For what it's worth, this is what Mark Millar wrote over on his
forum about SR:
As for Superman Returns. Well, I have to say...
...I'm a little worried.
Any regular poster here knows how much I dig Superman. Superman is the reason I started reading comics and the reason I wanted to write them too. I have Christopher Reeve's cape hanging in my hall and Frisky the cat stuffed and sitting on top of our dining room piano. I have also waited for nineteen years for Superman to be back on the big screen. I almost wept like a baby when I heard that Bryan was doing this flick after so many scares with Burton, Cage, killer polar bears and scripts based on a 1990s comic-book marketing stunt.
So why am I worried? I dunno. It's my spider-sense. It's just tingling. I liked the first trailer a lot, but that second trailer... It just seemed to lack any moments. There was a lot of everyone except Superman there and there wasn't a single moment that had my hair standing on end as I would have expected. Only a fool judges a movie based on a trailer, but there only needed to be one money shot-- one big moment-- to get me excited and what should have been that moment in the final third of the trailer is this horrible, jarring scene where the needle almost seems to jump and we get Spacey camping it up. Also, there are two big action sequences in this movie; a series of rescues by Superman in the middle and Superman saving people from a huge Earthquake towards the end. I'm not saying he needs to hit somebody, but... with today's special effects and what's expected from a superhero movie I think he DOES really need to hit somebody in the third act. It's what makes Spidey satisfying and Hulk unsatisfying. Superman isn't about his relationship with Lois Lane and their kid. It's about Superman doing 'cool ****' and I worry he's not going to be doing enough in this novie.
I thought Batman Begins would do 800 million and it did 400. I realize this is because the movie, though brilliant, lacked Batman. Similarly, Spidey 2 was a superior movie to Spidey 1, but the first flick had Spidey every eight minutes or so and kids watched it continuously. Kids don't want Spidey 2 or Batman Begins over and over and my worry is that Superman is going to suffer from the same problem. Also, it seems like Superman 5. It seems like the CAPSTONE to a franchise as opposed to a new foundation a quarter of a century after the first movie. Heroes get the girl and have a kid at the END of their adventures. Doing this right at the beginning just feels off and is problematic for sequels. Imagine 'BOND IS BACK... AND THIS TIME HE'S BROUGHT HIS WIFE AND KID' and you'll see what I mean. Incredibles is one of my top 5 movies ever, but the gag there is that it's a family of superheroes. That's not what makes Superman cool. It's a great ending to the franchise, but an unfortunate beginning.
Anyway, I pray I'm wrong because I want to love this more than any of you. I'll open a vein if Superman isn't as big as Titanic, but a Superman movie that starts with Krypton, goes to Smallville, has Clark going to the big city, has Superman saving Lois from a crashing plane, has Superman doing a series of rescues, has Luthor stealing Kryptonite, poisoning Superman and then setting off a huge earthquake seems kind of familiar and oddly pointless. It seems like Superman The Movie PLUS A KID.
I can't believe I'm saying this, but in terms of moments and coolness and all the things little kids wants to see on the screen I have a weird feeling that X3 might be the one that delivers this Summer.
MM
