PLOT: After five years away visiting the remains of his home planet Krypton, Superman returns to Earth to find his own purpose questioned, his girlfriend an unmarried mom with a new boyfriend, and Lex Luthor on the loose with Kryptonian technology at his lethal disposal.

Superman fans dodged a bullet the day Bryan Singer became the fifth and last director assigned to revive the Man Of Steel. Picture a neurotic Superman in an all-black battle suit.

With that and many other crazy "reimaginings" in front of him, the director of the first two X-Men movies decided to do the one thing nobody thought of -- keep Superman exactly as he's been for a half-century, and exactly as we remember him from the 1978 Richard Donner film with Christopher Reeve. He even hired a Reeve lookalike, Brandon Routh.

The result is a sequel, both stylistically and at times literally. John Williams' triumphal original main-title theme is here, meticulously reproduced in John Ottman's new score. The plot picks up five years after the events of 1980's Superman II (when, you may recall, Superman and Lois controversially got busy in the Fortress of Solitude). And even the late Marlon Brando gets to reprise his role as Superman's dad Jor-El, in footage lifted from nearly 30 years ago.

What Superman Returns doesn't have is backstory. He's Superman, he's from Krypton, and he has godlike powers most people can recite by heart.

And thank Great Caesar's Ghost Singer didn't feel compelled to explain it all, because he still manages to bring the film in at an overlong two and a half hours, what with plot, tips of the hat to the Superman canon (Hey! There's the '50s Jimmy Olsen playing a bartender!) and a rekindled romance that's allowed to simmer slowly.

At this point some leaps of illogic are so familiar you've just got to go with them. It's one thing for a pair of glasses to disguise Clark Kent, another for Superman to be gone five years in space and Clark to be gone too. (Clark? Superman? Nahh!)

The reunion aspect of this movie is its human face. We get more of Jimmy and his man-crush on Clark played for laughs.

We see the wrath of Lois (a slightly too young Kate Bosworth) in the form of a Pulitzer Prize-winning column she's written called "Why The World Doesn't Need Superman" (inspired by his leaving without saying goodbye).

But, of course, the world does need Superman -- even if Lois has moved on as a single mom with a new boyfriend. He's Richard White (James Marsden) nephew of Daily Planet editor Perry White (Frank Langella).

Space shuttle launches go awry, banks get robbed, and Lex Luthor (Kevin Spacey) gets out of jail and gets his hands on Kryptonian technology.

One difference between Singer's Superman and Donner's is Spacey's cold-eyed Luthor, who shrugs off the deaths of billions with sociopathic unconcern. (It helps that he doesn't have a doofus henchman like Ned Beatty, although he still has a ditzy groupie -- Parker Posey reprising the original's Valerie Perrine.)

That difference is underscored by a brutal beating Superman takes at Luthor's behest. As much as we can feel concern for an invulnerable hero, this scene makes us feel it.

Superman Returns was a tall order, and for fans it's a heaping plate of old-fashioned comfort food.

BOTTOM LINE: With 12 years of Hollywood "turnaround" and various crazy reimaginings of the Man of Steel on the table, Bryan Singer goes back to basics, creating a sequel to Richard Donner's Christopher Reeve Superman films. If not original, it is a note-perfect homage, with wit, the original's theme (redone by John Ottman), decent effects and rekindled romance.

(This film is rated PG)
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