MOVIES: Superman Returns (Bryan Singer, 2006)

Oh, dear. What happens when everything that can go wrong does go wrong? You get a mess like this, that's what.

Be warned that I'm going to be giving away plot points here; there's really no way to talk about the movie's problems without doing so.

The movie is designed as a sequel to Superman II (we are asked to forget the not-so-popular III and IV), so I feel less guilty about making comparisons to the cast of that movie than I normally would. It seems likely, in fact, that Brandon Routh has been cast largely because of his strong resemblance to Christopher Reeve. Routh handles the Superman half of the role adequately, which is to say that he looks good in cape and tights. As Clark, though, Routh is a disaster, with none of Reeve's charm, wit, or skill at physical comedy. You can't help but notice how little dialogue Routh has been given; the script is designed to require him to do as little actual acting as possible.

The other principal roles aren't cast any better. Kate Bosworth has none of the spark or energy that Margot Kidder had; she doesn't even measure up to Teri Hatcher in the 90s TV version. Hell, even the comic strip Lois Lane is closer to three-dimensional than Bosworth. As Lex Luthor, Kevin Spacey aims for camp and misses badly; none of his jokes are funny, and he's straining so hard for light and witty that he forgets that a villain has to be at least a little bit menacing or scary.

There are enormous plot holes throughout. For instance:

• How exactly did Superman get to Krypton and back? His powers derive from being under Earth's yellow sun, after all -- and there's a passing line of dialogue in the movie that explicitly makes that point -- so once he's far enough from Earth, wouldn't he lose the ability to fly and survive the vacuum of space?
• Late in the movie, Superman's been badly wounded by kryptonite exposure; there's still a chunk of the stuff in his body. So how does he find the strength to rip a small island -- an island that is itself laced throughout with veins of kryptonite -- from the ocean floor and fly it into space?
• In one scene (one of the few in the movie that works), we watch a group of frustrated doctors try to treat Superman; their needles won't penetrate his skin, and attempting to use the defibrillator just shorts out the machine. But we're supposed to believe that Superman's kid hasn't raised any medical eyebrows in five years? (And then there are the questions raised by the child's conception, which are brilliantly explored in Larry Niven's classic "Man of Steel, Woman of Kleenex.")

What does work in the movie? Not much. Oh, it's sweet to see Noel Neill and Jack Larson -- Lois and Jimmy from the 50s TV show -- in small roles, and Frank Langella brings some needed snap to Perry White. And it's certainly thrilling to hear John Williams' classic opening theme bursting forth in full stereo sound again, but even here, the movie finds a way to botch things. When we get to the "Clark and Lois go flying" scene, John Ottman's score keeps tap dancing around and sneaking up to Williams' love theme ("Can You Read My Mind?") until we're desperate to hear that melody, but Ottman never gives us more than a few bars of it; it's ridiculously distracting.

And that's pretty much what the whole movie is like; nearly everything in it leaves you disappointed and reminds you of how much better the Reeve movies were. Time to put the real Superman on the Netflix list, I think.