Holy #$*& is Superman Returns boring

There's just not even anything to say about it. After an hour and 15 minutes, there's been abo15 minutes of plot and character introduction... that's not hyperbole, I seriously think somebody could edit the first hour and a half down to 15-20 minutes, ditching the endless flying through space opening credits, and trimming the endless fawning over a bubbling model train set.

Actually there are some things to say. For one thing, when the model train set-up is being destroyed by the bubbling crystal from Krypton, I wondered who has a model train set where the miniature model people emit human screams if they get knocked over? I think that was supposed to be a bit more subliminal, but it's still stupid. Richard Branson makes yet another aviation cameo as the shuttle flight engineer, when he really would have been more useful as a flight attendant telling Lois Lane to put her seat belt on so she wouldn't have been thrown around the cabin during the crash. She survives that with no bruises or broken bones, but then faints from the sight of Superman, which really makes me wonder, when did fainting come back in style for ladies? Are corsets a fashion necessity for Metropolis women?

Really, what kills Superman though is the floating. The old Superman used to land and walk around in an authoritative way, where the current boyish Superman gives off a different vibe. Christopher Reeves played the character as Superman, and had the man of steel play at being Clark Kent, showing some amusement at how people perceived him because underneath he was all strength and confidence. Brandon Routh is playing Clark Kent all the time, and he's resentful of how nobody can see his Superman persona. When he plays at being Superman, he's trying so hard he seems that much more like a little boy in a Superman costume, imagining himself as something important, and powerful. And then he cements it by floating around everywhere. Superman flying with the fist out in front of him: strong and majestic, and he makes the flying seem like a forceful, challenging mode of transport only Superman could do by taking the running start, and by landing, which respects the power of flight in the imagination of the audience. Clark Kent in tights daintily floating down from the ledge is just channeling Peter Pan.

With two and a half hours and a plot that I can summarize in... well, Superman goes to Krypton so Lex Luthor steals a crystal from the Fortress of Solitude and a Kryptonite shard, and uses them to make a new Kryptonite continent, so Superman flies in and throws it into space. In all the time allotted for that, you'd think there could be one character driven story to tell, but at the end of Superman Returns, nobody has changed in any way due to their experiences, other than Superman now knows he has a Super-rugrat (with asthma). All it really accomplishes is to show why children outgrow Superman: there's nothing for him to do that's beyond a five year old's attention span.