After hearing about the release of this, somewhat anticipated, independent adaptation of Superman, I decided to take a look and here are my thoughts on the film.
I titled this article as a commentary as opposed to a “review” of Superman: Requiem because I haven’t gotten the chance to properly watch the film through its entirety but rather skimmed through the film enough to get the general idea.
Not commenting much on the story, I thought it was pretty much the standard Superman fare of crooks, kryptonite, defeat, and victory. Though I do applaud the writer for making interesting choices on new character developments (Ali and Alexander in particular) that the major studios probably wouldn’t do right now – especially with DC still trying to reestablish its franchise films outside of Batman’s shadow.
While I understand the fact that this film was produced in the UK, I don’t understand the casting choices. Granted that many British actors have been able to portray convincing American roles effectively, I can say with experience that these come with required skill, instruction, and, above all, practice and experience. Many newbies often fall into the habit of falling in and out of the accents they’re attempting to use and their natural accents as evident in this film and frankly, it’s quite jarring. Also, a note to the writer – being American isn’t just about the accent but also what words are and are not commonly used in this particular culture.
In consideration of the fact that this is an independent film, I won’t be too harsh on some of the aesthetic issues but I’ll try to, at least, be honest about my opinions on them. While the general costuming was decent, I can’t help but draw attention to the design and construction of the Superman costume itself. Having come from a similar experience of costuming superheroes for an independent film, I believe better choices could have been made. Especially now that many cosplay costumers and enthusiasts are capable of making high quality, film-grade costumes. Also, why does Superman have “guyliner?”
Next, I want to draw attention to the visual effects work. I’m quite aware that more current approaches in this aspect of post-production are not as common knowledge to most indie filmmakers as they should be. However, considering that a film like this would be heavily judged by its visuals, more time and resources should have been spent on visual effects development. Some of the basic things I found to be troubling involved basic compositing (a visual effects terminology) issues. For instance, the sky replacement/space shots are extremely obvious because of the static nature of the footage/image(s) used. Also, the visual effects artists should have paid more attention to the perspectives in their shots. There are odd perspective issues here and there, where the perspective of the actor(s) do not match the backdrops they’re supposed to be on whether it’s on the ground, in the sky, or far up in space. For Superman’s flying scenes, digital doubles should have been considered as opposed to the basic 2D compositing trick for more dynamic shots. Lastly for scenes involving shootings, practical blood effects should have been used instead of the animated solution. Either that or they should have avoided showing them up close altogether – the animated blood effects look comical at best.
Overall, this is a commendable film for its category and I’m sure a lot of effort went into its development. It’s entertaining enough for its chosen purpose though it could have made a much larger impact in general if certain aspects had been more thoroughly developed. Regardless, much respect to the filmmakers for taking on the grand undertaking of putting Superman on the screen again. Cheers while we wait for the coming of Zack Snyder’s Man of Steel.
Credits roll.
Find out more about Superman: Requiem on their website at http://themanofsteelisback.com/
