So, I saw Superman Returns last night.

Really, this post could end right there. This movie was basically 2 hours of random special effects shots glued together with a few minutes of drivel. There are primarily two story lines in the movie; Superman’s relationship with Lois Lane, and something imitating a plot involving none other than Lex Luther. For some reason, the director felt that he should spend twice as much time on the Luis Lane aspect, and therefore the attempted plot of the movie doesn’t emerge until after the first hour. I say “attempted” because while Lex Luther is supposed to be a genius mastermind, his plan for world domination is pretty dumb, especially compared to his plans in the previous Superman movies.

Overall, this movie wasn’t really all that terrible: However, it was pretty atrocious for something that cost in the neighborhood of $250 million to create. That’s $250,000,000! You’d think that with all that money, they could afford to pay a 5-year-old to tell them where all the plot holes are.

The movie industry today wonders out loud about why their revenue is declining. Let’s not focus on the fact that they think suing their customers is a good idea. Instead, look at movies like Superman Returns. When you spend $250 million dollars to make a movie, you have to charge more for people to see it. So, what the customer sees is, “I have to pay more money to see worse movies!” This isn’t rocket science, people. You should fire the team of monkeys you have doing market research and just ask a few people on the street — and not the ones you interview walking out of the movie you just comped them.

For a quick perspective of better ways to spend your $250,000,000, you could:

Now, I’m all for science fiction. However, I prefer it when it actually inspires people towards science. Or even has a good story. Or, even any story. Don’t you think this money could have been better spent?