Okay, I've *finally* seen it! It opened here in Sweden today.

And - yes, I liked it. I didn't love it, but I liked it. I'm glad this movie was made. I may or may not see it again in a movie theater, but I'm going to buy the DVD when it's available (assuming I've bought myself a DVD player by then).

So, the things in the movie that I liked:

Well, most of all I like that "Superman Returns" makes "Superman II" somewhat acceptable to me! "Superman II" was the movie that I hated beyond all others, because of what it did to Lois and Clark. Clark (or Superman) had to choose between his powers and Lois, and he first chose Lois. He did this by somehow losing his powers and then making love to Lois. But later he had to have his powers back, and then he knew that he could never be with Lois again. Never ever. Good-bye, relationship. Good-bye, future marriage. To stop Lois from complaining about this, he wiped her memory of what had happened between them. Good-bye, clingy ex-girlfriend. And would you believe how *happy* he seemed to be that he had solved his "Lois problem" in this way?

This movie put me off Superman for ten years, and I still feel angry and upset when I think of it. So I'm very, very glad that SR deals with a few of the things that almost killed me in Superman II:

1) In SR, Superman is *not* indifferent to Lois. On the contrary, he loves her and misses her. He wants her back.

2) SR shows us that Superman wasn't able to just mindwipe away all the consequences of his and Lois's lovemaking, because he made her pregnant. Yes!!! I've always wanted to see that. And now they have a child. Lois and Superman. I *love* that!

3) Lois was angry at Superman for leaving, and she told him so. Yes! Considering how angry *I* was at him for what he did to Lois in SII, I'm so glad she told him that he had hurt her.

There were other things that I really liked about SR, too:

4) Lois! I was afraid that I would really dislike Lois in this movie, both because of the script and because of the way Bosworth played her. But I was happy with her. Okay, she wasn't perfect, no. I would have liked her to have more spunk (even though I didn't find her completely lacking in it), and I would have liked her to have more presence, more charisma. But I was surprised to see that she *looked* more like Lois than I had expected her to, apart from the fact that she was very beautiful. And while some people have complained that she was meek and dull, I didn't find her a complete pushover at all. Indeed, I thought she was smart when she realized that somebody really needed to investigate that power failure instead of just raving about Superman's return. I liked how doggedly she kept looking into this. And while you could argue that she was a horrible mother for bringing Jason along to the place where the power failure started, I thought this was actually in character for her. Lois always jumps in without checking the water level first, doesn't she?

And I thought you could feel her love for Jason. In her own way, this Lois was the best mother she could be for Jason. And Jason knew it too, and loved her for it.

Also she wasn't a total wimp. She did save Superman when he was drowning, didn't she?

So, yes, I liked this Lois. She wasn't perfect, but she was good enough to make me happy!

And Brandon Routh's Superman was beautiful. He looked - well, occasionally he looked radiant, like Singer once remarked! He looked like the perfect Superman. And he flew, and moved, so gracefully. He, too, made me happy.

And while I had *never* expected to appreciate Lex Luthor in any way, there was something about this Luthor that made me - well, not *like* him, but appreciate him as a villain. I loved his Prometheus delusion. Imagine, he was comparing himself with Prometheus who stole the secret of the fire from the gods and gave it to humanity!

And I liked Jimmy. Imagine! Jimmy! Oh, I didn't adore him, don't get me wrong, but I did like his nerdy innocence and his fondness for Clark. And I liked Eva Marie Saint as Martha. And I really, really, really liked Parker Posey as Kitty! Okay, I actually adored her! And I liked Tristan Lake Lebau as Jason. Yep, I really did. And I liked the kid who played young Clark Kent. I really loved that part of the movie, where we saw young Clark Kent learning to fly!

And there were other things I liked - the special effects, the John Williams score, the beautiful and impressive space vistas, the various little tributes to classic and iconic Superman images and ideas. The way people are remembered - the picture of Glenn Ford on Martha's piano, the fact that the movie was dedicated to the memory of Christopher and Dana Reeve.

I even liked the religious references. I don't take them seriously because I am an agnostic, but I do think that Superman really can be thought of as a Christ figure of some kind. He is this miraculous character who is both "just a man" and "so much more than just a man". I would be slightly uncomfortable if this movie made people believe more in Jesus because of Superman, but quite apart from that I thought it was appropriate that the movie should acknowledge the similarities between the idea of Superman and the idea of Jesus.

There were, of course, things I disliked, too. As a space buff, I really did cringe at some things that were said in this movie. Krypton is supposedly half a galaxy away and yet Earth scientists have *seen* it? They haven't seen *a* planet half a galaxy away, which would be plenty remarkable enough, believe me, but they have seen that this planet is *Krypton*? The whole thing is so ludicrous that it makes the idea of a flying man quite humdrum and normal!

And there were other things, such as the fact that this movie *is* slow at times.

But to me, the biggest problem was that ultimately, Brandon Routh was somewhat lacking as Superman. Oh, he looked splendid and all, he was a joy to look at, but on some level I couldn't understand him. I couldn't see *why* he was Superman, what was driving him. I would have liked to see some *passion* in him, something that he felt so strongly about that it explained what he was all about, but I couldn't find it.

Similarly, the interplay between Bosworth and Routh was somewhat lacking in passion, and I don't mean just sexual tension, believe me. No, it was more that... I guess you could say that the script is so vague that we, the audience, don't understand what exactly has happened between Superman and Lois. Oh, we know that they made love at least once and that Superman left without saying good-bye, but there are so many things we don't understand. And you know what? I got the distinct impression that Routh and Bosworth didn't understand it, either. They play a romantic couple, but they don't understand the nature and the history of the romance that they are supposed to convey to the audience. They are left in the dark about *who* their characters really are, and therefore they ultimately leave us in the dark, too.

Because of that, the movie didn't really, really grab me. It didn't hypnotize me. I liked the movie, I'm glad it exists, I enjoyed watching it, but it did leave important parts of me untouched.

Ann