Superman Returned, and I was there

Scott and I and some friends went to see the 10PM showing (the first showing) of Superman Returns on Tuesday. First of all, the people in the theater with us were so excited to be there, I thought they may all explode. Or implode. I don't know - 'plode in some direction. Clad in their Superman T-shirts, they applauded at everything. During the credits - yay! Superman Returns! (Okay, that one made sense.) But then, "Yay! Kevin Spacey!" (Well, that makes some sense too.) And, "Yay! Casting director!" (Huh?) Randomly during the movie, "Yay!" And of course, at the end, "Yaaaaaaaaaaay!" I guess you could say that the general impression of the audience was positive.

Except for Scott, who went, "Meh," about the whole thing. He was annoyed with the ending - to avoid spoilers, I'll just say that he doesn't think that superheroes are supposed to do that, to have those. That part didn't bother me, but I'm not much of a superhero purist either.

Kevin Spacey says that he modeled his portrayal of Lex Luthor after Enron's Ken Lay. Pfffft. (Oops, I told Nichelle that it was Dick Cheney, not Ken Lay. Sorry Nichelle. I mixed up my eeeeeevil bald guys.) But I actually didn't find him quite menacing enough - sure, he wanted to take over the world and kill billions of people, whatever. But it was like, "I'm going to take over the world, maybe - after So You Think You Can Dance goes off" instead of, "I'M GOING TO TAKE OVER THE WORLD!"

Cool back-from-the-dead appearance by Marlon Brando as Jor-El. Brandon Routh was good as Superman/Clark Kent (and also not bad to watch for three hours!) but I thought that Kate Bosworth kind of fell flat as Lois Lane.

So. Not the best Marvel movie I've seen (that would go to either Spiderman or Spiderman 2, or X-Men 2) but nowhere near the worst (eeeegh, Daredevil.)