Superman Returns

In a Nutshell: I liked and enjoyed it a lot. As an homage to the original films, it is perfection. On its own, it needed a little help.

Quick Plot: After being gone for several years in an attempt to find his home world, Superman Returns, to find Lois has moved on, and Lex hasn't changed one bit.

In Detail: This film is a beautiful love note to the Christopher Reeve films. It was very carefully crafted with shots and scenes taken *directly* from prior movies. Just watching the opening credits is enough to put a goofy grin on your face if you are a fan. It is difficult for me to judge this movie as a separate entity, for some reason. Maybe Bryan Singer does too good of a job? Had this been the first of the "superhero boom," people would be talking about how amazingly wonderful it is. But after such fantastic films as X-Men and Spider-Man, this one falls a little short. Still, it is a very good movie, and absolutely worth seeing in the theater. I am exceedingly impressed with Brandon Routh. I am a huge Christopher Reeve fan, so I was already prejudiced against him, but he really won me over. Kevin Spacey rocks, as always, and the guy who played Jimmy Olson was perfection. Kate Bosworth was quite a departure, but I think I like her take on things (well, mostly). And I was thrilled to see so much of James Marsden here, since his part was smaller in X-Men (I didn't even know he was *in* Superman until the opening credits started running). I was very unhappy with that whole set-up, but it was handled quite gracefully. And I swear he was hired simply for his ability to deliver one particularly cheesy line *without* you rolling your eyes; it was pretty amazing. All of this is not to say that the film didn't have flaws. While no particular scene seemed overlong, the film still seemed to drag here and there. I think it was in my favor that I hadn't seen the prior films in quite some time, so there was no direct comparison, just gentle reminders. Any scenes or lines that seems a bit hokey compared to the rest of the movie (even for a Superman film) is probably a scene from the older films redone. I also think some of the storyline intersplicing was wonky. It just didn't flow very well. But overall, a fine film.

Will I Buy It? I'm not sure. I want to say yes, but I know that DH didn't like it as much as I did, so we'll see. Maybe we'll wait for the next one.