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I loved this film.
What I think some people might be missing about the "homage" stuff is this: it's not just a great example of a film that's part of a franchise doing what (some) comics had to learn to do years ago - i.e. reference the good things from past incarnations, ignore the bits you think are bad. It's also there because this is a film about our relationship with the past - about losing things, and whether you get to get them back. So when Superman takes Lois flying and we hear the same music that played during the similar sequence in Superman the movie, it's an effective way of reminding us of what it was like the first time he took her "up", but also how long it's been, and how things have changed in the interim.
Seth is quite right to point out the importance of that final "Goodbye Lois". Having been brave enough to not make Lois Lane's new man a complete dick, the film was equally brave to not then conveniently kill him off, and I hope they avoid the temptation in any sequels. As Tryphena has pointed out, Richard plays the same role as Jonathan Kent - the man who is willing to raise a child who is not biologically his son, as his own. That's why the film, and Superman, affords him so much respect. If we're going to get all New Testament (and hey, why not, the film does often enough), then Richard and Jonathan Kent are both analogous to Joseph, the earthly father of Jesus. Richard is earthly father, and whatever awareness the kid has of his bond with Superman, he still thinks of Richard as "Daddy", as we see from the drawing he gives his mum when they're at the Planet near the end of the film. When Superman cries in Jason's room, he's crying for what he and Jason have lost - and not just the five years he was away. The two of them will have a relationship now, and at some point the connection between them will be explained to Jason (it's entirely right that nobody tried to do that within the film - talk about messing the kid up), but it won't be quite the relationship they would have had if Superman hadn't left.
Even so, the return of the absent father = the film's emotional core. It's such a persistent narrative: it's what every abandonned child wants, it's the reason Superman went into space in the first place, looking for some trace of his "heavenly" father who's absence is still felt in the film no matter how often his words are heard (and then respoken, passed down like scripture). Are the Christian touches* in Superman Returns appropriate? Yes, because the return of the absent father is a big part of the Christian mythos - alternatively you could see it as the returning Sun God - the two don't contradict.
Another I liked about this film, and one of the reasons the people complaining about a lack of "action" have got it so wrong, is the awareness that what Superman is about primarily is saving people, not beating up baddies. There is no final one-to-one conflict in which Superman "beats" Luthor - he defeats him by saving the people he'd intended to destroy.
I've enjoyed a lot of the comic book adaptations that have come to the cinema in the last five or so years, but this one had an emotional richness and depth to it that somehow hit harder than all the others.
*And there are loads - Superman can't just come back to life from his near-death state, instead a woman has to find the tomb empty and the linen he was wrapped in cast aside, do you see? |
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