Last night, I sat through the new film "Superman Returns". It was probably a pretty good film, for its type, but I came out depressed. Brandon Routh, the actor who played Clark Kent aka Superman, just wasn't Superman.
The film does continue in canon. They've reused sets, music, and the voice of Marlon Brando as Jor-el. They went to some lengths to explain why there hasn't been a Superman film in a long time. If the film weren't in the canon of the previous films, I would not have been writing this, but as it stands, Brandon Routh just wasn't Superman.
And it's not his fault.
Many actors have played the role of James Bond, in the continuing series. Many actors played the role of Batman, for that matter. We don't say, "George Clooney wasn't Batman", though, we say, "George Clooney was so bad at being Batman that he ruined the franchise." Besides, Brandon Routh's acting ability is not what I'm talking about.
There will only ever be one film Superman for me, and that's Christopher Reeve. He was not a superb actor, but he definitely looked the part. He even acted it to an extent, off screen; he was a good, generous, decent man. Jor-el sent his son Kal-el to Earth because we humans have at least a touch of goodness and greatness in us, and Christopher Reeve partook of that touch. But, sadly for him, he had the truly appalling luck to sever his spinal cord in a fall from a horse.
And he wanted to walk again! He wanted it so. He knew there was a hope he might have been able to. Quadruplegics like him have very short expected life spans, but there was a chance for him in stem-cell research, had it been continued. It was not. The interests of microscopic bits of fast-reproducing protoplasm were placed ahead of the interest of Christopher Reeve and unknown others of other people who have nervous damage.
Stem cells aren't people. Stem cells are just stem cells. Experimenting upon them is not equivalent to experimenting upon people. People who have radical nervous damage, like Christopher Reeve, are nevertheless people. Not all people have the charisma of a Christopher Reeve, or the acknowledged wealth, but not all of us have the decency either; and yet, all of us are very vulnerable to spinal injury. Learning to coax stem cells to become new nervous tissue would benefit everyone.
If Christopher Reeve were alive today, he would be much too old for the part of Superman, and I'd have enjoyed the film anyway, knowing that the torch had been passed to Brandon Routh, who is also a so-so actor who looks the part. He's not, though.
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