OutRun2

I just watched Superman Returns and SW Episode III back to back. It's interesting to see how both of these mega franchises have been kickstarted by relative unknown actors.

What is your opinion on who you think played their respective roles better for being unknowns....Brandon Routh as Superman or Hayden Christiensan as Anikan/Vader? Who gave the better performance?

Also who's career has taken off/benefited more between these two? Is Brandon Routh more of a Hollywood star than Hayden because of SR? Or is Hayden simply more popular because every kid in the world would've loved to have been in a SW film playing Darth Vader?

Do you think either of these two will NOT be type casted forever no matter what role they may play in future films?

Salucious

I thought Hayden Christensen wasn't good at all. Pretty much all acting in the prequels was very low quality, but I don't want to turn the thread onto that argument. Brandon Routh I thought did a good job, he fit the role well while bringing something new to his character. He had a harder job because he was continuing an already existing role, while Christensen had the oppurtunity to make his character anew but blew it. It is hard to tell if Routh can get more roles since he is more of an unknown than Christensen right now, I think he's only done small TV guest starring and a few B-movies. I most likely wouldn't go see anything with Christensen in the title role though. I'd say playing Superman puts you in better standing in Hollywood than being in Star Wars. And that is coming from a Star Wars fan.

Filmmaker

Brandon Routh was divine, really amazing. True to Christopher Reeve's take on the character without seeming to just be a mimic. Hayden Christiansen, on the other hand, was pretty atrocious (though he shows marked improvement between AotC and RotS) and one of the more ill-thought casting choices of the last 25 years. To say he stands out as wooden and untrained in a STAR WARS cast really says something. All this being said, I am a fan of the PT, I just certainly think Darth Vader deserved better.

The Bus

I'm one that doesn't think Hayden Christensen is so bad. I'm willing to bet part of it had to do with the script and lines he was given and part of it had to do with the directing. That's not to say he's a super accomplished actor, and honestly next to Portman, Neeson and McGregor he doesn't exactly shine but he did "OK" by my book.

Routh I can't comment on, I always thought Superman was a bit of a weirdo so I guess what I don't like about it was meant to be portrayed that way. I haven't seen the Reeves Supermans in fifteen or twenty years and I can't remember that far back, honestly.

ShaunoftheDead

I'll give the edge to Routh, although I think he was pretty lackluster in the remake. He really didn't do anything new for the Superman character, though he didn't disgrace it either.

I just thought someone should have brought more emotion and character to the character.

HC was just terrible, but I don't necessarily think it was as much his fault as it was the scripts and idea for the 3 prequels. I've liked him in other things like Life As A House and Shattered Glass.

das Monkey

Routh was surprisingly effective in the role. Considering what he had to live up to, I thought he was solid. He's no Reeve, but who is?

Christensen seems like a decent actor, but he was pretty terrible in the role of Anakin. It's hard to blame him, though. His dialogue was awful, and when a director can get crappy performances from Liam Neeson and Natalie Portman, it's hard to blame actors.

das

Shannon Nutt

Christensen is the better actor. Don't judge him by the STAR WARS movies...Lucas wouldn't know a good take if it bit him in the ass. Check out Hayden in Shattered Glass, you'll see he's got some acting chops.

Kal-El

Brandon's relatively still an unknown with only Superman Returns under his belt, but I thought he did a great job in it. Hayden was able to crank out "Life as a House" right before Clones and I thought he was great in it. I haven't seen Shattered Glass yet. But if you're going by strictly Returns and Clones&Sith, I'd pick Brandon. Most of the problem with Hayden's performance in the prequels were direction and script dependent though, as has been mentioned already.

toddly6666

It's not his fault that Hayden may have been bad in Star Wars - that is George Lucas' poor directing. Everyone was bad in those prequels.

But so far, Hayden is a better actor than Brandon Routh (zombie underwear model). Hayden was awesom in LIFE AS A HOUSE and SHATTERED GLASS. I'll have to see Brandon in something else other than Superman.

iggystar

I honestly liked both. It mystifies me that everyone thought Hayden was so horrible in Star Wars (especially after seeing him in Shattered Glass). No, it mystifies me that I didn't find his performance awful, because the general concensus is that he was pretty horrid so it must be me.

Anyway, I think Routh did a better job of emulating Reeves, not imitating. He was very charming and effective.

Michael Corvin

I agree with the Routh part. I think the best way to describe Hayden though is tolerable, not as bad as everyone makes it out to be especially next to all the other wooden performances.

Terrell

Neither really. I thought Hayden had a few bright moments in the prequels, especially in the action sequences and with his non-verbal performance, but he wasn't right for the part. Lucas should have started Anakin off a bit older and hired a more mature, better actor.

As for Routh, let's be honest, he didn't do any acting. All Routh had to do was stand around and brood, and every once in a while spout off a very simplistic line of dialogue. I wasn't impressed with him or the film. But then I was less than enthused about Superman Returns from the beginning. He made a decent looking Clark. He made a sucky looking Superboy. Not impressed in the least with Routh.

