After a nearly twenty-year absence, America’s most legendary hero returns to grace the big screen again. After having been stuck in what has got to be the most agonizing production hell in history – writers, directors, stars, and plots have changed easily a dozen times; at one point Nicolas Cage was going to don the cape and at another Batman was going to join Superman in a “World’s Finest” movie to reboot both franchises – the Man of Steel has finally made it back to theaters in Superman Returns.

The plot is simple enough: After a mysterious five-year absence in which he searched the depths of space for remains of his home planet, Superman (aka mild-mannered reporter Clark Kent) has returned to Metropolis. And not a moment too soon – at the same time, the Man of Steel’s greatest nemesis, Lex Luthor, is released from jail (ironically enough, because Superman was not present as a witness in court) and immediately returns to his evil-doing ways. This time around, his plan is to create new land in the middle of the ocean using Kryptonian crystals that he found while breaking into Superman’s arctic hideout, the Fortress of Solitude. As if Luthor’s newest scheme wasn’t enough, Superman must also deal with the fact that his love, Lois Lane, has evidently moved on – she’s now the mother of a five-year-old child, in a long-term relationship with the editor-in-chief’s nephew Richard White, and she’s about to win a Pulitzer Prize for a piece she wrote for the Daily Planet called “Why The World Doesn’t Need Superman.”

The first question on everyone’s mind has undoubtably got to be newcomer Brandon Routh, who becomes only the fourth man ever to play this timeless character (alongside, in this order, Reeves, Reeve, and Cain.) The short answer is yes, he pulls it off.As the bumbling and clumsy Clark Kent, Routh’s performance is all but a Christopher Reeve impression, which I would have to say is more of a flaw. But as Superman (which, thankfully, is how Routh spends most of his screen time) Routh makes the character his own. The character of Clark Kent/Superman/Kal-El is a multi-faceted schizo if you really get down to it, but the way Routh plays him suggests that even his separate identities seem confused. When he’s saving the day, Superman reeks of the confidence you would expect from him. But when he flies to the home of Lois Lane and, in an admittedly stalker-like manner, watches her with her new family as she tells Richard White that she wasn’t in love with Superman, you wonder if Lois really isn’t a greater weakness for the big guy than Kryptonite itself. Routh’s performance wasn’t perfect, but those red boots were big ones to fill and Routh did it.

I would like to direct special attention to the new Lex Luthor, Kevin Spacey. Now, when I heard he was cast in this role, I flipped my shit – Kevin Spacey is a fine actor and most of you here at X-Realms who have been keeping tabs on this are familiar with the thread that started from my statement that Spacey would be better at this role than Hackman. It is exactly as I predicted: Kevin Spacey doesn’t just play Lex Luthor. Kevin Spacey is Lex Luthor, to a degree that Hackman just didn’t reach (although I still want to point out, Hackman is a fine actor and so is his performance in the previous Superman films. Spacey is just better.) He plays Lex with a sickening sadism. The scene where he’s explaining to Lois his master plan is one of his best scenes, alongside his big showdown with Superman. Routh might have been, at the very least, an acceptable Superman, but Spacey completely knocked it out the park. His was easily the best performance of the film.

For the most part, the rest of the cast was good, although my one complaint would probably be Kate Bosworth as Lois Lane. She just doesn’t quite fit – she seems to young to be an expert reporter, and too young to have a five-year old son. Although I will give her that her scenes with Superman – especially their encounter on the roof of the Daily Planet and subsequent joy-ride – are great. Lois is bitter towards Superman, because he just up and left, and being a very important part of eachother’s lives, Lois feels she has more right to be angry at Superman than the rest of the world that he left behind. We get the feeling that Lois might as well have written “Why I Don’t Need Superman,” and it’s painfully obvious her new man just doesn’t compare to Superman. While she got the role of the broken-hearted down well enough, Lois seems a little too cold, to the point where I really wonder why Clark’s still pining for her. James Marsden is a good Richard White, although to be honest there’s not a whole lot to tell about this character – as Lois is obviously still in love with Superman, Richard automatically becomes the sucker who has to deal with that. I’d also like to give brief attention to the new Jimmy Olsen, played by Sam Huntington. Still hopelessly dorky and Superman’s lap dog, Huntington’s Olsen is just plain funny, and easily the best Jimmy that’s ever been. Frank Langella’s Perry White is a different breed. He’s good enough, but I think this is the one time I prefer a character out of the Lois and Clark series – Lane Smith’s hard-assed Perry White is still the best I’ve seen.

