Superman Returns -- 2006 -- PG-13

The man of steel returns after a long hiatus from the silver screen. The storyline tells us five years, but in the real world, it has been nearly twenty since 1987's Superman IV, which I have yet to see, but understand was fairly forgettable.

The basic idea here is that Superman left Earth to investigate the possibility that some part of Krypton had survived based on some astronomers' observations of that region of space. He left everyone behind seemingly in  hurry, never saying good-bye or anything, which left some bitter feelings in his most important woman, Lois Lane, who had subsequently written an article called "Why The World Doesn't Need Superman," and ironically won a Pulitzer Prize for it.

Well, this obviously doesn't sit well with poor Clark Kent when he finds out, and further problems are introduced when we learn that she is engaged and has a child with said fiancee. So much for that relationship. It provides some nice character conflict between the two of them as well as some internal conflict for both Lois and Superman. Naturally, we have Lex Luther coming out of the fold at about the same time as Superman comes back so he can come up with another scheme to kill millions (no, billions) of people and take over the world.

The film is ripe with special effects intensive sequences that serve to show off Superman's abilities, opening his reappearance with a rescue of a shuttle carrying airline where an outage caused a glitch which lead to an eventual crash so that Superman can save the day in a dramatic way. His invincibility is shown over and over again, but given that we have Lex Luther, there will be Kryptonite, and it's used in probably the most creative and deadly way yet (instead of tying another rock around Superman's neck).

As always, there are things done that just mess up the day in a perfectly good film. First, the plane crash: Lois is, of course, on the plane, so she learns of Superman's return in the midst of another near-death experience. She has got to be either the luckiest or unluckiest woman on the planet. Well, Lois is thrown around this crashing aircraft because she got out of her seatbelt to help someone. Despite being slammed from floor to ceiling and stem to stern, she comes out of the whole experience without so much as a scratch. Maybe that magical night gave her a little inheritance?

When we find out where Superman went, I realized they made a serious error in the Superman rules. If Superman flew through space to Krypton's system, this means he left our sunlight which is the source of his power. Under Krypton's sun, he would be as mortal as anyone, not to mention potentially flying into a system loaded with Kryptonite. So if Superman flew home, he would die when he got too far from our sun. Whoops. You'd think someone would have brought this up.

Lex Luther's scheme is ingenius, but its execution is idiotic. Sure, create a new landmass. That's great. Do it within 120 miles of the US Coast to destroy the United States. What? His speech says he wants to create another continent to capitalize on the sale of land. Well, that's great. Why not do it in the middle of the Pacific so there's plenty of room to grow your continent and keep the existing land mass as is. He would have gotten away with that. No, instead, he wants to kill millions (no, billions) in order to have his own continent in the same space that the US occupies. Come on.

I thought the flying sequence with Lois was nice and reminiscent of the first film, but it ran on way too long. We get the idea. Let's move along now. How long is too long for a scene? Hard to say. I know something is too long when I feel like checking the time. There were actually several flying sequences that could have been shortened in here to move along the plot. We know Superman can fly. It's a fundamental coolness to his character. We don't need proof.

Finally, after Superman got his token exposure to Kryptonite, he flew up above the cluds and got some sun. It is established that Superman draws his strength from the sun. Well, later Superman gets himself into a short Kryptonite coma. What am I thinking as they wheel him through the hospital? Open the blinds! The man needs his sun! Nobody listens.

Those were my main problems. The overall film is great. I think they did a wonderful job in trying to revive the franchise. Brandon Routh (who plays Superman) is a dead ringer for Christopher Reeve in several shots, and he even adapts some of the mannerisms to provide continuity with the earlier films. The characters are pretty decent for a superhero film and I will admit that a lot of the special effect sequences were really cool. Despite the flaws, I did enjoy it.