I saw Superman Returns last night. No spoilers here; I'll just say that I enjoyed the movie quite a bit. It was a nice continuation of the first two Christopher Reeve Superman movies.

There was some nice chemistry in the cast. Brandon Routh does a fine job as the Man of Steel. He projects the right mix of majesty and power and he looks good in the blue suit. He also does an excellent Clark Kent; he is really reminiscent of Reeve as the mild mannered reporter. The rest of the cast is great as well. Kevin Spacey channels his inner Gene Hackman as Lex Luthor. Actually, Spacey's Luthor is more of a "heavy" than Hackman's. Kate Bosworth does a nice job as Lois Lane as well.

One thing that was nice to see was that Noel Neill and Jack Larsen (Lois Lane and Jimmy Olsen from the 1950's Adventures of Superman TV series) had more than minor background cameos. They both did a nice job and it was nice to see the Jimmy and Lois I grew up with get some decent screen time in the 21st century version of Superman.

In fact, there was a ton of "inside" stuff in this movie for a lifelong Superman fanboy like me. Not to give anything away, but there were references in this movie from everything from Action Comics No. 1 onwards.

Not that the movie was perfect. The plot was a bit convoluted, but was redeemed by the relationships between the characters and some spectacular action sequences. It was also a bit long - I could have easily seen chopping 20 minutes out of the film.

All in all, however, Superman Returns is a fitting resurrection of the Superman movie franchise. If you are a Superman fan, you'll like the movie and love the inside jokes. If not, it's a good popcorn action flick.