It probably will not come as a surprise that I saw Superman Returns on opening day. While there are numerous filmic arguments that I would like to make (first among them is how the film is a literal re-scripting of the first film from 1978), none of them seem intellectually honest at the moment. For what has always brought me to Superman has been my heart.
Because of this, I will tell everyone my favorite part of the movie and why it is scenes like this that draw me to the Man of Steel and to the superhero genre in general. Early in the film, we see Superman sitting on Martha Kent's couch in Smallville watching television. He has been away for five years, exploring space and as such has lost touch with the events of Earth. Watching TV, he flicks through news report after news report. The expression on his face says it all. When Superman watches tragedy after tragedy on the news he does not see it as we see it and Brandon Routh does an excellent job of conveying this fact. For when I watch the news and hear of tragedy or hardship I either watch passively, viewing the event as something very removed from my life, or watch it sadly, knowing that there is not much that I can do to ameliorate the situation. When Superman watches the news, a flash of anger crosses his face but it is tempered with determination. For Superman knows that he is capable of leaping tall buildings in a single bound, that he is faster than a speeding bullet, and that he is more powerful than a locomotive. In short, Superman knows that he can do something about it.
A scene like this is also in a film of a much lower caliber, Teenage Mutant Turtles. In that film the vigilante Casey Jones (for those of you who don’t remember (and consider yourself lucky) Jones is a cross between Travis Bickle and Jason), watches the news and decides that he will fight crime. But Jones watches the news differently than Superman. Jones watches the news like it is particularly violent pornography and it cannot help but to inspire him to commit equally violent actions. Jones wants to hurt the people he's feed up with. It's not about decency; it's all about revenge and violence. However, what makes me like Superman more than all other superheroes is that Superman stands for as Perry White says in this film, "Truth, Justice, and the rest of it." Superman fights the good fight not because he’s driven by revenge or because he wants fame or power, but because he can; and because he can, he knows that he must. What always remains inspiring to me about Superman is not that it makes you want to believe for a second that a man can fly but that he is intrinsically good. And I've never found a good reason for turning away from the intrinsically good, no matter how cornball it may seem.
