“Come on, let me hear you say it just once. Come on.”

“You’re insane.”

“No! Not that. No, the other thing. Come on, I know it’s just dangling off the tip of your tongue. Let me hear it just once, please?

This scene was so clever and funny.

Superman Returns is a story about, well, the return of Superman. After hearing about a finding of the remains of Krypton, he left Earth to investigate. Once he comes back, though, he finds that most of the people in his life have moved on, most notably Lois Lane. It’s supposed to be a spiritual successor to both Christopher Reeve’s Superman: The Movie and Superman II, effectively making it one of the first big legacy sequels of the modern era. Due to this, it basically retcons Superman III and Superman IV: The Quest for Peace.

I wasn’t really looking forward to watching Superman Returns because of its reputation. Most reviews online simply state it as a boring and unimaginative return to a bygone era of comic book movies, and the two and a half hour runtime certainly didn’t help the feeling I had before hitting play. I was mostly expecting it to be a rather dull and lifeless Superman movie, and worst of all, forgettable. But being completely honest, I really enjoyed this film. I think something that the film fails to do, but something that I think rather works in its favor, is when it is viewed as a standalone movie, and not a sequel to any of the Reeve’s stuff. No one can live up to or portray the charm of Chris Reeve as both Superman and Clark, Margot Kidder as Lois Lane, and even Gene Hackman as Lex Luthor; it’s just too tall an order.

And yes, I do think that all of our actors in these three roles failed in the aspect of recreating these roles, but I do think that they did an excellent job portraying their own versions of these characters, well, at least two of them. Brandon Routh is a great Superman, to put it bluntly, even if he has one of the weaker suits and physiques that we’ve had onscreen, in my opinion. While he doesn’t at all feel like Reeve, he does feel like Superman, and his Clark is honestly one of the better ones we’ve seen on the big screen. He’s excellent in the role by differentiating between Superman and Clark, just in a different way than Reeve, and his Superman is what the character should always be: a beacon of hope. His Clark is quirky as always, too.

I know Kevin Spacey has been a hot topic over the last number of years (as well as the director, just to mention), but he always has been and will always be a brilliant actor. While feeling different from Hackman’s, as I already mentioned, yes, he quite honestly lives up to him in the role. He manages to be both a villain you root against and a villain you like and find amusing at the same time. His craziness is also great and not too over-the-top, and I think he just simply looks the part, too. I found him to be an immensely entertaining villain to watch.

I’m also a big fan of the story, despite a lot of people feeling otherwise. I love the concept of Superman returning to a world that has since basically forgotten him and changed, and I really like what they do with Lois. She’s moved on, fallen in love with someone else, and had a child all in the span of those five years. It even makes Superman more interesting, as he essentially goes back to feeling alone in this world like he always did in Smallville. Even his Clark persona has been forgotten by not only Lois, but his friends, and it makes for some surprisingly poignant stuff.

Speaking of poignant, this movie is full of emotion. It dives rather deep into Superman, with all the stuff I already mentioned, but also returns to the pathos that made the first act of Reeve’s first Superman so emotionally impactful. I know I said that this rather fails to feel like a sequel to those movies, but I would say this is the one aspect where it definitely succeeds. We get some really good character-driven scenes that really play on the emotions of both the characters and the audience, and set things up to be incredibly impactful. The revelations we get regarding what’s happened with Lois, again, while controversial, I really liked because of how they added to Superman’s character. I definitely don’t like that it’s supposed to be Reeve’s Superman that these things have happened to, but yet again, I view this as a standalone, and I think that makes the movie better, even if I maybe shouldn’t view it in that way since that’s not the way it was intended.

Despite how mixed the reviews are for this movie, I think one thing everyone can agree on is that it does actually have some of the most epic moments out of all the Superman movies. None of these are spoilers because they were all featured in the trailers and marketing, but you’ve got the plane sequence, the bullet to the eye moment, and the recreation of scenes from both Reeve’s movies, as well as some iconic imagery from the comics. These were definitely some of my favorite moments out of all the Superman movies.

Can’t forget to mention the visuals, as well as the score, too. This is one of the better-looking Superman movies and has aged incredibly well in my opinion. The action scenes are filmed really well, even if there weren’t a ton of them, and gave me goosebumps. The cinematography also captures the look and feel of Metropolis really well, and I loved how the Fortress of Solitude looked, even though it looked much different than it did in Reeve’s movies. I absolutely love the inclusion of some of John Williams’ most iconic tracks, but even the original stuff was really good too, which definitely surprised me.

Pretty much all of the flaws that I had with this movie were ones I had heard about before watching it, with the exception of one. I’ll start off with more of a mixed, which is the slower pacing. I absolutely loved the slower pacing of Superman: The Movie (1978), as it took its time, especially at the beginning, getting you to connect with Clark Kent/Kal-El before he took on the Superman persona. However, with Superman Returns, I do feel like this movie’s story warranted its runtime, and I was never personally all that bored, but I could see the really slow pacing and especially the lack of action affecting a lot of people’s viewing experiences.

When it comes to the outright negatives, my first one is a popular one, being Lois Lane. Kate Bosworth was undeniably miscast in the role, especially because of how young she was when she acted in this movie. She also fails even more than everyone else to capture the Donner-era characters, and to be honest, I really didn’t like her here. Margot Kidder is my favorite Lois Lane, and this is supposed to be a continuation of that character, but she somehow turned into my least favorite character in the movie. She’s just overtly lustful throughout the entire movie, and downright selfish at times. It’s quite odd, to be honest.

My other negative that I haven’t really heard anyone talk about, but I found to be quite significant, was the way the world reacted to Superman. With Superman returning after five years, I never felt like the movie portrayed the city in the way it would have realistically reacted to his return. Instead, it’s all sort of inside this Daily Planet bubble, where all we see are headlines. This disappointed me a bit. There are also very few scenes where people praise Superman or, well, honor him like a hero.

While it’s not quite on the level of greatness, I found this to be an extremely underrated and underappreciated Superman movie. It’s safe to say that I am a fan of Routh in this role, and I’m even curious to check out his stuff in the CW shows.