Superman Returns with an impossibly young Lois Lane

Spoilers ahead!

Second caveat: I'm much more into superhero movies than comic books, so I haven't read the Superman comics. I can't compare the characters to the more "authentic" comic book characters.

I was desperate enough to rent Superman Returns several days ago and my initial intention not to see the movie was pretty well validated. I don't understand why it received such positive reviews from many critics. It was long and boring and I couldn't figure out wtf was the point other than to indulge in a nostalgic need for continuation of the Christopher Reeve movies.

Much of the way the movie was made was not very updated from the 70's and 80's films. Even the music was used in the same ham-handed beat-the-viewers-over-the-head way.*

But Lois Lane has been de-aged to the point of ridiculousness. But 23-year-old Kate Bosworth as Lois Lane was the biggest turn-off in the movie. We're supposed to believe that her romance with Superman happened before she was old enough to graduate college, and that by 23 she had won the Pulitzer Prize?

I suspect we aren't supposed to believe any such thing, but that we're supposed to accept that the very young pretty actress is believable as an older professional woman. In contrast, Margot Kidder was 30 when the first Superman movie premiered, and 39 when Superman IV came out. I guess audiences just wouldn't be able to handle a woman in her 40's as the romantic interest in a comic book movie. Older women are so icky! They're much more appropriate to play aging witches who will do anything to stay young, like the OMG 49 year old Michelle Pfeiffer in Stardust.

*What's also not updated? Sexism! Woohoo! The weird not-earth timeline setting was disorienting, with new technology and cars but old-fashioned costumes and attitudes. Including openly acknowledged lack of women working for the Daily Planet, and regressive roles for women. mmm, nostalgia.