Superman Returns

To be honest, I'm not a superhero fan. I find that beings granted superpowers, either through alien genetics or radioactive isotopes rather preposterious. At least american superheros, as I can more easily accept Super Saiyan powers or Moon Star Power. The exception of course, is Batman. Even Batman Begins can't quite null out the fact that he's still a rich boy with too many toys and not enough therepists.

Before anyone that might happen to read this page will say it, I hereby proclaim that I'm baised. I don't like Superman. I find his outfit and (near) invincibility laudable. If given the opportunity, I'd love to see the bastard shackled in Kryptonite and brought down to our level. Can you tell I'm a fan of Lex Luthor? Thankfully, I get my wish in this film, albeit briefly.

Okay, first the details: I went to see the film in the IMAX Theater ajacent to the Minnesota State Zoo with my long time friend and movie buff. The film actually had several 3D scenes; more on that in a moment. Tickets were $14USD, and we arrived about 30 minutes prior to showtime. Unlike other theaters which allow you to find a seat and wait for the movie to start, the IMAX theater had us all waiting outside the door in a long line. After a few minutes, the heat and moisture of the press of bodies was quite noticable. Despite that fact, the theater is a nice one. They even had carpeted floors! It was something my sandled feet welcomed.

Another welcome treat was that there were no trailers, and no animated advertisements. Just still frames informing you of upcoming films, and information for renting the theater itself. When the film began, there was a short spot by a IMAX technician explaining how the 3D worked in this film. Appearently Superman Returns is the first live-action film to have scenes converted to IMAX 3D. While they skipped the technical details (damn!) I gathered that this involved mapping the 2D film images to 3D objects inside a computer. This allowed for the "3D" objects in the film to extrude beyond the rest of the scene. 20 scenes were supposedly converted, but to those not in film school, it was more like 3. During the 3D scenes we were instructed by the technician to wear the large glasses that were handed out as we entered the theater. A green icon would inform us to put on the glasses, a red icon would instruct us to take them off. Being that I have prescription glasses, I was doubious about how well this would work. I guess I was about to find out.

The film begins with a three line placard explaining the set-up for the film: Five years ago, Astronomers claimed they had found Superman's homeworld, Krypton. Shortly thereafter, Superman disappeared without a trace. When the placard fades, a starfield takes it's place and the beginning of the Superman theme sounds over the speakers. We find ourselves racing through a sellar landscape of planets, asteroids and moons and breakneck speed. To my disappointment, this sequence was not in 3D. "But! But!" I thought, "This had to be CG! Couldn't they rerender it?" It's possible, but IMAX only had 2 months to convert the film before it's release. No doubt they had to pick and choose what to convert. Sadly, they did not choose well. The credits for the film were a faithful recreation of the credits in the earlier Superman films. I was pleased to see this as it reminded me of the films I watched when I was a kid. (Can you say, "Tess, you had a wierd childhood"?)

Somewhere in this sequence, we see the Krypton at it's height, superimposed over a giant red star. I thought back to the earlier films and tried to remember what I saw when Krypton was destroyed. I saw crystalline towers crumbling and collapsing, I saw people running and strangely glowing white outfits. How the hell did that lay waste to an entire civilization? The movie answered the question: The giant red star shrank, collapising in on itself behind the tiny white planet. There was a breif red flash, like an eclipse halo. "A black hole?" I asked internally. "Hell no!" replied the film.

I was unprepared for the explosion. The sound was so loud in the theater it made me jump. An expanding cloud of plasma and gas filled the screen behind the silohette of Krypton. After was seemed too long a moment, the planet itself was destroyed. I don't mean singed, I mean torn asunder. The surface of the planet was ripped away, a shower of rock and debris hurling toward us. All that escaped was one, tiny little spacecraft.

Okay, now I'm confused. If the planet was destroyed in this fashion, how could astronomers earth-side "discover" it? There's nearly nother left that's recognizable as a planet! Some would point this out as a plot hole, but if Krypton is many light-years away from our little blue planet, there's a time differential. The light from Krypton takes hundreds of years to reach here, so that the light we see from a distant star, may already be long since gone. Ok, I can buy that.

After seeing the destruction of Superman's homeworld, we race back through space in much the same fashion, only back toward earth. This completed the credit sequence of the film.

The scene abruptly changed after that. Now we see an old woman on a farm, listing to music on an equally old radio while washing the dishes. It was easy to guess that this was Clark's boyhood home, and that this was his adopted mother. The radio began to cut out, and soon the entire house was shaking violently. As the old woman looks out of the kitchen window, a fireball streaks slowly across the sky and lands with a loud thud in the cornfield.

(Note, I kinda lost interest in finishing this. Sorry!)