology what alien technology you can grow crystals in water I'm not sure that's going to save you when the military attack it's he's a bit too stupid for me in this one Gene Hackman I always thought was you know a criminal mastermind his ultimate gold is a bit stupid but and he's surrounded by incompetent boobs unfortunately and people

[00:39:18] who have a conscience at the last minute so he's always frustrated in the end but I did think that he was a good adversary for Superman whereas in this one I'm not necessarily convinced yeah I think it's also because they don't really interact at all until the last act or towards the end there's no conflict between them yeah I don't know it's kind of odd like I'm still going to compare Superman 2 because in Superman 2 it does feel kind of similar in the fact

[00:39:47] you've got all these villains doing their own dastardly things separate from Superman like most of Superman 2 it's just a date night for Lois and Superman in the Fortress of Solitude while all of this bad stuff is happening and they're completely unaware and they kind of meet up in the third act which is the same in Superman Returns so it's yeah so you've got like plot A and plot B and they sort of just join up for the finale yeah but I found Superman 2 much

[00:40:17] more engaging though I loved seeing the three doing evil things and throwing cars around and stuff like that was amazing to watch whereas I don't know whether I enjoyed Lex doing whatever he was doing here just throwing crystals in water no it's not very exciting is it I think so that is one of the things the film is heavily criticized for the lack of action but so I looked at a timeline of key sequences and actually it's fairly similar to Superman 78 I mean the

[00:40:47] helicopter rescue in Superman 1978 doesn't come until 54 minutes in which is later than the plane rescue in Superman Returns and the whole dam breaking and rescuing Lois and so on that that's like one hour fifty so it's not actually dissimilar but that movie's got a lot of origin to set up and it's kind of fun anyway Superman 2 meanwhile you do have this cross-cutting with the super villains doing stuff so you look at the

[00:41:17] timeline of that and there's something ridiculous and exciting happening every ten minutes pretty much yeah and I think maybe that's kind of what people were thinking like you said Dan you've dispensed with the origin just give us a new villain and a plot and let's just go yeah why are we doing all of this character building navel gazing stuff yeah I mean I guess it's been 20 years right since the last Superman movie so they have to refresh our memories I guess yeah and ask the question you know

[00:41:46] why is he coming back do we still need him it feels as though it's meta the question that the movie is asking is he still relevant is there a need for this as entertainment I guess yeah yeah I felt bad for Richard because he raised Jason as a father for five years and then Lois is like still in love with Superman and then you find out that the kid is actually Superman's kid it just felt like are we encouraging infidelity

[00:42:16] like we're justifying it because Jason the kid is Superman's kid like I just felt bad for it like Richard wasn't portrayed as a bad partner to Lois like he's a good man he's a pilot he goes and saves everyone in his plane like if he wasn't there Superman wouldn't have survived so it's yeah I felt bad for him yeah Richard is supposed to be Superman without powers right yes that's all it's all played out to me but the whole sun aspect

[00:42:46] I remember that sort of came about out of the it wasn't really out the blue I think I kind of knew going in the kid was somewhat could be Superman's and when you see him throw the piano you're like oh okay that's his son and the kid's a bit weird he's just like they played up like he's got asthma and stuff all these kind of problems and the one he's introduced to Kryptonite wakes up these abilities which is kind of an interesting twist I thought I liked it I kind of wanted it to be explored more like I wanted the kid to develop

[00:43:16] more powers maybe but they had the piano scene and that's about it if they made a sequel then I think that would have happened but they would have put themselves Superman's got a kid now but then again the more recent Superman TV show he has two sons and he managed to pull that off very successfully didn't he right yeah now it's time for Random Trivia well Dan what fascinating piece of trivia did you drag back from a dead planet today

[00:43:45] yes wow Oliver you probably already know this and they do kind of briefly mention it in the behind the scenes but the character of Gertrude Vanderwerth at the start of the film who bequeaths her wealth to Lex Luthor is played by Noelle Neill who famously played Lois Lane first in 1948 Superman serial again in the Atom Man versus Superman serial in 1950 and then in the adventures of Superman TV

[00:44:15] series from 1952 to 1958 and famously a lot of the Lois Lane actresses have cameoed and subsequent Superman properties right yes a cameo in Superman the movie well the extended cut you see the original Superman Kirk Allen on the train with Lois as a young girl and then opposite you've got the same actress in Superman Returns playing her mother right and also in Superman Returns we have Jimmy Olsen from the George Reeves show

[00:44:45] the barman who talks to you know talks to Jimmy and Clark you know can't remember the gentleman's name now slipped my mind but yeah he's one of the cameos as well right right right yeah another really fun bit of stunt casting of course Richard Branson is the captain of the plane during the shuttle launch because of his trailblazing space flight escapades we're all sick of billionaires with their space programs

