Returns are few in newest not-so-‘Superman’

In theaters

SUPERMAN RETURNS, directed by Bryan Singer, written by Michael Dougherty and Dan Harris, 157 minutes, rated PG-13.

After waiting years for the new Superman movie, “Superman Returns,” to hit theaters, some might wonder why the old bird bothered.

The film fails to achieve the greatness of last year’s “Batman Begins” or, for that matter, its famed 1978 predecessor, “Superman,” which starred Christopher Reeve and a wonderfully combative Margot Kidder as Lois Lane. “Returns” is a glossy, special effects-heavy movie, for sure, and it has a few sparks, but these days, glossy special effects and a few sparks aren’t good enough.

Just ask Star Jones.

Missing from the movie is the sense of fun, danger and sustained energy it needed to fully captivate and entertain. The film is too dry and serious, lacking in tension and imagination. Upon leaving it, I had the sense that it could have been helped immeasurably by borrowing a key element from another film that opened last weekend, “The Devil Wears Prada.”

In that movie, Meryl Streep plays the devil as inspired by notorious Vogue editor-in-chief Anna Wintour. Streep is all squinty-eyed scariness in the film, but in a focused, sly way – she’s a cold fashionista with a clipped step, a mean mouth and a white bob that recalls the one sported by Halle Berry’s Storm in the latest “X-Men” movie.

Put Streep in the right clothes and pair her opposite Kevin Spacey’s Lex Luthor (who isn’t nearly as menacing as he should be here and who needs all the help he can get), and we might have had a movie on our hands, one in which the devil, festooned in Prada, battled Superman, cinched into Lycra couture.

But back to pseudoreality. The film, directed by Bryan Singer (“X-Men,” “X2”) and based on a script by Michael Dougherty and Dan Harris, stars newcomer Brandon Routh as the Man of Steel. Routh is likable enough, possessing the requisite cleft chin, pecs and strong jaw, but in this film, he is reduced to a prop, a man better designed for photography than for delivering feeling and personality.

For instance, when he storms through the air with his fist clenched before him, you sense in him less rage at the catastrophic events unfolding around him, and more the idea that he has been staged to re-create iconic imagery. It’s unfortunate.

So are the aforementioned events. In “Superman Returns,” they involve Luthor’s attempt to murder millions when he steals those infamous crystals from Superman’s Arctic retreat and employs them (along with some stolen kryptonite) to change the Atlantic Ocean into some rather spiky, toxic real estate that will gobble up the Northern Hemisphere.

Naturally, Superman tries to thwart Luthor’s efforts, which is difficult to do because of the kryptonite, but also because he’s preoccupied with thoughts of Lois (Kate Bosworth), who has moved on since the last time he saw her five years ago, when he left without a word in search of what might be left of his home planet.

Now, back on the job as Clark Kent at the Daily Planet, he finds that Lois has won a Pulitzer Prize for her editorial, “Why the World Doesn’t Need Superman,” she has a 5-year-old son named Jason (Tristan Lake Leabu), and her fiancee, Richard (James Marsden), is the nephew of Daily Planet editor Perry White (Frank Langella).

So, yes, things are strained between them, which would have been a swell development had Routh or Bosworth possessed something close to chemistry. They don’t, which makes you long for the days of Reeve and Kidder, who had that indefinable “it” that helped to turn their movie into a modern-day classic.

With Parker Posey in a nice but underused turn as Luthor’s flighty girlfriend (more of her, please), Eva Marie Saint just right as Superman’s mother, and Sam Huntington as Jimmy Olsen, “Superman Returns” does a fine job assembling all of the familiar parts (Singer even brings back Marlon Brando in a key scene, as well as cameos by Noel Neill and Jack Larson who were Lois and Jimmy, respectively, in the 1950s television series).

But in the end, when you add up all the missed opportunities over the course of its 157-minute running time, the idea that Superman has returned isn’t enough.

Grade: C+

Visit www.weekinrewind.com, the archive of Bangor Daily News film critic Christopher Smith’s reviews, which appear Mondays in Discovering, Fridays in Happening, and Weekends in Television. He may be reached at Christopher@weekinrewind.com.