Is there anything cooler than going out to do something, and when you get there, there are your friends randomly present without having to do any of that pesky coordinating or what have you? Well, perhaps, but that is cool. Off I went to see Superman Returns, because of how he’s Superman and had planned to return, and all, and as I drive into the parking lot: friends! (Some of them refused to believe it was coincidence, which amused me to no end. But it was.) So there were people holding seats when we finished dinner, plus the awesomeness of the hangout itself. And I got a handful or so of free Reese’s Pieces, which is basically my favorite candy. Maybe Heath instead, but they’re both way up on the scale. On the whole, I have to come out in favor of the idea of friends, as they make life better in lots of different ways.

Which makes it kind of sad if you’re a strange visitor from another planet and feel like you’ve never really belonged or fit in in all your life, and then when you’re possibly making some headway in that arena, suddenly you decide that you need to go see what’s been going on with your destroyed homeworld, and you end up being gone for five long years, and the world moves on without you. Not just in the literal ‘hey, guess what, we can continue to more or less survive just like we always did before CapeBoy came along and started leaping over tall, speding bullets in order to save us from falling birds and/or planes’ sense, but in the personal ‘hey, guess what, I started dating a new guy and I have a small child and I never, ever talk about you, because guess what, I barely knew you existed, and also I’m really pissed at your alter-ego that I don’t know is also you for leaving me, and by the way isn’t it pleasant I haven’t been in mortal danger all this time until the week you got back?’ sense as well. And then you start hanging around outside windows looking for a glance of the domestic bliss that maybe you could have had for yourself, and it’s a little bit stalkerish, and nevermind that your arch-nemesis is just about to unleash a really cool and diabolical plot that, on the whole, you have no reasonable expectations of being able to prevent.

If it sounds like I’m having trouble classifying the film and my feelings about it in my head, well, that’s true. There’s some element of remake, some element of sequel, and both worked pretty well. Themes flying around in every which direction: whether and why heroes matter, messianic imagery, the importance of family and who actually comprises that family, the difficulty of maintaining quality evil henchmen, etc.

So, the good: Kevin Spacey owned the first half of the movie as Lex Luthor. I know he’s a bad guy and all, but I end up sympathizing with him a little bit more with every shred of nuance that writers throw at his character. It helps that he views himself as the savior of mankind so very often, I’m sure. Plus, the acting was every bit a match of the character, so yay there. Even more to my surprise, this Brandon Routh guy pretty well owned the second half of the movie as Superman. I like the guy in an abstract ‘isn’t that cool?’ kind of way, but Clark Kent isn’t as sympathetic as Bruce Wayne, and Superman tends to be too All-American all-star guy to have an actual personality. This Superman, though? I felt for him, both on behalf of himself and on behalf of me as the neutral everycitizen of the world who was thrilled to have the guy back, looking out for me. I would never have expected that; really either one of those, in fact, and yet there it is. And did I mention the awesomely diabolical plan? Good stuff.

The bad: Not a whole lot. The end of the movie got just a little bit overly mystical for my personal taste, and in ways that I would both have trouble explaining and furthermore am unequipped to, as they involve plot-shattering spoilers. Other than that, the single biggest, most glaring bad was the handling of Clark Kent. He was given short shrift both by the script (particularly the longer that the movie went on) and especially by the characters, any of whom should have had deep and searing questions for him from almost the first moments that they ran into him and all of whose questions should have grown ever more incisive and frequent as the show progressed. It was really a very flat point in an otherwise…. tremendous? well, certainly quite excellent movie. I think without that aspect, it might have been able to be my favorite film of the summer. As it is, I shall continue to rely upon Snakes on a Plane, despite having still not seen even one theatrical trailer.