[00:45:15] now on yeah they've all got one and they're all going up in flames regularly so maybe this was predictive I don't know yeah this film also sort of showcased a new Boeing triple seven wasn't it plane that was a big deal at the time not sure if this Boeing plane has any issues but considering Boeing's reputation you know the last few years it's not doing so well okay and that's our trivia

[00:45:50] Oliver you did talk about kind of the visuals a little bit but I quite like the visuals like watching the behind the scenes there's a ton of practical effects being utilized in this movie that I did not expect and it kind of does show on screen especially with the crystal island like that looked phenomenal on screen and just seeing the ginormous set that they made it's incredible there is some wonderful imagery in the film don't get me wrong because I

[00:46:19] bitched and moaned about the grading but there's some great like long shots where you see Superman and he lands on the island he's walking along he's in the distance really well really good cinematography and then when Krypton's been lifted up it's always kind of been lifted out to sea some really striking stuff funny thing is we've watched behind the scenes there's loads of like Brandon practicing how to fly got all this wire work and when you watch the film they've doubled it with CGI and you get so close to the camera why did you do that

[00:46:50] I swear you must have shot this in live action why would you replace it with a CG rubbery version of Brandon I think they were being a bit too confident what they think they could do at the time in 2006 with Sony image works who did the visual effects and they don't quite hold up when it's Brandon you know it's Brandon within camera it looks pretty good yeah it does look really good like so they didn't use as much of the practical stuff because there's a ton of footage of green screen footage with Brandon on rigging and flying

[00:47:20] into the ceiling like it looks incredible in the behind the scenes oh yeah and yet strangely as beautiful as the film is it does flub major moments I mean his introduction I've already talked about but also the romantic flight where John Ottman's using interesting interpolations of the love theme from John Williams original score but the whole sequence feels really poorly structured and it feels as though Hollywood should know at this point how to do a magical flying scene that

[00:47:50] makes the audience sort of well up with tears at how beautiful it is you know we've had E.T. How to Train Your Dragon has amazing flight scenes Buckbeats flight in The Prisoner of Azkaban Alfonso Cuaron's movie they're all really well structured flying sequences that are edited and composed in such a way that they reach this natural sort of beautiful moment that just unfolds whereas this one is really disjointed and awkward and it

[00:48:19] just left me cold and you can't see anything half the time it's so dark when they're flying around it's like what it's a big brown black muddy mess you know and the first one you can see everything beautifully you know what I mean when they go above the clouds the moon is kind of lighting them it works wonders but this it's like come on then let's go fly around you know that sort of attitude and I do like the little moment though when she hugs him she goes oh I forgot how warm you are yeah and it's the one moment where

[00:48:49] I thought John Ottman really puts a foot wrong because he's interpolating the themes in interesting ways but they're really awkward like there's no natural flow from one bar to the next it really feels like a hack job it's not very good but otherwise I think I think the overall score though is pretty good for Ottman I think everyone sort of thinks well John Williams theme couldn't be modernised you think well you can do it you can still keep it the same but also does a really good job of taking new

[00:49:19] elements of what he's written and combining the two and for the most part they fit together quite well because Lex never had a theme of his own it was the march of the villains which is kind of deployed with Otis dun dun dun dun dun dun dun it was always that clumsy kind of like play of music and with this you've got this kind of big heavy percussion that goes with Lex Luthor and it works a treat and also the whole plane rescue sequence you know deploys Summer Williams and Ottman's own music and it's a really

[00:49:49] well composed moment and when Superman recharges at the end it's got this kind of Walt Disney-esque choir that come in when he sort of recharges up to me that kind of really sort of threw in some great nostalgia of music of the past I think maybe it doesn't quite have the sound of say the London Symphony Orchestra it doesn't quite have that type of sound to it maybe down to it it's how it's been mixed I don't know I enjoyed the score as well but maybe it's the whole nostalgia kicking in because

[00:50:18] hearing John it's amazing I was just singing along the whole movie it's John Williams sings where's John Williams come on play me some more of that I can't recall the theme to Man of Steel or any of the modern Superman movies so yeah hearing something so iconic is amazing Man of Steel because I discussed this in my retrospective so it will be out by the time this podcast is published but the Man of Steel

[00:50:48] theme is only deployed in its full grandness doing the end credits never used in the film and there's no place to really put it and I sort of summarised that the Man of Steel theme is just actually really good trailer music which they use in the trailer for the final one they put out got everyone excited it's just trailer music it's not really a Superman theme that's just my opinion man coming to

