Review Detail

Superman Returns was a bit of a hit and miss for me. A film which promised so much felt as flat as it looked. This was indeed surprising as director Bryan Singer marketed the film as a vague sequel and homage to Richard Donner’s masterpiece Superman the movie and his nearly finished Superman II. Where those films are remembered for bright visuals and serious but fun performances Singer’s film is dark and morose in comparison.

When I revisited the film on DVD and later on Blu Ray the film seemed even darker in terms of colour pallet however I was taken by a few deleted scenes. Firstly some nice extra moments in Smallville, which was one element that I thought Singer did well with. Secondly we have the infamous Return to Krypton scene. Now whilst the scene isn’t essential to the story it does add real emotional impact especially when Superman draws parallels between his destroyed home planet and the barren landscape Lex engineers with the aid of the fortress crystals.

This brings me to Booshman’s fanedit of Superman Returns as he uses this epic scene to launch his latest Superman fanedit. Two elements that most pleased me with this cut were the colour correction and the subtleties of the editing. Where’s Singer’s film almost treats the audience as idiots as he dwells on minor details Booshman’s editing allows the story to unfold in a way that the audience actually discovers something. Prime example of this is the removal of the train set scene, a pointless waste of money set piece that only serves to explain how Lex causes the blackout. By removing this scene Booshman reveals a wonderful action piece that is no longer interrupted and later in the film the audience discovers it was Lex who caused the blackout.

Whilst perhaps we live in an age where it isn’t cool for Superman to state his purpose of fighting for truth, justice and the American way Singer’s approach to this famous line felt flat. Booshman’s simple trim to the end of Perry’s dialogue from “Does he still fight for truth, justice all that stuff” to simply does he still fight for truth, justice” is less jarring.

One of my favourite edits was trimming the end dialogue between Lois and Superman on the rooftop right after they almost kiss and then Lois declares her loyalty to Richard. Instead of the silly line “I’m always around” we now have the focus on Superman’s eyes as he looks blankly at Lois, says "goodnight" then flies off. This little trim shows the power of editing as I now found myself quite moved by this scene.

A nice touch to conclude this fan cut was moving the dedication to Chris and Dana Reeve to the beginning of the end titles as I always found it clumsy that the filmmakers placed it in between credits.

Overall with editing like this and some superb colour correction, Superman Returns has never looked better. Great job Booshman!

Note: I'd give a higher rating to the narrative if not for the setup at the beginning as I would have liked to see the main titles stay. I felt having the 'return to Krypton' scene straight after the Krypton explosion recap was a bit cramped. Two other cuts that I felt were a bit abrupt were cutting Lois fainting after the plane rescue and cutting the dialogue between Lois, Jimmy and Perry after they look at the photo ("is it a bird is it a plane").