Long ago, I figured out what it was about Brian Singer’s movies (most especially his superhero movies) that I enjoyed the most.

It’s the little things.

In The Usual Suspects, it’s Verbal Kint’s attention to detail around him.

In X-Men, it was Wolverine’s answer to Cyclops questioning his identity.

In X-Men 2, it was Magneto catching the plane.

And in Superman Returns, it’s the kid. Jason Lane could have easily been just like every other annoying “precocious little genius” kid you see on tv and in movies, but instead they made the character a real 5 year old boy.

It’s that kind of thing that made Superman Returns one of the best-developed superhero movies I’ve ever seen. Languishing in Development Hell for over a decade, the movie finally saw the light of… well, night tonight. I was one of the masses that shelled out the dough to see the movie tonight, and I’ll say one thing about this movie.

It was worth it.

It was worth 25 years of waiting for a worthy follow-up to the first two Superman movies.

It was worth the years of waiting for the right combination of script, director and actors.

It was worth the millions of dollars wasted on script rewrites, restarts, countless egotistical directors and actors wanting to “put their mark” on the Superman mythos.

It was worth the search for an unknown to play the most iconic character in American literature.

It was worth the multiple millions of dollars spent on effects alone (and the plane sequence lives up to the hype, folks).

Most importantly, it was worthy of the hope that fans have held ever since they saw another then-unknown fly into the screen, looking towards the camera and smiling as he flew away.

Warner Brothers has had a bit of a good streak in them of late, having produced two superhero movies in a row that got it exactly right. Whereas Batman Begins was an incredibly well-done origin story, however, Superman Returns felt like a perfect new chapter in the continuing stories of the stranger from another planet.

(And yes, I’ll be seeing this again in theaters soon- preferably, in IMAX 3D.)

Out.

Tags: Superman_Returns
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