[00:51:18] you live from the movie Oobly at theater it's the prestigious Moobly Awards yes it's Moobly Awards where we nominate our favourite ice breath fire quenching parts of the film in a number of Crystal Island lifting categories best quote okay my favorite quote comes from Lex Luthor he says gods are selfish beings who fly around in little red capes and don't share their power with mankind I thought

[00:51:48] that's a brilliant line in the film I think Lex gets the best dialogue in the movie and I think that one little standout piece is the one that always impressed me I think they use it in the trailer it's trailer fudder line isn't it yes yes how about you Dan my favourite quote is when Perry White is talking to Lois I think he's trying to convince her to write another article about Superman and she's trying to say but I wrote that article about why we don't need Superman and she

[00:52:17] said that she got a Pulitzer for it and then Perry White says nobody remembers what you got one for just that you got one I think he's referring to Academy Awards and Pulitzer prizes yeah that's a good line how about you Conrad favourite quote my favourite was Superman to Lois when they're having their awkward reunion and he says to her you wrote that the world doesn't need a saviour but every day I hear people crying for one

[00:52:49] it's a good line it is a good line best hair or costume oh costume it's not going to be the Superman costume god no as I mentioned the whole film is very brown and beige so I'm going with a brown outfit it's Lex Lex's corduroy suit he has in the film where he finds because they've got the kryptonite and they've got shards of it and he picks up the piece where he's going to stab Superman later on

[00:53:18] that's a cracking outfit it's like he's just been hunting you know what I mean that's an outfit so I love that because everything else is really somewhat bland maybe Superman silver suit at the beginning but you only see it briefly and it's kind of more in the deleted scenes but that could have been the best costume yeah right yes how about you Conrad for me I always thought that Parker Posey stole the movie in terms of her costumes because she's very much channeling Valerie Perrine from the original movies and

[00:53:48] she has this fantastic nest of black crimped hair at the beginning of the movie and I thought gosh crimping I haven't seen that in a while it's all right most naughty moment I did struggle with this bit but I put down Mountain Dew product placement oh right so much of it that's a good thing because Transformers has it they turn into a Mountain Dew machine

[00:54:17] that's got to be a 2000s moment right wow very 2000s yeah it is I went for something that's very 2006 specifically oh yes the flip phone yeah because this is its peak yes because the year after iPhones came out for the very first time and then it was all over for flip phones yeah well spotted sir favorite scene

[00:54:47] yeah I think I mentioned it earlier where Superman recharges I kind of like that they play the idea that you know it's always implied that his power comes from the sun really amplifies it in this when he after he's still been stabbed they've pulled a bit of it out still inside him but he flies up to the sky and all queues up with a wonderful piece of music by John Oppmann and then he sort clenches his fist and flies down and yeah I loved all that moment but as as I was there's like the whole

[00:55:16] saving the plane is pretty cool but I think singing recharge is the moment for me yeah I do think that's quite that's one of the moments when you get the magic yes and in a new way something that you hadn't seen before so I agree with that my pick is the obvious one it's the rescue the plane rescue just because it's really exciting and I think that's where you get to see Bryan Singer's chops as an action director after all those X-Men movies it's really

[00:55:46] visually effective excellently edited great music from John Oppmann there's there's a great pace there's sort of setups and payoffs the stunt work with Lois flying around inside the plane it's incredible she gets pummeled and I love the baseball finale where you just suddenly cut to baseball and the camera tilts up and there's this plane coming towards them and just the cherry on top which is the old Superman going inside the plane and saying I hope this doesn't put you off flying statistically it's still the safest

[00:56:16] way to travel and I thought that is such a great tip of the cap to Reeves Boy Scout infomercial Superman moments because he would always do that at the end of these things yeah most cliche moment mine was the kid has asthma right but I feel like they don't do the normal thing that a movie would do where he loses his inhaler and they're trying to find it in time and then they save him and then he's fine and this it's the opposite he's

[00:56:46] incredibly strong that he throws a piano across the room yeah it's a bit of a red herring the asthma inhaler so I was just thinking of things like Mikey in Goonies and Sheila in Nightmare on Elm Street 4 Morgan in Signs Eddie in every version of It it's a lot of kids with asthma in dangerous situations yeah yeah it's true

[00:57:16] yeah cliche for me would be the incompetent henchmen like they they're just so dimwitted in this movie and clumsy they don't know what they're doing and yeah and one of them is Cal Penn as well like what is Kumar doing in this movie like it's so odd also having I don't think he has any dialogue either I don't think he has he's just brooding in the background and being mean

