A solid re-telling of the Superman II tale.

Good acting (especially by Tobey Maguire), passable special effects (toning down the CGI would have helped here) but very little to distinguish this film. We really did all get the 'seen it all before' feeling while watching this. The initial Spiderman movie had the benefit of surprise - we didn't know exactly where the story would be taking us, how it would be told or how the leads would interpret their parts. We know all that now so a sequel has to offer so much more - or approach a tale from a different and fresh angle. This sequel unfortunately does neither - but instead relies on the power of CGI and fast action sequences to overwhelm.

An enjoyable enough way to spend two hours but we already knew all the answers to the rather simplistic plot and nothing unexpected came along to surprise or delight us.