Superman Requiem is a film made by fans for the fans… It was released on-line only on 11th November 2011. Please don’t read if you have not seen the film yet, spoiler alert…
It was conceived by producer Gene Fallaize who said he decided he was going to make an independent superman fan-film and thus began writing the script. Tony Cook and Daniella Pellegrini joined the team in early 2011 and thus pre-production began.
Superman Requiem depicts the life of superman several years after the events of Superman Returns and takes into accounts the events of Superman (1978), Superman II (1980) and Superman Returns (2006).
Basically, to cut a long story short, Superman is tricked into losing his powers via exposure to a manipulated version of kryptonite (strong enough to remove his powers, but not kill him). Alexander Luthor (Lex, Jr.) has done this in order to blackmail the powerless Superman into revealing the location of plots of land previously owned by the late Lex, Sr. For leverage, Alexander plans on using Lois Lane, now living and working in Europe. And that’s about it.
Before this was released there was a lot of hype about it on-line and I was actually looking forward to it. I didn’t know what to expect for a fan made film. I didn’t expect great acting or glossy Hollywood visuals and watched the film with an open mind.
First, I have to applaud people who make a film out of pure adoration, knowing they won’t make a penny off of it. And the effects were pretty good for a fan-film made on a modest budget. Which is helped by the fact that Superman has lost his ability of flight. You can see that a lot of work went into the making of this film.
The opening credit sequence is particularly good. And the overall look of “Superman: Requiem” was very sharp and, for the most part, bright and colorful with some excellent locations. The acting was good. The best performance comes from Stacy Sobeski who plays Ali Noels (a character who replaces Lois Lane). Paul Khanna, who also appears in two Harry Potter movies, was good as Alexander Luthor too. He had just the right amount of evil and cunning to the role while being just as obsessed with land as his father was. However, in my opinion, I didn’t think Martin Richardson was a very good Superman. He works well as mild-mannered reporter Clark Kent but comes across as a bit lost and physically unimposing as Superman.
As to be expected for a fan film the dialogue was ok and there are some sound issues, especially outdoors. The story was alright (a bit predictable at times) but missed something, I don’t know what but in my opinion something was missing. The film tried to connect important events from the old Reeve Superman films. There were a lot elements from those previous films, which I felt weren’t necessary.
In my opinion, the film suffers from following too loosely in the footsteps of the other Superman films that have come before and maybe should have been an all-new, original version of the hero. For example there is the famous line from Perry White about great reporters (Superman: The Movie); an amnesia kiss (Superman II) and Superman sacrificing his connection with his birth-mother Lara in order to regain his powers
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