[00:57:46] that's it yeah best special effect for me it's it's a really quick moment but I love it when he catches the plane when it lands and he causes this ripple effect through the planes and it sort of breaks and it cuts then cuts to a close up that's a brilliant kind of moment just a cool visual with the music and it's sort of rippling as he stops it so yeah the suppression of the gravity on the plane that was a great effect I love that too yeah

[00:58:16] it's nice it's the sort of thing you could definitely not do in 1970s with miniatures no that's true yeah for me it was a moment that we haven't mentioned so far the bullet bouncing off of Superman's eyeball it's such a key scene I feel like it's apart from the plane rescue scene that is the scene that people remember yeah because when I was a projectionist I go into the auditoriums and to see

[00:58:45] people reacting to the trailer which had that moment in when it hits the eyeball the audience went eww sort of a grossed out get so close to the eye you know yeah favourite sound effect sound effect for me is recharges he flies back down and he strikes the ocean seabed it's kind of like really hard cut as it sort of explodes and he goes right

[00:59:14] into the core I suppose Wanda needs to sort of lift up new krypton I think it's a really good sound effect the majority of it is kind of the other one I thought of was when Jor-El appears and you've got that kind of whooshing sound fire fortress I thought that was good sound design nice moment how are you Conrad for me I'm always a sucker for a big hollow metallic sound so the

[00:59:43] groan as the planet on top of the daily planet building slowly unmoors itself and rolls off I do like a good ominous metallic groan yeah that's good well I mean the sound for me I like the super hearing sound where superman honing in on conversations because it has a very kind of artifact digital kind of robotic sound it's almost like he's using one of those spy

[01:00:13] microphones to listen in on people's conversations so it's a good effect it's not just like they've just put echo on it you know they've put through some processing yeah that's a good point because you must be picking up the vibrations from the bricks or something I don't know something yeah most funniest moment I mentioned earlier about Parker Posey sort of spotting that the dog's eating the other one yeah but there's a bit

[01:00:42] where Lex goes who's that boy's father and she goes Richard's he goes are you sure and the guy on the radio because he communicating as well and he's like yeah he's like thinks he's talking to him right and there's a moment where Clark's looking at the photo in the Daily Planet with her and Richard and then Jimmy comes up behind him just goes ha last and he cracks the glass and makes him jump you know yeah I thought it was a little good moment of Jimmy you know just sort of popping up out of nowhere

[01:01:12] to sort of talk and and there's a bit when the little kid sees Superman on the TV in the Daily Planet then looks at Clark me you know sort of look in his eye those little moments yeah funniest moment for me is I'm sure it's actually intentional but it's the horror jump scare as Lois sees the array of Lex Luthor's wigs

[01:01:41] on the spot like there's a proper like horror music cue okay and that's our movies hello I'm Juan Carlos Fresnadillo I directed 28 weeks later you're

[01:02:11] listening now to movie Oubliet okay final verdicts should Superman Returns fly out of the Oubliet to be praised by the citizens of Metropolis as a cinematic hero or should it be stabbed repeatedly with a kryptonite shard and drop from the crystal cliffs into the depths of the Oubliet lost for eternity Oliver Superman returns oh man I'm really

[01:02:40] conflicted on this I'm happy either way if it escapes or gets sent back to you know prison as it were it's because it's got moments I enjoy other moments where it just fails completely and the pasting problems and like I the lack of action and how much I hate that Superman suit and it's just like there's loads of potential there it just needed something more I think the script needed more work

[01:03:09] and I think maybe down to them rushing it out to avoid to avoid any legal problems with the creators of Superman there's always something going on with them and Warners I don't know I'm happy to go back away and stay there but yeah I've always been conflicted with this movie so I'd let you guys decide all your loyal patrons to decide yeah I mean for me I mean not being

[01:03:39] a huge Superman fan I thought each key scene in isolation was really good I actually liked certain parts of the movie in isolation as a whole as a sort of complete story it did quite work for me like it just didn't have any sense of drive towards anything it just had a big middle section that was just not really going in any direction and then so the final

[01:04:09] act felt kind of like I guess this is happening like it didn't have any sense of wow we've built to this one moment and I really liked the effects I thought I think it ages really well in terms of like CGI and practical effects it's one of those movies that uses a lot of practical effects still even that big jumping scenes seeing the behind the scenes it's like wow he's actually just on a big wire

[01:04:39] this is not CGI it's like this is pretty incredible I have to say I enjoyed it better than the Man of Steel Snyderverse Superman movies I really hate them like they're just too serious and then this has not it's not completely serious but there are moments of comedy which I enjoyed but yeah I don't know whether I would recommend it to people I think the Christopher Reeve movies are a lot a lot better than this one yeah they

