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'Superman Returns' shows the original's excellence

It's a bird!

It's a plane!

It's ... not Christopher Reeve.

Warner Bros. Pictures 'Superman Returns' B+ The verdict: A super show. Director: Bryan Singer Starring: Brandon Routh, Kate Bosworth, James Marsden, Kevin Spacey, Parker Posey Run time: 154 minutes Release date: June 28, 2006 Rating: PG-13 for some intense action violence See showtimes Up, up and away! •  The Superman quiz tests your super skills. •  Stills from the movie give you a preview of the action. •  The many faces of Superman through the years. On the web Official movie site View the trailer    Trailers require Quicktime Rate 'Superman Returns'   Go see it   Make it a matinee   Wait to rent   Don't bother Voter Limit: Once per Hour View Poll Results

And that's just about the only negative in "Superman Returns," a handsome, high-flying picture with epic ambitions. Directed by Bryan Singer, who jumped ship from the "X-Men" movies to breathe new life into one of our most iconic superheroes, the film is the sort of satisfying blockbuster Hollywood does best.

The absence of Reeve, who died in 2004, is mostly a minor quibble, a matter of missing him, not rejecting his replacement. Brandon Routh, who looks like a smudged version of Reeve with a dash of Keanu Reeves' DNA, makes a sterling Man of Steel. He may lack Reeve's sparkle, his comic timing — after all, Routh has mostly acted on TV while Reeve trained in the theater — but he assumes the cape with authority and grace.

Singer and his screenwriters, Michael Dougherty and Dan Harris, pretty much take up where Richard Donner's 1978 version (the first one with Reeve) left off, using the earlier movie as a kind of template or Rosetta Stone. In fact, the first voice we hear is that of Marlon Brando, who played Superman's father, Jor-El, in Donner's film.

"Superman Returns" begins five years later, when Superman finally comes back to Earth, after looking for remnants of his lost planet, Krypton. Though his nerdy alter ego Clark Kent easily gets his job back as a reporter at the Daily Planet, where Perry White (Frank Langella) is still the apoplectic editor and Jimmy Olsen (Sam Huntington) still White's favorite whipping boy, a lot has changed. Most particularly, in fearless girl reporter Lois Lane's (Kate Bosworth) life. She's got a Pulitzer Prize for her editorial, "Why the World Doesn't Need Superman," a handsome significant other (James Marsden), who also works at the paper, and — yes! — a little boy (Tristan Lake Leabu), born, oh, maybe a coupla months after Superman took off for outer space.

However, Superman's nemesis, Lex Luthor (Kevin Spacey), is still bald, still holds a grudge against his superpowered archenemy and is still bent on conquering the world. But this time, as he explains to his floozy, Kitty Kowalski (Parker Posey, very funny), he's actually going to create a new world, born out of a single crystalline shard of the exploded planet Krypton.

Quite simply, he intends to become a god, a Promethean figure bringing new wonders to mankind (at a price) and not like those selfish do-gooder gods who "fly around in little red capes and don't share their powers."

Could he mean ...?

"Superman Returns" respects its legacy and, just as importantly, respects itself. There are several stunning action sequences, such as Superman's hair-raising rescue of a plummeting, out-of-control plane (with Lois onboard, natch). Later, he takes Lois on a romantic night flight so dazzling it makes us forget there ever was a time, back in '78, when we had to be reassured by the promo line, "You'll believe a man can fly!"

Technology has advanced so much in the past 30 years, Superman merely whooshing through the air seems almost old hat. So Singer smartly tarts it up with the couple hanging in midair, silhouetted against Metropolis' spectacular cityscape, or zooming into the clouds at warp speed.

"Superman Returns" has some things on its mind, most notably the relationship between fathers and sons. But the movie has fun, too, especially when it takes some jabs at the fluctuating fortunes of the newspaper biz. For instance, a 12-year-old kid with a cellphone camera takes a better picture of Superman's latest derring-do than Olsen does.

Spacey and Posey, who are hilarious together, camp it up a bit, but not nearly as over the top as Gene Hackman and Valerie Perrine did in 1978. Spacey replaces Hackman's loony buoyancy with his trademark phlegmatic sneer and deadpan delivery. And Posey is an actor, not a blow-up doll.

The one casting misstep, alas, is an important one. Bosworth, who's been good in films like "Blue Crush" and "Beyond the Sea," hasn't any of Margot Kidder's unpredictability, her sense of fun, her eccentric adorableness. Bosworth is beautiful, but dull.

Though his movie is a blink-of-an-eye too long, Singer and company have given us a reason to be excited about Superman all over again. And, should you doubt for a minute that "Superman Returns" is a class act, wait around for the end credits. The movie is dedicated to Christopher and Dana Reeve, whose courage was as breathtaking as anything the Man of Steel ever did.