Superman Returns

For those who don't know or have been living under a rock for the last 20 years, I am a huge Superman fan. I loved the original Christopher Reeve Superman movies (well, at least the first one). I am glued to Smallville when it airs during the fall season. I even own the Lois and Clark TV shows on DVD. In 2005, I heard that they had cast the new Superman movie, I was intrigued! When the movie came out, I took Dakota to see it when she was 3 and a half. I remember defending the movie against the Spiderman fans, saying that the love story between Superman and Lois was no different than the love story with Spiderman and Mary Jane. Now, after further review, I have changed my stance on the movie.

THE GOOD: I thought that casting an unknown (Brandon Routh) as the Man of Steel was great. I thought Brandon played the role of Clark Kent to perfection. He still needs to work on the Superman character, but I don't think he was given much help with that. Plus, he was replacing Christopher Reeve. That's kinda like Danny White replacing Roger Staubach or Quincy Carter replacing Troy Aikman. I feel he did as good of a job as Danny White and no where near of a job as Quincy Carter. I thought casting Kevin Spacey as Lex Luther was genius. While he wasn't as funny as Gene Hackman was in the original, he made me feel like Lex Luther could be a viable enemy for Superman. I loved how CGI has come so far from the original. I thought the flying sequences were great! The scene that sticks out in my mind is when Superman stopped the airplane from crashing into a baseball stadium.

THE BAD: This story sucked! They kept the same storylines from the original. Lex Luther was in search of land. Superman and Lois have already been together (the kid didn't help either). After watching Spiderman's 1 and 2, Batman's storying beginning, and the X-Men taking shape, you would think that we could see The Man of Steel throw ONE punch! I thought that Lois Lane was miscast. Kate Bosworth didn't have the flair that Lois Lane for getting stories. I felt like the entire movie was trying not to step on the toes of the Donner films. I even thought the Superman outfit was too dark. I know that Marvel and DC Comics like to have dark superheroes, but Superman is red, blue, and yellow, not marroon, dark blue, and gold.

THE VERDICT: Here we are, 2009, and we have seen a Batman sequel win an oscar. We have seen Iron Man become a bankable hero. We even saw a re-boot of The Incredible Hulk that made the first one look like a bad made for TV movie. You would think that Superman would of been up there with these movies. Honestly, I don't see how a movie can make $280 million and be considered a failure. However, when you spend $300 million to make the movie, it is not a commerical success. The movie is watchable, but if you want to see a great superhero movie, stay away from this one.