superman should have stayed where he was

I hardly consider myself an expert in this area, but it seems to me that storytelling is becoming a rare art form. When we consume pop-culture, we want escapist entertainment. We don't want to think. As a result, film makers are tempted to focus more on bombarding our senses and emotions than provoking our thoughts. I would argue that "Superman Returns" is a victim of this trend. I am by no means a comic book aficionado. If I were, I would have called them graphic novels. My understanding from conversations with people who are is that this art form, when done well, examines the complex nature of good and evil. This film had the opportunity to do so, but ultimately fell short. When the film begins, Superman has been away for 5 years, searching of the remains of his home planet Krypton. He returns to earth, and in an incredible coincidence, arch-nemesis Lex Luthor is about to hatch yet another diabolical plan. The plan is shrouded in mystery until Lois Lane boards Luthor's yacht to interview him for the Daily Planet. Luthor kidnaps Lois and in a strikingly original scene shares with her his plan for destroying North America. Boy was that not a good idea. Yada yada yada she escapes and Superman thwarts the plan. My problem with this film was not the lack of an original plot. It was with the way the story was told, or actually not told. The characters were not written in a way that developed them as individuals. Rather the writing called on our collective memory so that we would assume these characters were the same as others. Many elements of the film subsequently served to trigger our memory and stir our emotions rather than help tell the story. The use of Luthor's wigs is an example. They director went out of his way to show us these at several points. This tactic seemed to serve no other purpose than shocking us into concluding that he was a bad guy. Certainly wigs are not scary in and of themselves. They have been used frequently in pop culture in a way that associates them with evil. I remember a great episode of the old show Amazing Stories called Hell Toupee about an evil wig (it also was one of the best puns of all time). There were some great elements of this film. My friend Shaun Stiemsma put it well when he said that it was visually excellent. Ultimately though the film falls short of other films that deal with the graphic novel genre such as Batman Begins and Unbreakable. These films explored the complexity of characters who, like me, are complicated mixtures of both good and evil.