Superman Returns Critic Reviews

Grandly conceived and sensitively drawn.Read the full review

Superman Returns is not only a credit to the first two Superman movies; it may be the best of the series. Its combination of romance and fantasy adventure is unparalleled in superhero comic book-to-movie sagas.Read the full review

Director Bryan Singer positions this new film as a sequel to Donner's film, and his Superman -- played with winning fortitude by newcomer Brandon Routh -- is less a Man of Steel than a Man of Heart.Read the full review

The daunting logistics of Superman Returns have obviously affected the director's work -- thus the hit-or-miss continuity of the narrative -- but Bryan Singer hasn't been defeated by them. While his movie can be cumbersome, it's consistently alive, and that is saying a lot when many such productions are dead in the water, on land or in the air. Also, how can you resist the charm of a fantasy in which everyone gets his news from newspapers?Read the full review

A generally thrilling entertainment that's not quite the grand slam you want it to be.Read the full review

A rousing spectacle.Read the full review

Singer's reverence for the 1978 version edges perilously close to mimicry, as if he has no new ideas to bring to the table, but he succeeds in drawing out the Superman myth with simple power and a refreshing absence of irony.Read the full review

Superman returns with a bang. Singer tarnishes his hero's halo with just enough sexual longing and self-doubt to make him riveting and relatable. That "S" on his suit has a whole new meaning: He's a Soul man.Read the full review

The surprise of Superman Returns is that it isn't a funky, ambitious conceptual reimagining, like last summer's "Batman Begins." This really IS your father's Superman; it re-creates - and updates, though just barely - the universe Donner invented.Read the full review