[01:05:08] are and you have to admire the attempt to recreate the spirit of those original Richard Donner movies one and two I think it does quite well at that in some ways but you know and it's it's nice wish fulfillment as well it's like when Neil Blomkamp said that he was going to do a sequel to Aliens and ignore three and four and anything else that came after that you think oh yeah that'll be really fun but I think back in 2006 we learned that these legacy sequels they

[01:05:38] don't really work and as much as it's fun to get the nostalgia points I don't think it pays off ultimately I think it's probably better to do what the new movie has done which is just start again with a new interpretation and a new tone and a new cast and just move on just accept that the Donner movies are what they are yeah it's over long there's not enough action in it the characterizations don't work particularly well and I just wasn't invested

[01:06:07] in it particularly apart from the plane rescue so I think it's been forgotten for a reason I think it should go back I think so yeah it's weird also to do a legacy sequel with none of the original cast like you know Indiana Jones still has Harrison Ford in it you can't have a legacy sequel with a completely different actor it's weird yeah it is strange I think they should just call it Superman 5 if they were going to just do a continuation to avoid any somewhat confusion are we ignoring this and that

[01:06:37] let's call it Superman 5 and then off you go to the races yeah you know at least it's not as confusing as the Halloween series where they just keep branching off in different ways every movie is called Halloween and you don't know which one you're talking about well I think that's us decided pretty much two votes to one not sure but let's just check in with our patrons to be sure hello Gary hello give us the patrons vote please

[01:07:10] they've decided to throw it back ah okay so they did agree wow me and Conrad yeah quite overwhelmingly film aficionado said after re-watching Superman Returns I can confidently say that time has not improved this dull slog of a movie yeah I had zero investment in the perfunctory seemingly AI generated plot it serves as a direct sequel to the Richard Donner movies but the romantic chemistry between Superman and Lois was the

[01:07:40] linchpin of those films is absent Superman Returns presents our hero as detached and a selfish alien it's not convincing why Lois let alone the audience would like much less love this person the movie's love triangle is bereft of conflict because her fiance Richard's more interesting and arguably heroic than Superman in just about every way finally the child subplot is so extraneous that the kid might as well have just been a figment of everyone's imagination wow

[01:08:09] wow oh and Dr. Doggy was more succinct he said I've only got one thing to say man of stool oh oh dear yeah but by on the reverse just to show some balance like the BBC iconographer said this movie is about fathers and sons my first son was born the week this movie came out I cried like a fool this movie still gets me every time of course it has its flaws but Brandon Routh was incredible in this role

[01:08:39] it has so many beautiful moments I'll defend this movie forever thanks for picking it so it's not everyone that has it out for the movie but unfortunately it is the majority so let me just shift this thing with kryptonite and back you go well Oliver it's been amazing having someone as well versed in Superman as you to help us out with this revisit where can people find more of your

[01:09:08] amazing content well you can go to YouTube just put in Oliver Harper and you better find my stuff very quickly there's a lot to go through I've been around for a while but I'm happy to sort of get a lot of these thoughts on Superman Returns off my chest because I had reviewed the movie maybe about eight or nine years ago and I've always in the back of my mind thought I should go back to it at some point and readdress certain things but I think this podcast has helped

[01:09:38] me get through some of the problems I have healing you know just sort of clarify you know so I'm not the only person you know who has these problems I think it's kind of a movie that is universally kind of over the years everyone has a similar point of view on it yeah I think so and listeners if you want to follow movie you can follow us on all platforms as movie and you can also email us directly at movie dot oobly at gmail dot com yes and

[01:10:08] you can support the show at patreon to get access to bonus content nominate films for us to cover vote on the final verdict or be an executive producer like chazilla isaac sutton dr doggy surge iconographer ryan a potter and nick hardy oh yes we've got a merchandise on redbubble and a youtube channel and of course if you haven't rated and reviewed us already please do because it does help us out a lot

[01:10:37] and spread the word yes and it appears on our home page automatically it does yeah all right conrad i guess we should reveal what we're doing in our next episode yes we're going back to the 80s and we're even shifting medium into animation for the second time this year we'll be watching the 1982 american animated fantasy adventure film the secret of nim

[01:11:07] ah i have not seen this movie and i talked to my wife and she's seen it this is very rare that she's seen a movie i haven't seen so i'm really keen to check this out and i've heard lots of good things oh good well yes i mean this is one of my childhood staples it kind of falls into that arena of surprisingly dark 80s children's movies i think that's what it tends to get thought of as oh great

[01:11:37] okay bye for now everyone goodbye goodbye statistically it's still the safest way to travel