Superman Returns

Hey folks,

I’m feeling a bit sleepy after my midnight screening last night of Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire at Grauman’s Chinese theatre in Hollywood. I’ll be posting a review of the new HP soon enough, but before I do I couldn’t resist doing a brief blog on the new Superman Returns teaser , which I saw yesterday on the big screen in front of Goblet of Fire.

I only have two words to say.

Holy Cow.

For however much I may make fun of Bryan Singer and his pompous proclivities, I was completely blown away by this teaser. More than any other imagery I’ve seen of Singer’s vision of Superman, this teaser just perfectly encapsulated everything that is great and moving about the Superman mythology.

Granted, a lot of what gave me goosebumps while watching the trailer were remnants of the ’78 Richard Donner film. The momentous John Williams score, the sound of Marlon Brando’s voice as Jor-El narrating the images that flashed before my eyes. Strictly speaking from a trailer perspective, I thought this teaser was incredibly well done. But it was even more than that. Beyond the elegant style of the editing, with the building music and timing of Jor-El’s words, were the images themselves. The Kent farmhouse, Clark learning to fly, Superman meeting Lois Lane, The Daily Planet, a gaggle of perfectly symmetrically placed agog pedestrians, Superman shooting out into space. These are striking, iconic, and beautiful images. I can’t deny it, Singer is a true visual artist.

Even the words that Jor-El speaks, while some might argue are overly sentimental, fit so perfectly with the rest of the teaser, and stir up the emotions that reminds us why we love Superman so much in the first place. He gives us hope.

“They can be a great people Kalel, they wish to be. They only lack the light to show the way. For this reason above all, their capacity for good, I sent them you, my only son.”