Superman Has Returned... But Why?

I went to see Superman Returns yesterday. I wasn’t very excited about the movie because I’ve never been a Superman fan, but still. I am a huge fan of Smallville, though, and Bryan Singer was directing the movie. Besides, having no expectations whatsoever was a good thing, because then I would most likely enjoy the movie without being disappointed.
Well, I was not disappointed, but that’s probably because my brain was so numb from the dullness of the movie, that I couldn’t feel anything else. I was so bored that I surprised myself wishing I was watching the movie at home so I could do something entertaining while watching the movie. Maybe play Alice on my laptop. (Talking about Alice, they’re making a movie out of it, as it happens.)
The acting is fine, and I thing the movie is well cast. Brandon Routh makes for a great Clark Kent/Superman; Kevin Spacey is an okay Luthor; and Kate Bosworth… well, I wasn’t all that impressed with her, but I guess she’s okay. However, and even though I was trying really hard not to compare them, I couldn’t help it: I was missing Tom Welling, Michael Rosenbaum, and Erica Durance.
Routh is likeable enough as Clark, but I’d choose Tom Welling over him any day. The same goes for the bad guy. Rosenbaum’s Luthor is infinitely more nuanced and scary –not to mention less campy- than Spacey’s, and I wanted to go back and watch Smallville instead of the movie. And Erica Durance is a much cooler (and also, paradoxically, hotter) Lois than Kate Bosworth. And more fun to watch. Just like Smallville. You can watch four episodes of the show in the same amount of time it would take you to watch the movie, and any of those episodes would be more fun and more compelling than Singer's movie.
Cause that’s my main problem with the movie. Superman Returns is not fun to watch. It’s too long and too boring. It’s not compelling. It’s not entertaining. It’s just long and dull, and it drags on and on and on, until it’s mercifully over. The best part of the whole experience was watching the Spiderman 3 teaser for the first time. Now that was exciting. (And bizarre, I thought, since they were pairing a Marvel icon with a DC one.)
In short, I’m just going to go ahead and blame Bryan Singer for two recent bad movies: X-Men 3 and Superman Returns. Superman did not need to return at all, especially if he was going to do so in such a lackluster movie. And the fact that Singer left X3 to do it makes him responsible for the not-quite-disastrous-but-almost third installment of Wolvie & Friends. It’s a good thing Pirates of the Caribbean 2 opens in a week. ‘Tis a good thing indeed.