The special effects in this movie were superb – in a way I’m glad they waited untill now to reboot Superman, because strictly speaking in terms of special effects, he comes back swingin’. Superman’s first outing to save the day is a digital mindjob - not only will you believe a man can fly, but you’ll believe he can save firey, plummeting aircraft. Not once in this movie did I feel like something looked fake, and I was looking for it, too. Superman’s powers – all of which were on full display – looked good too, especially his x-ray and heat vision. I’d also like to note that John Ottman did a great job on the score. It was great to hear Williams’ classic theme reprised but Ottman did his own thing. He may be no Williams, but then again, who is?

The direction in this movie is probably what makes it work so well. Bryan Singer opted out of directing X-Men: The Last Stand to do this film, and where one superhero film suffers, another benefits. One of the things I like about this film is character development. Singer made a point of doing that with X2’s characters and he does it again here – Superman Returns is a very character-driven movie.Thank God Singer chose this over X-Men.

The only thing about this movie where I can take no definite stance is the plot – for it had very high highs and some one low that could quite prove disastrous in the future. (Warning: I’m about to get into some spoiler territory, so if you haven’t seen the film, skip the next two paragraphs.) There were several highs in particular, the first of which is Luthor’s breaking-and-entering into the Fortress of Solitude. As he leads a team of clueless morons (okay, and a mysteriously silent but supposedly smart Kumar) into the arctic hideout, he is greeted by none other than Jor-El. And not just any Jorl-El – thanks to computer technology that animated the bottom half of his mouth to match previously unreleased dialogue, it’s Marlon Brando’s Jor-El, making Brando the only actor reprising his role from the previous movies (quite a feat, considering he’s been dead for a few years.) Of notable mention is Superman’s grand re-entrance into society. As Luthor tests one of the crystals, Metropolis expereiences a massive power-outage, disabling a plane with a space-shuttle on its back, aboard which just so happened to be Lois Lane. Every moment from Clark Kent running out of the Daily Planet building and doing the classic shirt-tearing reveal of the new S-shield (which, by the way, I guess we’re supposed to pretend always looked like that) to the bug-eyed look on Lois’s face when she sees that streak of red and blue fly past the window of the plummeting plane, to Superman landing the plane on the middle of a baseball field and his awkward reunion with Lois Lane is just plain awesome. Superman’s confrontation with Luthor is very well-orchestrated. Superman, having not realized that the landmass upon which he is fighting his nemesis is actually laced with Kryptonite, has walked into a trap and it’s painful to watch as he is brutally beaten by Lex and his cronies – both Spacey and Routh are at their best here. The single greatest moment comes shortly after, when Superman soars back into the sky to rejuvinate himself in the sun, suggesting an overtly Christ-like image.

As I said, the highs were high, but my one complaint is the plot’s twist (and if you haven’t seen the movie, you really don’t want to read this paragraph.) The twist, although predictable, is that Lois’s child is actually Superman’s. We realize this about halfway through the movie – first when he appears to be a little sick around Lex Luthor, who’s waving Kryptonite around like it’s a flag on parade, and Luthor asks with a sickening curiosity, “Who is his father?” The answer to that question is pretty obvious a little later, when the boy saves his mother’s life. While that moment in itself was admittedly awesome, the whole concept of Superman having a child is sure to be considered blasphemy among hard-core Superman fans and I can’t for the life of me see where this could be going – or, at any rate, see where it could be going without effectively screwing the whole franchise into oblivion. Thankfully enough, young Jason is written to be an average kid – he’s clever, but not a child prodigy, and he’s hopelessly asthma-ridden. What will happen with the kid and his possibly Super future is anyone’s guess and if there’s one thing I’ll be looking forward to with the next film (and there will be one), it’s the hope of relief that this particular thread of plot won’t suck.

(Okay, if you left for spoilers, you can come back for this last little bit.) Overall, Superman Returns is a fine movie and a great way to reboot the franchise. It’s one of the rare movies that can pull of incredible action sequences while maintaining some quality dramatic effect. Superman Returns is not perfect, and I still maintain that Spider-man 2 is the greatest superhero movie ever made, but this one is definitely up there among the best.

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