Several years ago there was a news story about a group of children who made a re-enactment of The Raiders of the Lost Ark. Turkey's The Return of Superman is a spiritual cousin to the "film" those kids made. This is adults playacting in front of a camera.
There is so much wrong with the Return of Superman that one feels overwhelmed. Let us start with the special effects, which could have been in a film from the nineteen tens! The flying scenes consist of a toy on strings with bad rear projection behind it. Need more? The audience is treated to the sight of an attempt to kill Superman via a cardboard guillotine. We get fight scenes where the punches clearly fall several inches from the victim's face. Finally, in the film's most mouth dropping scene, the villains get the female journalist to pull over by shooting out one of her tires. However, this is accomplished by some poor schmuck hiding in the trunk of her car who leans far enough out of the trunk to do the dastardly deed. The mind boggles at the film's sub-Ed Wood ineptitude.
The film is not helped by either the script or the cast. The plot mostly consists of people running here and there, the Lois Lane stand in getting kidnapped, and Superman rescuing her. There are no super villains for Superman to fight, so the threat is minor. What happens if the villains get a machine that turns things into gold? Who cares!
Finally, one must address the casting of an actor even worse than Henry Cavill for the role of the caped crusader. The inexpressive Tayfun Demir plays Superman as if he was just some guy in a cape. Demir's one asset is apparently that he is tall enough to fit into the suit.
If all of this sounds amusing to a reader, then he or she might get some laughs out of the film, but I didn't. Even at sixty-eight minutes The Return of Superman feels tedious. This is Manos, the Hands of Fate territory. The 1994 Fantastic Four film is better! If you groove on this type of anti-cinema, knock yourself out, but you have been warned.
