Superman Returns
The Sentinel
Superman Returns
I imagine that every boy in America who grew up with Superman re-tains in manhood some shred of youthful optimism about life. As a kid, I watched the reruns of the 1950s TV show. When I was 11, I saw the first Superman film and immediately bought the soundtrack. And I remember listening deliriously to John Williams' explosive score again and again. Superman captured America's imagination on television and film during the Cold War when good and evil seemed unambiguous. Our collective memory of Superman then evolved as we witnessed the heroic real life struggles of Christopher Reeve. "Superman Returns" brings the Man of Steel back to the big screen after almost two decades. Superman (Brandon Routh) comes back to Earth to find an embittered Lois Lane (Kate Bosworth), now a mommy, betrothed to another while the evil Lex Luthor (Kevin Spacey) hatches another ruinous plan to dominate the world. Sadly, the film is nothing special. The plot is thin and predictable, the actors play comic book archetypes, the Christian references are heavy-handed and the movie drags on. Worse still is that this Superman feels hopelessly outdated, a hokey icon from a bygone era in de sperate need of reinvention. Boys grow up. Their superheroes should too.
( Sherwin Das )
Superman (Brandon Routh) returns to earth after a five-year absence only to find that things have moved on without him. Lois Lane (Kate Bosworth) is engaged and has a five-year old kid. Moreover, she's won a Pulitzer Prize for an article entitled "Why the World Doesn't Need Superman." But the Man of Steel immediately redeems himself by saving a plane and the world quickly decides that it could definitely do with a superman after all. "Superman Returns" is an extremely enjoyable and well-made return to the franchise that began the whole superhero film genre. Routh has a certain cartoon-like quality to his face that befits the role while bringing a welcome degree of subtlety to it. Director Bryan Singer almost reverentially refers to the original "Superman" but astutely puts it in a new context. The new Superman is less the all-American hero incarnate (with Christ-like undertones) than a humanitarian aid worker being kept extremely busy. He's more human than Christopher Reeve's superman, admitting to being tormented by all the cries for help he hears. The film is mercifully low on spectacular special effects and concentrates more on Superman's love for Lois Lane as the thrust of the narrative. On the whole, it's a welcome return.
1/2 ( Tim Ochser )
The Sentinel
The great thing about movies about fictional presidents is that we get to play out our fantasies of all sorts of possible commanders-in-chief, even though the likelihood of some of these people getting elected is not so high. In past incarnations, we've had a bad-ass president (Harrison Ford in "Air Force One"), a really smart president (Martin Sheen in "The West Wing"), and two black presidents (Morgan Freeman in "Deep Impact" and Dennis Haysbert in "24"). We've also had - wait for it, Geraldine Ferraro - a pretty good female vice-president (Glenn Close, also in "Air Force One"). Now in "The Sentinel," we get to imagine a fictional America where the hottest woman on the planet gets to be first lady, Kim Basinger. In the tradition of "In the Line of Fire," "The Sentinel" is a cat-and-mouse thriller set against the Secret Service that pits two dudes well-known for playing really smart people fighting their way through tough, high-pressure situations. That would be Michael Douglas (who actually played a romantic president in "The American President") and Kiefer Sutherland, also of "24." The real question: How soon before Sutherland gets to graduate to playing a semi-believable president himself?
(TBT staff )
"The Sentinel" is a reasonably entertaining although ultimately disappointing political thriller. The wildly over-the-top plot sees long-standing secret service agent Pete Garrison (Michael Douglas) being accused of a planned assassination attempt on the U.S. president. The fact that he's having an affair with the First Lady (Kim Basinger) doesn't help much either. The film becomes progressively more stupid as it goes along, but it does shed some interesting light on the powerful symbolic role of the American president and the extraordinary measures that are undertaken to protect him. The dialogue is tiresomely macho while the characters are all defined by their work in true Hollywood fashion. "The Sentinel" is far from original and if it seems like an okay film it's only because there have been so many shockingly bad films of late. It would have been a lot better if it had been a bit grittier of had offered a more plausible reason as to why someone might want to assassinate the U.S. president. Perhaps the best thing about "The Sentinel" is it inadvertently shows how far removed from reality the American president is. The whole media and state security circus surrounding him smacks of Roman hubris.
1/2 ( Tim Ochser )
