Superman Returns

I went to the 10pm advanced screening of Superman Returns last night. Boy, am I glad I did. I loved it. Ok, I really really liked it. I had a few minor problems that kept this from being the prefect Superman movie. Still, I have to say that it's the best live action effort yet.

SPOILER ALERT!

Lets just get the stuff I didn't like out of the way first.

1) The costume. It's not good. The neck line is all wrong. The texture, the belt, the boots, and the "S" are all wrong. I don't know what they were thinking.

2) The kid. Not a fan of the illigitimate son of Superman plot line. I didn't like it when Superman and Lois slept together in Superman II and I don't care for Lois as an unwed mother in Superman Returns. They've also set Lois up as a big fat liar. She got everyone thinking this guy Richard is the father when he clearly isn't. Richard seems to think he's the father as well. True, Superman is also inherently a liar with the whole Clark Kent thing, but this is different. I feel really bad for Richard. Aparently Lois has been stringing him along for years. Now with Superman back, I'm sure she'll never set a date for the wedding. Maybe Richard will be killed by a super-villian in the next movie and clear up this little love triangle.

3) The previous movies. I wish they had taken a Batman Begins aproach to Superman Returns and not tried to link it to the previous movies. I never cared for Marlon Brando as Jor-El or that vision of Krypton in general.

Right, on to the good stuff.

1) Brandon Routh. Not only does he look like Christopher Reeve, he sounds like him too. I wonder if he worked on that. Routh looks good in the bad suit. He also puts some effort into acting differently as Clark then as Superman as opposed to say George Reeve or Dean Cain.

2) The Bad Guys. Kevin Spacey is great as Lex Luthor and he's bald most of the time unlike say Gene Hackman or John Shea. His henchpeople were also good. The lovely and talented Parker Posey was great as Kitty Kowalski, essentially the new Miss Teschmacher. Kal Penn and David Fabrizio were in particular were amusing henches, though Penn's amusement mostly comes from recongnizing him as Kumar.

3) The Daily Planet. Liked Sam Huntington as the new Jimmy. Frank Langella was good as Perry but he's no Lane Smith. Lois was nice to look at, but she was no Teri Hatcher either.

4) The cameos. Noel Neill (Lois Lane from both the Kirk Alan movie serial and from The Adventures of Superman tv show) and Jack Larson (Jimmy Olson from The Adventures of Superman) both have cameo appearences. Neil also had a cameo in Superman the Movie and both apeared in the Superboy episode "Paranoia."

5) The efects. Best yet. They're just great. At no point does Superman look like he's hanging in front of a blue screen or like a cgi cartoon.

On the whole it's a great movie. Go see it now.

Superman Returns gets 5 out of 5 fanboy fans.