My choices for Lois Lane
...
*Lacey Chabert
Interesting. I haven't actually seen her in a live-action role since she was a teen, but I felt that in
Lost in Space she totally stole every scene she was in, and was just about the only good thing about the movie (once you got acclimated to the chipmunk voice).
No. She's a textbook example of what I think is the wrong way to go for Lois -- stunningly gorgeous to look at, but dull when she actually has to speak. In
Iron Man 2, she was an absolute standout visually, but vocally, compared to the likes of Downey, Paltrow, Cheadle, and Jackson, she drained the film of energy every time she delivered a line. It's not Lois Lane if she doesn't have the voice and the attitude for it, and ScarJo doesn't have it.
Summer Glau is great with Quirky, not quite right in the head roles, not so much with straight forward, mentally normal roles.
I think that's selection bias -- we've rarely seen her in roles that weren't quirky and eccentric, so she hasn't really gotten a chance to show what she can do with them. But she's playing a far more "normal" character right now in
The Cape, and though I felt it took her a few weeks to get into the swing of things, she's settled into the role pretty well. I don't quite see her as the Lois Lane type, though. Whedon veterans are in the right direction -- strong, witty, fast-talking women -- but among Whedon cast members, I think the one I'd most like to see as Lois is Olivia Williams. Heck, we've got an English Superman, so why not an English Lois?