If I was to describe Superman Returns in one word: lacklustre. Or how about: predictable?
I liked it. Kevin Spacey was brilliant and really chewed up the screen time that he had but Routh was wooden (let's face it, not chosen for his acting chops) and Bosworth was just plain annoying.
Kal Penn, a great comedic actor, had no lines. He was simply there to show that no matter how evil Luthor is he isn't racist in his henchmen hiring practices. By the way, he was the only non-white person in the entire movie as far as I could tell. Is Metropolis that whitebread? Say what you like about Superman III but at least it starred Richard Pryor.
I know that this was a set-up but i wanted more danger. I want Luthor to come back and build a 60-storey robot or, better yet, use the blood on the kryptonite shard to clone a monster like Doomsday for the second movie.
I really just wish they'd use Kevin Smith's script instead of the one they did. It was a Superman movie but fell into mediocrity somewhere between the greatness of Superman II and III. 4/10