"It's like you've been here before," says Kitty Kowalski (Parker Posey) to Lex Luthor (Kevin Spacey) as he and his henchmen explore Superman's Arctic Fortress of Solitude in Bryan Singer's Superman Returns. And he has: Luthor (Gene Hackman) found his way to the Fortress in 1980's Superman II, along with the character who inspired Singer's creation of Kitty, Miss Tesmacher (Valerie Perrine).
Singer has said in interviews that his film is a sort of unofficial sequel to Richard Donner's two Superman films, which began with 1978's Superman. The director's reverence for Donner is so great that he's even kick-started what many Superman fans have demanded for years: the reworking of Superman II to reflect Donner's original vision. Although most of the footage for the first two Superman films was shot at the same time, the studio replaced Donner with director Richard Lester for Superman II, and much of it was reshot and retooled, which is painfully obvious in the version now available on DVD. Tonally inconsistent and full of massive plot holes, Superman II also has to work around the absences of Gene Hackman, who only appears in the Donner-directed footage (additional lines are dubbed by an actor doing a bad Hackman impression), and Marlon Brando (as Superman's father, Jor-El), who demanded too much money and whose character was replaced by Superman's mother.
Even with Lester's insistence on glib jokiness that undercuts the seriousness and grandeur of the story, Superman II still has one of the best villains in superhero cinema with Terence Stamp's General Zod, who is far more intimidating than Hackman is able to make Luthor.
Zod's command to Superman and the people of Earth ("Kneel before Zod!") has become a well-deserved catchphrase among dedicated superhero fans like Kevin Smith, who has his Jay character utter the line in Mallrats. Stamp's performance is the precursor to similarly erudite British super-villains like Ian McKellen's Magneto. Singer wanted Jude Law to play Zod, and cut the character from his script when Law wasn't available.
Donner's original film is widely regarded as the template for all future superhero films (not just by Singer), but that's not to say it's perfect. For all its bravura blockbuster filmmaking, and a lead performance by Christopher Reeve that sets the definitive tone for how to play Superman, Superman has plenty of faults.
Hackman's Luthor is too goofy and lightweight to be a truly menacing villain, and his nefarious plot is rather laughably based on an obsession with real estate (a character trait that Singer unfortunately held onto for his film). Although the extended origin sequence lays out the Superman mythology clearly and compellingly (Reeve doesn't show up until almost an hour into the film) and the early action is exhilarating and fun, the film's climax relies on too many contrivances to achieve real satisfaction. The less said about Otis, Luthor's henchman played by Ned Beatty, the better. That goes double for the atrociously cheesy poem "Can You Read My Mind?" that Lois Lane recites in voice-over the first time Superman takes her flying.
Singer has created such a connection between Returns and the earlier films that he and screenwriters Michael Dougherty and Dan Harris have masterminded a series of four comics books, published by Superman's home at DC Comics, to bridge the gap. One recounts Superman's origin so faithfully that it could be an adaptation of the first half-hour of Donner's film, while the other three fill readers in on what Lex, Lois and Clark Kent's mother have been up to in the five years that separate the stories of Superman II and Superman Returns.
The comics aren't essential, and neither are the earlier movies, really, but they give Singer's film a sense of history and scope that it wouldn't otherwise have, even as one more contribution to the already massive Superman mythos. Singer, of course, is a geek, and geeks love continuity, so in a way Returns is like the ultimate fan fiction. Who wouldn't like the chance to make a sequel to their favorite movie? With Superman Returns, someone finally gets that wish.