It's nice seeing specific 90s Superman characters many thought we'd never see again. But it's odd throwing these 90s Nostalgia references into a universe that has a New52 aesthetic.
I frankly feel like the only way it'll ever work to re-imagine this story with a more normal Lex Luther would be with a history where he and Superman hadn't been openly antagonist yet. When I first read these Comics I didn't have all the context for the Alexander Luthor Jr stuff, but I know I rather enjoyed the dynamic of everyone kind of getting along with Lex while he was keeping his evilness hidden. That might be something important to me because I read them while growing up on Smallville, that show also makes me crave more nuanced takes on Superman and Lex's relationship.
Mostly though, what I wanted from an attempt to do this story-line in only two movies is for the first movie to simply have the Superman vs Doomsday fight be the first act/half of the movie and then the rest be Funeral for a Friend. Honestly some of the most memorable moments in Comics to me are early in the World Without A Superman trade paperback, how much time is spent in the moments right after he died, trying to revive him and just generally dealing with the shock of it. So seeing multiple adaptations jump right to the funeral within 30 seconds always feels like a waste to me.
Now I know that would be an odd structure for a movie, the opposite of conventional action movies, but it can work. Just look at the last Gundam The Origin OVA, it's about the same length as this movie, and all the real action in it, the Battle of Loum, is in the first act of the film, the rest is chronicling the aftermath of the battle while getting things exactly where they were when the original Gundam series started.
"But that was the last movie in a series not the first" you'll likely respond. Yes it was, but in this case the Superman we're following had been in a trilogy of Justice League movies. But they could also have just done a normal Superman solo cartoon before this (we hadn't had one since before Man of Steel came out) where they deal with him revealing himself to Lois and establish this universe's Lex and so on, and then ended with a cool "Doomsday is Coming" cliff hanger. Maybe base it on the Eradicator story-line.
But regardless of all that I don't need that much context, the first Superman Comic I ever read was World Without A Superman, I didn't even have the context of how he died. My prior familiarity with Superman was stuff not in the same continuity but that was enough.
I'm optimistic that I'll enjoy the Reign of The Supermen film a lot more. This film wasn't bad, just still far from how I want this story to be treated. The best dramatized adaptation is still the BBC Audio Drama.
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