Superman Returns (2006)

The plot picks up five years after 1981’s Superman II – director Bryan Singer wisely ignores the two other film sequels in the Superman canon.

Having spent those years looking for the remnants of his home planet, Krypton, Superman (here played by Christopher Reeve lookalike Brandon Routh, best known for his stint on the TV soap One LIfe to Live) returns to Metropolis with a sense of mission: The words of his dead father (Marlon Brando has been retrofitted into the new film) not only entreat him to help humans – “I have sent them you, my only son” – they establish him as a Christ figure.

Eva Marie Saint even shows up in Virgin Mary mode as Superman’s adoptive mother.

Clark Kent is back reporting for The Daily Planet, where the crack investigative news team fails to notice that Clark and Superman look alike and have been missing for the same amount of time. What kind of rag is editor Perry White (Frank Langella) running?

Apparently, one good enough to snag Lois Lane (Kate Bosworth), a Pulitzer Prize for her story Why the World Doesn’t Need Superman.

Lois, still miffed that Superman split on her, has moved on and moved in with White’s nephew Richard (James Marsden), who she claims is the father of her young son, Jason (Tristan Lake Leabu).

A dying old crone (Noel Neill, who played Lois Lane on the 1950s series) leaves her fortune to the villainous Lex Luther (Kevin Spacey) in return for “showing me pleasures I’ve never known.” Tossing his wig at a disappointed heir, baldy boy Lex snaps, “You keep this; the rest is mine.”

Spacey powers the movie with ripe, nasty fun, but Parker Posey pushes too hard as Kitty, the chatty handmaiden to Lex’s Satanic Majesty. And Bosworth (newly brunette and bland) underdoes it as Lois.

The film is loaded with digital dazzle, including a spectacular rescue of a crashing space shuttle that Superman lands in a baseball stadium, and a killer close-up of a bullet bouncing off his eyeball.

Clark Kent/Superman
Brandon Routh
Lois Lane
Kate Bosworth
Lex Luthor
Kevin Spacey
Richard White
James Marsden
Kitty Kowalski
Parker Posey
Perry White
Frank Langella
Jimmy Olsen
Sam Huntington
Martha Kent
Eva Marie Saint
Jor-El
Marlon Brando (archive footage)
Stanford
Kal Penn
Jason White
Tristan Lake Leabu
Brutus
David Fabrizio
Riley
Ian Roberts
Grant
Vincent Stone
Bo the Bartender
Jack Larson
Gertrude Vanderworth
Noel Neill
15-Year-Old Clark
Stephan Bender
Bobbie-Faye
Peta Wilson
Gil
Jeff Truman
Polly
Barbara Angell

Director
Bryan Singer