Originally Posted by
Jim Kelly
"Superman is Superman is Superman," to paraphrase Gertrude Stein.
There is only one Superman. Imagine this as a Platonic ideal. Everyone is trying to evoke that single character. Alvin Schwartz expresses this better in AN UNLIKELY PROPHET.
So, in that sense, Brandon Routh is playing the same Superman as Christopher Reeve. As is George Reeves, Henry Cavill, Tom Welling, Dean Cain, Bud Collyer. But it's not fair to Brandon Routh to say he was playing Christopher Reeve. They are two different actors.
Yet, it seems like every movie and T.V. series, after the Christopher Reeve pictures, has exploited those in some way for their own gain.
When I watched SUPERMAN RETURNS--first day it was out and not reading any reviews, so my perception wouldn't be spoiled by what others thought--I was totally immersed in it as an homage to the Richard Donner movie. By the end I was a blubbering mass of emotions--it completely worked for me on that level.
But Brandon Routh deserves the proper respect as an actor, to be seen as an individual. There are many other movie sequels, where a completely different actor plays the character. Let's not burden those actors with so much responsibility. They aren't the ones who produced, wrote and directed the movies.
With the Arrowverse Crisis, Brandon Routh showed more of his range in the Superman role. I wish they had done a full "Kingdom Come" type mini-series featuring Routh.