Former Superman actor Brandon Routh has heaped praise on David Corenswet’s performance in the latest DC blockbuster about the storied superhero.
Routh, 45, played the hero in 2006’s Superman Returns, which was branded a “super flop”.
The actor told Variety that he thinks the new Superman film version, written and directed by DC Studios co-CEO James Gunn, is “a lot of fun.”
He continued: “I really enjoyed it. I think David [Corenswet] is fantastic. I cried no less than three times.” Routh added that having played the role himself, he sees the film “in a different way.”
“I come at it from a different perspective,” he continued. “I really got into it as I’m watching him navigate those tricky Superman moments in the first conversation with Lois and Clark in the apartment. And then all of the family stuff for me really hit. It’s a big movie. There’s a lot in there. I have to go see it again.”
The Iowa-born star, whose new horror comedy Ick opens this week, added that Superman left him excited to see what Gunn has planned for the rest of the rebooted DC Cinematic Universe.
“I really am excited for the potential for the DC Universe,” he said. “A successful launch with this is just good for everybody who wants more of what DC has to offer. There are a lot of great properties that can be explored.”
Earlier this month, The Independent’s Tom Fordy argued that Routh’s Superman Returns “didn’t deserve the hate” it received from critics and audiences.
“Superman Returns is largely overlooked, for being too quaint, perhaps, or drowned out by the racket of the subsequent Snyderverse (2013’s reboot Man of Steel, then 2016’s Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice and 2017’s Justice League),” wrote Fordy.
“Maybe it’s the association of [director Bryan] Singer and Kevin Spacey (as bald baddie Lex Luthor), whose reps are marked with allegations of sexual misconduct (all of which have been denied by both men, respectively). ‘For me it just didn’t come together,’ says Ian Gordon, author of Superman: The Persistence of an American Icon. ‘I think most critics had that view.’”
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Fordy countered that Superman Returns succeeded by nodding to the original films starring Christopher Reeve: “In paying reverence to the Reeve films, Superman Returns captures the thing that’s absolutely fundamental to Superman: a touch of magic. This is a character, after all, that asks you to believe that a pair of glasses can disguise the fact that Superman and Clark Kent are the same person.
“In contrast, the Snyderverse Superman is a dour misery-guts with Dark Knight pretensions. And, most po-faced of all, he ditched the red pants (sorry, Snyder fans, but the pants are intrinsic to the magic.)”
