Finally got around to watching SUPERMAN RETURNS last night as it premiered on Sky Movies. Yes, it had all the flaws the fanboys warned me about: it was too long; it was too slow; it was pretty much a remake of Donner's 1978 version, a movie that really didn't need remaking; being so faithful, Singer even goes so far as to make the same narrative mistakes as Donner; Kevin Spacey's Luthor is as dreadful as Gene Hackman's; and it focused way too much on the (currently popular over at DC) messianic reading of the mythos' subtext.
But other than that? I liked it a lot more than I ever expected to. Routh was channeling Christopher Reeve so much that every time he came on screen I wanted to give him a big hug. The script was witty, and had a good way of handling all the classic, corny, turns of phrase that come with the characters (Perry White's "does he still stand for truth, justice and all that stuff?" being, as Brendan McCarthy pointed out at the time, loaded with political commentary). The action sequences have a touch of the spectacular about them, even if they take too long coming. The cinematography is gorgeous: the thing looks great throughout. And Singer does include some lovely, lingering images - he understands the iconography of the character.
Still, I'm not exactly baffled as to why this movie under-performed with the fans and the box-office. The Donner-faithfulness gives the movie an air of "been there, done that" that's hard to shake. The only truly new element Singer, Dougherty and Harris add to the legend is expanding the Lois-Clark-Superman love triangle to include James Marsden's Richard White, and the love-child Superman never knew he had, Jason. These additions infuriated and baffled the internet trolls. I liked 'em, and thought this angle was, if anything, under-explored. That said, it added an adult storyline into the movie that the stereotypical, notoriously developmentally-arrested, comicbook fan might balk at: it's hard to relate to parenthood, when you're so desperately busy clutching on to your childhood. I'll be saddened if the rumours are true, and Singer and crew's script for the sequel excises these additions in a gruesome fashion. I'd rather DC embraced the changes, 'cus if Superman and Lois' bizarre inter-species marriage is allowed to stand, why not let 'em have a kid, too?