Note: IMHO
I couldn't stand either of the Spider Man or any of the X-Men movies. Why? Because they weren't true, in my mind at least, to the comic books. I was a Marvel reader for 10 years, and was espically interested in Spiderman. I remember reading Maximum Clonage and Maximum Carnage, and all the other Maximums. I loved it. I remember when Spiderman (a.k.a. Peter Parker, a.k.a. the Clone of the real Spiderman, Ben Riley, etc.) lost his powers and left NYC. The first Spiderman movie was a joke. Willm Defoe, one of my favorite actors, was reduced to a Batman & Robin-esque performance. Why was Green Goblin in the first movie, anyway? No one knew what they were doing, save for Cliff Robertson as Uncle Ben. Moving on to Spiderman 2...not one good acting performance from any of the actors. It wasn't true to any of the characters. Mary Jane wasn't brazen enough, Mcguire can play Parker, but he can't play Spiderman, and Alfred Molina really wasn't ready to play a supervillan. Why did his tentacles growl? The only part of those movies I really enjoyed was actually watching the web slinging (and I had to mute it so as not to have to hear Toby going "Wooohoo!!!" in an unconvincing performance). Don't get me started on X-Men...
The reason I loved Superman Returns is it was true to the Superman of the 50s and 60s (maybe into the 70s), my favorite Superman. It was EXTREEMLY true to the first 2 movies. It showed consistency. It was an entertaining storyline. It was believable to someone who read the comic book. Kevin Spacy owned as a villan. Brandon Routh was believable as Smallville Clark, Metropolis Clark, and Superman. Kate Bosworth, not only being hot as the yellow sun, was able to convince me that she was Spoiler: completly thrown and in turmoil about Jason. I was never a Margot Kidder fan, so this was a huge improvement. Sam Huntington's Jimmy Olsen actually made me laugh outloud. While it was sad because it reminded me of Christopher Reeve and his wife, I was glad to see that Spoiler: the film was dedicated to them both, which made my wife cry. I miss being emotionally invested in films. This brought me back to that again. When Spoiler: Superman was stabbed and fell to the ocea, or when he fell from orbit, I really though he could die, making this the final chapter in a Superman trilogy. I knew in the back of my mind that would make the studio crazy, but I couldn't rule it out completly.
Bottom line: some people, yours truely included, think this movie is the best superhero movie, and for good reason.
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