I love superheroes. In my youth I was forever wishing to have mutant powers and the things I would do with them. I would endlessly start stories where I was the main character and had some special abilities that made me stand out from others. You would think that my expectations for Superman Returns would be high then, but from the bit of press on the movie I could not avoid, I found myself arching an eyebrow. It looked very much like the old Superman movies with Christopher Reeves, and while I don’t have much against them, I knew then what kind of experience I was going to have with the movie.

Superman has always been a bit of a thorn in my side. I am more of a Marvel fan then a DC universe fan, and so that gives me a bit of byast in this review, but I think everyone would agree that Superman is too powerful in these movies. Even his “allergy” to Kryptonite was understated in this movie.

I also thought that while it was good that they picked an unkown for the role of Superman/Clark Kent, could they not have picked someone with more of a presence? I found Brandon Routh to be a great Clark Kent, but a horrible superman.

DrSpengler over on Filmsy puts the actors performance into perspective, and since I can’t write it better myself, I will quote their review.

Brandon Routh, when all is said and done, just isn’t a very good Superman. An adequate Superman, yes, but a good Superman? No. What REALLY makes Superman in this movie is the use of nostalgia. John Williams’ larger-than-life Superman theme does a remarkable job of hiding Brandon Routh’s inadequacies in the role and brings Superman to life much better than the actual actor. Routh does a magnificent job channeling Christopher Reeves’ Clark Kent, on the other hand. It becomes almost creepy to a degree. A shame he couldn’t do the same with the alter ego.

Kevin Spacey steals the show as Lex Luthor and may very well be the best part of this movie. His take on the character is amazingly accurate to Gene Hackman’s rendition; it just feels so right. But unlike Hackman, Spacey brings an element of darkness to the character during key scenes. Sure, nothing close to the brooding, corporate executive Post-Crisis version most people are acquainted with today, but dark-enough to make Luthor more intimidating than campy.

There were also, very few scenes that really did it for me in the movie, and so despite their incredible budget, I still did not feel like I was geting much more than a three part story arc on WB’s television series Smallville.

Superman Returns met my expectations, and in my mind is only worthy of a two-point-five out of five in my own “movie review rating scale”.