Everyone always points to that film, and yes he was pretty good. However, I recently saw him in a film called "Factory Girl" and didn't think his performance or the film was all that good. I also never thought much of his performance in "Life As A House" either. I used to think he did a good job in that film until I saw it again recently, and it just didn't stick with me. So I wouldn't pin it all on Lucas. He hasn't been all that good in anything I've seen other than "Shattered Glass'', and the best I can say about his performance in that film was that it was solid. It was a role that just suited him. But he didn't elevate the film. Sarsgaard was the best part about that film. Still not all that sold on Hayden.

No, not everyone. McGregor and McDiarmid were good. Neeson was solid, although nowhere near his best.

Supermallet

Routh by several parsecs.

DRG

Routh's role was more of a visual icon than a character. He looked the part, but IMO the movie just played off the pre-established characterizations of Superman and Clark Kent rather than actually having any real character work for Routh to do. They just sort of popped him in the template. Not his fault, but it is hard to judge the quality of his work.

And I agree that it's hard to judge Hayden's work in the prequels as representative of his overall talent considering the Lucas factor.

ScandalUMD

I think the studios thought that it was better to introduce us to new people we can learn to hate, instead of using familiar actors that we hate already.

But we have Hayden Christiansen to thank for deepening the mythology of Darth Vader by exploring his petulant, whiny frat-boy past, and we have Singer's Superman film to remind us that you can be an unwed teenage mother and still become a Pulitzer Prize winning journalist while you're still younger than most people are when they graduate college!

Doughboy

If we're only limiting the discussion to Superman Returns and Episodes II & III, then I give Routh the decided edge. I was not a big fan of Returns, but Routh was one of the lone bright spots in that movie. He did a good job capturing the tone that Reeve established in the role without looking like he was mimicking him. I could've done without the stalker scenes though.

As for Christensen, I thought he was ok in Episode II, but when it came time to let it all out in ROTS, he was a disaster. He basically glared the entire movie. It's like Lucas told him to do the Kubrick stare and gave him no other direction.

I don't blame Hayden for the end result. He was fine in Life As a House and Shattered Glass. Lucas just did one of the worst writing and directing jobs in cinematic history on the prequels. Even when I caught it in HD the other night, I still couldn't sit through more than a few minutes of The Phantom Menace without wanting to vomit. And ROTS is becoming almost as painful each time I catch it on TV.

Numanoid

I don't know. Hayden totally missed the boat on how to portray Anakin's turn to the dark side, and I blame it on his skills alone.

Cartload

I can judge this by my "desire to bitch slap" count.

Hayden: 5,600,000,000 times
Brandon: 0

PopcornTreeCt

Brandon Routh may have kick started a franchise while Hayden Christensen delivered the final death blow.

Terrell

How can you kick start a franchise that already existed? Not to mention his film lost a ton of money in the process.

Dudikoff

When you look at the sum of Hayden's work, it becomes apparent that he plays the whiny bitch in every role. I thought he was mind-numbingly annoying in Shattered Glass, but that might have been his best acting performance, even though it still wasn't very good. Perhaps the fact that he hasn't done anything worthwhile since the last Star Wars shows us what casting agents think of his skill and box office draw. Yes I know he plays Bob Dylan in that upcoming movie, but I'm going to go out on a limb and say he's going to be mediocre.

Voted Routh.

PopcornTreeCt

Brought a franchise back to life. I suppose that would be a better description. Even though I was using the OP's exact phrasing.

And the studios gave the greenlight to make a sequel so it couldn't have lost that much money.

riley_dude

Hayden was very wooden but that could have been the script. Routh could be better if he is given more to do with the character in the next movie.

CertifiedTHX

I say this not as a personal slam, because I truly do not mean any offense to Christensen, but Routh definitely has the edge. If we're comparing them from their respective roles in the Star Wars prequels and Superman Returns. I've not seen Routh in any other acting role aside from Christina Aguilera's boyfriend in her "What a Girl Wants" music video, but he assumed that of Superman perfectly. Pensive, subdued, yet totally appealing, and embodying the new Superman flawlessly. Can't wait to see him don the cape again in 2009.

Sadly, Christensen was cringe-inducing. Maybe a little better in ROTS. He was effective at giving troubled looks, but his voice seemed to crack whenever he spoke. Sure, part of the problem was the dialog, and part of it was the direction, but the poor guy practically defined stiff. (As did most of the others, of course.) But I saw him in a few minutes of either Life As a House or Shattered Glass-- frankly, I'm not sure which one it was-- and I noticed his performance wasn't all that different from that of Anakin Skywalker. Just to be honest, he hasn't shown me much yet.

Put succinctly, I want to see more of Brandon Routh-- in and out of the Superman role-- but Hayden Christensen would not draw me to a movie.

--THX

Mr. Cinema

Hayden Christiansen's acting is robotic. He's horrible. I'll take Routh.