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Top Critics (45)
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... while I can't call it a home run, I'll say it's a solid base hit.
The movie may not be a single-bound building-leaper but Bryan Singer reconfigures the daddy of all comic-book sagas into something knowing, witty, and even sensitive.
What could possibly justify making a Superman movie that runs 154 minutes? Plenty of films last longer, but their characters are generally sharp enough to recognize a guy with or without his glasses.
Superman, born in 1938, is still very much alive in 2006. The Man of Steel has so skillfully bent the bars of our imagination that he seems real to us. And in a sense, he is.
The much ballyhooed movie, far from great and far from short (2 1/2 hours!), is still great fun.
World-saving, all-powerful, hero-to-everyone stuff must be lonely work, and Singer's Superman bears the responsibility with the slightly clenched dutifulness of someone who's immortal enough to accept his destiny but human enough to suffer the weight.
For all the mountains of kryptonite ranged against him, you never fear for Superman or Lois Lane, never experience anything more intense than the fret of mild peril.
Superman Returns is a great kick start to a potentially knockout new franchise, which ultimately leaves the audience, like the people of Metropolis when its greatest hero returns to the skies, brimming with hope.
The movie runs nearly half an hour longer than it should, with a new plot strand introduced in the third act that has questionable vitality in the presumed sequel.
One of this summer's best action movies.
More stolid than awe-inspiring
None of which would register if Routh weren't a Superman whom if we don't need we can at least feel for.
Superman Returns deftly works on two levels, including references to the Superman myth for hard-core fans, while still managing to appeal to kids and those less studied in the ways of comic book heroes.
Underneath its mechanical safety and mild-manners, this movie does have some heart and some muscle. You'll come to like having it around, even if you thought you'd already moved on.
Thrilling return for the man of steel; tweens OK.
Superman Returns feels eager to please, and it frequently succeeds, but despite its best intentions, it seldom soars to the height of 1978's Superman: The Movie
Superman Returns is a bombastic, rousing, explosive burst of summer fun and fantasy, enriched by its predecessors and rejuvenated by the new blood and slavish religious devotion of director Bryan Singer.
Solid and emotionally direct but not the concussive powerhouse many will be hoping for.
the tragedy of 9/11 and Lois' super sex with the 'man of steel' are two major selling points of the film, but they remain as sublimated as Clark Kent's secret identity.
There's just no exclamation point in Superman Returns.
Ignore the hype, ignore the budget, ignore the expectations, sit back, relax and let Superman return.
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