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Superman can't quite fly in 'Hollywoodland'

There were better actors in Hollywood in the 1950s, but for a generation of children who grew up in front of that new-fangled box called television, George Reeves absolutely was Superman.

Knowing that he was invincible to everything but Kryptonite made it difficult to accept the news that the Man of Steel committed suicide by shooting himself in the head.

Focus Features 'Hollywoodland' C+ The verdict: The sordid tale of George Reeves' life and death, with a bumbling detective and a miscast Affleck. Director: Allen Coulter Starring: Adrien Brody, Diane Lane, Ben Affleck, Bob Hoskins, Kathleen Robertson Run time: 126 minutes Release date: Sept. 8, 2006 Rating: R for language, some violence and sexual content. See showtimes On the web Official movie site View the trailer    Trailers require Quicktime Rate 'Hollywoodland'   Go see it   Make it a matinee   Wait to rent   Don't bother Voter Limit: Once per Hour View Poll Results

A victim of his own success, Reeves was so associated with that single role in the public consciousness that no other work came his way after the series ended. And so, he took his life in frustration and despair. That is the generally accepted version of his death, but Hollywood being what it is, there were also whispers of the possibility that Reeves was murdered for any of several seamy motives.

At least that is the suspicion of Reeves' mother in the tabloid tale Hollywoodland, an intriguing, but ultimately not very persuasive look at one man's journey through the meat grinder known as show business. Much is made of the idea that someone else pulled the trigger, but either way, Reeves is depicted as a casualty of a sordid, unfeeling industry.

A large part of the problem with Hollywoodland is screenwriter Paul Bernbaum's approach to the story, drawing parallels between Reeves (a beefed up Ben Affleck) and down-and-out private detective Louis Simo (in-over-his-head Adrien Brody), retained by Reeves' mother to prove that he was murdered.

There is a natural morbid curiosity about Reeves and his career and when first-time feature director Allen Coulter (TV's The Sopranos and Sex and the City) focuses on him, the film has a distinct fascination, even if Affleck seems painfully miscast.

The bigger problem comes with Simo, who feels like a filmic device, no matter how much he is humanized with his own marital troubles and a young son, distant and upset by the news of Superman's demise. Simo seems like fiction, and pulp fiction at that. When he is on-screen, bungling the case and his own life, our interest level ebbs and we grow impatient for the movie to swing back to Reeves.

It sounds made up, but Reeves' start in movies was a supporting role in Gone With the Wind. Surely, it was the beginning of a promising career made more promising by his romantic entanglement with Toni Mannix (a hardened Diane Lane), an older, determined woman whose husband (Bob Hoskins) is well-connected within Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer and, perhaps, organized crime. Still, Reeves' résumé stagnates until his agent all but insists that he audition for the Superman series, for which no one has any expectations.

The show becomes a phenomenon, of course, and Reeves eventually trades in Toni for a newer model (Robin Tunney). But a year after the series runs its course, he is found dead in his bedroom with a bullet in his temple. Various murder scenarios are played out, but Hollywoodland leaves the truth up to the viewer.

The tawdry look of 1950s Los Angeles is well-captured by production designer Leslie McDonald, but the film feels all dressed up with nowhere to go. It so clearly wants to be a Day of the Locust or even an L.A. Confidential, but in the end it feels as stiff and empty as Clark Kent's suit.