You guys may want to shoot me but I actually prefer Routh

[SteamTeck]

I Just rewatched Superman 2 ( which I have on DVD so I DO like it) after seeing Superman Returns last night and I really like Routh bettter than Reeve. Reeve does a great job but frankly Routh's Performance is deeper and more nuanced. Reeve does look beeter just standing there. IN fact Superman 2 stands up very badly to Returns for me. The phantom zone villans are great but the general level of writing is much better in Superman returns.  Any plot holes in Returns and microscopic compared to the sloppinesss in Superman 2. Almost actor by actor I prefer the new version. My wife thinks I've been replaced by an Alien. I NEVER like the new version of anything better.

[nightwing]

I'm not gonna shoot you; I agree with you!

Reeve was ill-served by bad plots throughout his tenure, but to me he comes off as physically weak and that's a no-no for Superman. (I don't mean he wasn't built, because he was.  But he was too...well, girly for my taste).  I grew up on George Reeve's version with that jutting jaw and no-nonsense attitude, and Chris' "sensitive new age guy" was a drag for me even when I was a kid.  I guess they made Superman all cute and cuddly for the girls in the audience, I don't know.  Even the flying was wrecked for me because they replaced George's leap and hurricane woosh effect in favor of floating around like Peter Pan.  Not that Routh doesn't float, too, but some of the flying effects in SR are powerful and almost violent in terms of speed and movements, and I dig it.

I think it's possible Reeve could've done some great acting in his films, had the scripts demanded it.  But in retrospect they're much more "comic booky" (in a bad sense) than any superhero fare that came after them.

Routh's last scene with the kid was more moving than anything Reeve ever did, I believe.  (Sometimes Reeve's acting is just awkward, like in that cut scene with Jor-El on the S:TM DVD) But most of all, for my money, Routh just comes off as tougher, which wins my vote.  And I've gotta tell you for all the controversy the suit didn't bother me a bit.  In fact on screen it looks better than the older version, even if (or more likely because) it was more faithful to the comics.

[SteamTeck]

I think you hit the nail on the head. I wonder if the stories had been better if Reeve would have enjoyed the character more  and thus put more into it after the first film.

[Gangbuster]

I agree about Reeves' Superman, but I've always thought that his Clark Kent was perfect. On the other hand, George Reeves had Superman down, but his Clark Kent was a bit obvious.

[JulianPerez]

It's really hard for me to come to a definite opinion of Brendan Routh because, honestly, the movie didn't use him very much - I'm struggling to find a scene at least equivalent to the Clark Kent/Lois "Not unless you can fly!" moment. The critics were right when they said that one problem with the film was that Superman just didn't get much dialogue.

At the same time, I agree with others that said that Brendan Routh's awkward, quiet and invisible Clark Kent did much better than the stuttering nebbish Chris Reeves envoked.

The reason I personally always liked Christopher Reeves was because he had so much chemistry with the rest of the cast. Obviously there was Margot Kidder and Christopher Reeves (who no doubt had so much chemistry on set because OFF-set, they didn't get along) but also there was Chris Reeves being the straight man to Gene Hackman's comedy bits. Only one line in the film hints at the previous Hackman/Reeves chemistry: "I see an old man's sick joke."

Even the flying was wrecked for me because they replaced George's leap and hurricane woosh effect in favor of floating around like Peter Pan.

Really? I thought Christopher Reeves flying was one of the better parts of his performance. The guy knew something about how airplanes work (he was a glider pilot), so when he wanted to slow down, he brought his arms out wide to create drag. His back and cape moved a certain way when he wanted to go up, and so forth. It reminded me of the weightlessness that Gil Kane gave his Green Lantern when he floated like a soap bubble.

[Uncle Mxy]

Routh's speech at the end was as good as any of Reeve's best moments in the cape, but Routh had a huge advantage of using Reeve's best work as a model.

[shazamtd]

I still prefer Chris Reeve myself.  His performance had a charm that I felt was missing from Routh's.  
I did like Brandon Routh.  I just wish they had given him more lines.

[MatterEaterLad]

Now the concept of flying is making me think...to me, in the original feature cartoons, and even the live action serials, Superman flew in a direction, like an airplane (and he landed with a "whoop" sound in the Alwyn series), and that was even more true of George Reeve's jump and whirl of air effect...the Superman floating or levitating seemed odd to me at the time, even if he was doing that high in the sky all the time in the Silver Age comics...