film | He's neither a bird nor a plane; discuss

Faster than a speeding bullet? No. And not even close, really.

Clocking in at a massive 154 minutes, SUPERMAN RETURNS is as big, broad and latitudinous as its titular hero's shoulders, which, let's be honest, end up carrying a helluva lotta weight. I mean, to finally zoom back home after a five-year identity crisis beyond the known galaxy — that's distressing enough. But to also get smacked in the face with the revelation that your ex has shacked up with the father of the kid she popped out while you were gone, oh, and the world needs saving again? Well, to handle all this without a bottle of Jim Beam, the complete recordings of Joy Division, and the telephone numbers of all your old girlfriends requires a rather patrician handle on your emotions. But I guess they don't call him the Man of Steel for nothin'.

Rather than reboot the franchise like last year's triumphant Batman Begins, Superman Returns fills in the half-decade story gap since 1980's Superman II — wisely ignoring tacky sequels III (1983) and IV: The Quest for Peace (1987) — with ol' Supey (Brandon Routh) searching outer space for remnants of Krypton, über-villain Lex Luthor (Kevin Spacey) hatching a vengeful new ploy for world domination, and Lois Lane (Kate Bosworth), maybe a little bitter, scoring a Pulitzer for a story tellingly titled "Why the World Doesn't Need Superman." Also, she has a young son (Tristan Lake Leabu) with her newspaper-guy beau (James Marsden), so when Superman does return, and alter-ego Clark Kent correspondingly dusts off his reporter's post at The Daily Planet — OK, did even a single co-worker ever think, "Hmm. Superman's missing, we haven't heard from Kent since, and they do kinda favor each other"? — the mood isn't quite as light or capricious as 1979's Superman. Hey, it's not unexpected; Director Bryan Singer pumped substance and subtext into the wild rides of his X-Men 1 and 2, and with a tighter focus and fewer opportunities for crazy action, the gravitas is even more dominant here. While it adds dimension to the comic-book characters and fits the narrative snugly, it can cause this Superman to be kind of a drag; especially in the pokey finale, the movie's grounded when it should be all about the up, up and away.

And yet ... despite the sporadic sluggishness, it's clever, polished, pretty damn involving, allegorical without slathering it on too thick, and genuinely thrilling in individual moments, which is probably a testament to Singer's skills in concocting big-budget escapism for thinking folk. (Look at the third X-Men flick — an overproduced mess without him. And hell, imagine how disastrously rah-rah this revered icon of "truth, justice and the American way" — in the '50s film serials starring George Reeves, at least — could've been in the hands of, say, a Mark Steven Johnson [Daredevil] or a Roland Emmerich [Independence Day].) As for the cast, only Bosworth (Blue Crush) struggles; as scripted, her Lois mopes when she should've channeled the same moxie the snappy Margot Kidder brought to the original films. But Spacey's Luthor oozes a psychotic menace Gene Hackman never seemed to touch on, and Parker Posey has fun in a supporting roll as Lex's moll. Routh (One Life to Live), meanwhile, makes a a winsome Clark and a commanding Superman, and he plays the former with both an engaging charm and a romantic longing that frequently bleed into the selfless feats of the latter. Somewhere, you gotta figure, Christopher Reeve is smiling in acknowledgment. B