SUPERMAN RETURNS! The Best Summer Movie so far!

Bryan Singer has landed with his career in his hand. The man has finally found his niche. After directing two fair but imbalanced X-Men films (which you can't really blame him for, the X-Men themselves being an imbalanced concept), Singer's time has come. His direction of a film about the most iconic character of all time, the one and only Superman, is a brilliant acievement.

Truth be told, the 90s was a hard decade for Supes with the advent of a darker side of pop culture, one that traded tights and a cape for black leather jackets and knives protruding from hands. The popularity of darker heroes like Batman and Wolverine left "brighter" heroes like Spiderman and Superman on the back burner. Superman scripts were thrown around all over the place with names like J.J. Abrams and Josh Hartnett attached to them, each one either heretical (one involved a non-exploded Planet Krypton) or too "updated". Many people saw films like "The Matrix" as Superman for the next generation, that a more complicated world required more complicated heroes leaving such quaint notions of good and evil behind in favor of a hero who blends the two, that a righteous avenger of truth and justice would no longer be necessary.

Singer says "of course we need superman, aren't we crying out for him?"

What Singer has done is make a movie dealing with this very concept. Rather than doing "Superman Begins", Singer's film is a continuation of the Superman story that has the Man of Steel returning to Earth after a 5-year absence in which Superman leaves to find the remains of his home planet. He returns to a world that has moved on. Lois is engaged with a kid, and has just won a Pulitzer prize for an article entitled "why the world doesn't need Superman". His conversations with the now cynical Lois deal directly with the supposed outdatedness of the character of Superman, and in the end show us why the world does need superman, which is the real climax.

The acting is good. Spacey is fun, Bosworth is good, even James Marsden (Cyclops from X-Men) does a decent job as Lois's Fiancee. Brandon Routh brings a wonderful duality as Superman/Clark Kent. He is warm and masterful in the tights; bungling and goofy in the tie, which would help to explain why Lois never figures out the difference. The main achievment is Singer's imagery which soars high above everything else in the film. The special effects are nothing short of fantastic, but the real thing that makes the action scenes take off is the great sense of build they all have. A scene in which Superman makes his returning debut saving Lois and a group of other reporters in a falling airplaine, (finally setting it down in the middle of a baseball field. How perfectly American!) is as compelling as it is exciting. Singer plays heavy on people's reactions of disbelief at the appearance of Superman in their moment of crisis. He perfectly orchestrates the deus ex machina, a "good storytelling" no-no, that just so happens to be the very thing that gets the audience going. Superman freaking invented it. Snagging a guy who has fallen from a building just before he hits the ground. Melting falling glass with his eyeballs just before it cuts people up. The movie is full of moments like these that will leave the cynical rolling their eyes, and the faithful applauding.

I must also state the fact that, on the whole, this is a quiet movie. Singer doesn't push things. Sure there are some harrowing action sequences, but the film maintains a calm mood as the relationship between Superman and Lois is explored as well as the involvment of her 5-year old son. The film is not at all boring, but it is more subdued than superhero films usually are.

In my mind, Singers best achievment is that through his skillful directing, Singer breathes new life into the first and greatest Superhero. In my mind, Superman being the first superhero, should also be the coolest. And by the end of the movie it is definitely hard to deny that Superman is, in fact, cool. Singer has managed to make a movie that proves that Superman is relevant even today without changing his look or attitude. He is still the Man of Steel, complete with blue tights and a red cape, and he's here to stay.