'Superman Returns': The Man of Steel is still Super

Watching director Bryan Singer's cheer-worthy Superman Returns, starring shiny newcomer Brandon Routh, it's hard not to ponder what might have been had producers gone with any of the other pretenders to the cape who'd been considered over the last several years.

Just think about Krypton's favorite son channeled through the world-weary, 30-something angst of Nicolas Cage or the beady-eyed, man-boy bristle of Josh Harnett. How possibly modern it might have all been, how ironic and edgy.

Warner Bros. Pictures 'Superman Returns' A- The verdict: That's our Supey — true blue (and red), still heroic and lots of fun. 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

How so very wrong.

As it turns out, Superman Returns is almost shockingly old-fashioned, wearing its truth, justice and American way-loving heart on its chest as brazenly as that familiar "S" shield. This is old-school, straightforward, red-blooded Supey, demonstrated in Routh's brawny choir-boy loveliness, and the use of excerpts from the rousingly nostalgic John Williams score from the 1978 Christopher Reeve version.

Except for a difference of decades, a change in cast members and a lack of phone booths and hideous '70s hairdos, Singer's Superman seems to have picked right up where Richard Lester's Superman II left him in 1981. And it's terrific.

We're reintroduced to the good citizens of Metropolis five years after Superman, the city's defender, blew town, leaving it a memory in the rear view of his X-ray vision. He reappears just as suddenly in a smoldering flash of fire in the field of adopted mama Martha Kent (Eva Marie Saint), a scene with obvious echoes of his initial fall to earth as an infant in the 1978 Superman.

Apparently, the Superhero Known As Clark Kent has been searching for the remains of Krypton, his famously exploded home planet. It didn't go so well, and now he returns to both his role as high-flying savior and his alter ego as mild-mannered nerd reporter Clark.

This delights aw-shucks photographer Jimmy Olsen (Sam Huntington) and visibly vexes plucky Daily Planet star and No. 1 SuperGroupie Lois Lane (Kate Bosworth, bursting with so much pluck that she appears to have been snorting it).

Lois has vented her disillusionment over her favorite subject's departure into a Pulitzer Prize-winning essay titled "Why The World Doesn't Need Superman." His return not only tests her hypothesis, but serves to topple the sweet little family she's created with her 5-year-old son and her annoyingly stoic editor fiancé (James Marsden of Singer's X-Men) in the years Superman's been gone.

Wait! How old is that kid again?

If Lois is handling this badly, arch-villain Lex Luthor (Kevin Spacey) really has a problem. He's spent years in the pokey because of Supey, and he's been doing his own research on Krypton. He's specifically interested in Kryptonite, pieces of Superman's former planet that he's deathly allergic to. This cannot lead anywhere good, you know, and the menacingly droll Spacey is tops at being up to no good.

Routh, late of TV's One Life To Live, makes a fine Superman, mostly because he doesn't do much to rock the boat. He's much better in the cape than in alter ego Clark Kent's fuddy-duddery, because he's simply too beautiful to be ordinary. He does have one remarkable moment, when a would-be kiss with his beloved Lois is nixed, and Superman's natural selflessness slips into an anguished look of disappointment. It's an incredibly moving moment in a movie full of them.

That those moments are not groundbreakingly deep doesn't matter when the results are this satisfying.