Oh, so Alex and I saw Superman Returns yesterday. And you know what bugged me the most?

It wasn’t the fact that people saw fit to bring their (obviously) under-5 year-old kids to an action movie that started at 8 — meaning that it gets out at 10:45, which the theatre could have told them. And then, that they saw fit to let them talk, continuously, throughout any scenes which didn’t feature flying. Seriously? Also? Do a little research. While there was nothing in the movie that would, like, damage a child, it was somewhat dark and slowly paced, with at least one major plot point that would go right over a junior kindergartener’s head. (I think parents should be able to decide what their kids should see, don’t get me wrong, but this isn’t about that. This is a fact of kids. Don’t take them to a movie for grownups that ends after ten o’clock at night.)

It was basically everything related to Lois Lane. I really like a lot of stuff about the movie: I liked Parker Posey, I thought Sam Huntington (who was Luke on the first season of Veronica Mars) was pretty great as Jimmy Olsen, James Marsden was his good, non-superhero self, Frank Langella was fine as Perry White, Kevin Spacey was even tolerable (The Usual Suspects was good but I haven’t forgotten K-Pax) and I am a pretty big fan of Brandon Routh’s performance. He wasn’t all up in my grill, but he’s charming and Clark is just a little bit goofy. I could get over how no one seemed to notice that Superman and Clark came back the exact same day after a five-year abscence.

But then there’s Lois. Lois Lane is supposed to be the epitome of the modern woman. She’s supposed to be smart. She’s supposed to be tough. She’s supposed to be remotely believable as a woman who can string together sentences and steal the heart of freaking Superman. So they cast Kate Bosworth, who is twenty-three years old, even though her character is supposed to be both a Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist and to have a child that is four years old (with, bizarrely, the nephew of the editor of the paper). She must have started college when she was like 12. But maybe I could have forgiven them casting the youngest, gossip-friendliest, it-girlest, prettiest actress they could find despite her not suiting the character in the least. I realize Superman’s girlfriend isn’t exactly a feminist icon — if anything she’s the opposite: an archetypal fast-talking career dame who always claims she can take care of herself but actually always needs saving by Superman, the big strong Christ figure — but they at least usually made her seem actually smart. Margot Kidder? I believed. Also, you’d figure if they were updating the story, they’d make it less sexist, not more so. But no. I hated her on sight when they showed her at a press conference asking “feisty” questions like “If this is so important, how come there’s only one network here?” During the PR lady’s presentation which is just bad manners. I knew we were in trouble when her first line in the Daily Planet office was “How many ‘f’s in catastrophic?” …which, no. Her apparently Pulitzer Prize-winning editorial (even though she’s supposed to be a crack investigative reporter, but whatever, we’ll let that one go) is entitled “Why the World Doesn’t Need Superman.” And you see? It’s a metaphor for her denial about her true feelings for Superman. Because she can only write articles that win awards when she’s sad because her boyfriend ran off. Which, ugh. The clincher is when Lois Lane, professional, award-winning journalist asks her boyfriend “Can you talk to your uncle for me?” because she didn’t like her assignment. Puke. Even Teri Hatcher wouldn’t pull that shit.

I hate to harp on a comic book movie for the total lack of nuance in the love interest, but the movie’s as much about Lois as Superman. Her “emotional” “conflict” takes up about half the running time — and it seems longer. If you’re going to bring Superman into the twenty-first century, Bryan Singer, why couldn’t Lois Lane come?