When Superman returned in the aptly named 2006 movie Superman Returns, the comeback was short-lived. A continuation of the Christopher Reeve-led Superman movies that began with Richard Donner's classic 1978 film, Superman Returns, was a disappointment. Reviews were okay, and it did fine at the box office, but the general response was tepid, with criticism about the length, some miscasting, and a general lack of action that made a lot of the much-hyped superhero movie super-boring. A planned sequel was scrapped, and revelations about the problematic director and actor behind the villain would only further damage Superman Returns' reputation. However, despite all Superman Returns' many flaws, there's one action set piece in it that's among the best sequences in superhero movie history: when Superman stops a plane from crashing.
In the two decades since Superman Returns, superhero movies overtook cinemas and it's only recently that we're seeing the craze abate somewhat. Over those years and dozens of movies, the films keep feeling a need to raise the stakes. Saving the day? Ha. Audiences have seen that before. Superheroes soon found themselves saving the world, the galaxy, the universe, and eventually the multiverse in increasingly elaborate sequences. Many of these involved fighting an iconic supervillain or getting some sort of MacGuffin into (or out of) some glowing portal. The problem with this escalation is that it can all start to feel like a bunch of noise. When everything is so heightened and massive, there's less of a frame of reference to make the superhero's heroics feel, well, super.
