First things first: Brandon Routh does not look like Christopher Reeve to me. For the past several weeks, I’ve heard all kinds of breathless gushing about how much the new kid looks like the late, great Superman of my youth, but I gotta tell you, I just don’t see it. Yeah, he’s tall and muscular like Chris was in his prime, and they share similar coloring… but aren’t those prerequisites for the role? If anything, Routh reminds me of a young Timothy Dalton.

I suppose I can’t blame people for seeing a resemblance, though, given that we’re meant to interpret the character Routh plays in Superman Returns as the same one Reeve played in Superman: The Movie and Superman II (the dismal Supermans III and IV have been mercifully consigned to the memory hole). The SR script never explicitly references the events of those previous films, but if you’re familiar with them, there’s no question that they serve as the back story to Warner Brothers’ effort to revive the big-screen Superman franchise.

The movie begins with Supes returning to Earth after a number of years away exploring the remains of his destroyed birth-world, Krypton. He spends a few days with Ma Kent on the boyhood farm, then returns to Metropolis, his Clark Kent persona, and his old job at the Daily Planet. Everything is back the way it was before he left… except that Lois Lane now has a son, a boyfriend, and a big chip on her shoulder when it comes to that guy she used to know who flew around in tights and a cape. Seems she’s won a Pulitzer Prize for writing an inflammatory editorial called, “Why the World Doesn’t Need Superman.” Ah, but she’s about to proven wrong because Lex Luthor is out of prison and intent on making mischief with some Kryptonian technology he’s stolen from the Fortress of Solitude…

My three loyal readers know that I’m not a big fan of remakes or “reboots” in general, and, as I’ve written before, Chris Reeve is and forever will be my Superman. I was therefore expecting to despise Superman Returns on principal, just because it wasn’t Chris Reeve’s Superman. To my surprise, however, I found much to like about the new movie. It’s a solid piece of entertainment that is frequently edge-of-your-seat exciting, and while there were no scenes in this one that moved me to tears, I did experience more emotional connection with the characters than I expected to, especially in one brutal sequence in which a kryptonite-weakened Supes gets the stuffing knocked out of him by Luthor’s goons. Nevertheless, I can’t help but think that the movie isn’t as good as it could have been or should have been, and, curiously, it’s because the director, Bryan Singer, is trying so hard to be faithful to the Reeve legacy.

The DNA of Reeve’s Superman movies is all over this one, from the familiar John Williams theme music to the crystalline Kryptonian architecture of the Fortress of Solitude. Certain bits of dialogue are recycled from the 1978 film (“statistically, flying is still the safest way to travel”) and even Marlon Brando has been digitally resurrected for one final speech as Superman’s father Jor-El. All of this is fine with me, even heart-warming, but the thing that really bothers me is how similar the overall plotline is to that of Superman: The Movie. Nearly every major beat from the ’78 film is replicated here in some fashion: Superman’s first public appearance after his return is to rescue Lois from a crashing airplane, a direct echo of the helicopter rescue in S:TM; Supes and Lois go flying together, just like in S:TM; Luthor’s goons knock over a museum to obtain kryptonite, just like Ned Beatty did 28 years ago; Luthor’s henchmoll, Kitty Kowalski, behaves just like Valerie Perrine’s Miss Teschmacher (and yet, for some reason, the writers chose not to simply call her Miss Teschmacher… I wonder why?); Luthor’s evil scheme once again involves creating new real estate by destroying existing land and, not coincidentally, killing lots and lots of people; and, just like Chris Reeve’s Superman, Routh-as-Supey deals with the havoc unleashed by Luthor by plunging below the earth’s crust and doing something that really stretches the ol’ suspension of disbelief, even for a Superman story. If the movie had replicated the fly-around-the-earth-and-turn-back-time gimmick, I wouldn’t have been surprised.

Why would Bryan Singer, a creative director who showed no hesitation about pissing off fanboys in order to make better X-Men movies, so slavishly ape the 1978 film? Is this intended to be a remake or a sequel? Or some weird hybrid of both? For which audience was he making Superman Returns anyway? The thirtysomethings like me, for whom Chris Reeve is irreplaceable? Or the kids who’ve never seen Superman: The Movie and wouldn’t know General Zod from Little Nemo? Either way, I can’t help but think that a straight reboot that had nothing to do with Reeve’s movies would’ve been a better route to follow. Especially when I could see little bits of Singer’s usual thematic interests peeking around the corners of this film (anyone else catch the word “alienation” on Ma Kent’s Scrabble board, later echoed by Luthor pointing out that Superman isn’t as human as he looks?) While Reeve’s Superman struggles with the ethics of how best to use his power (Brando’s “it is forbidden” versus Glenn Ford’s “you are here for a reason”), it seems that Routh’s Superman, as interpreted by the same man who made X-Men a banner for disenfranchised outsiders everywhere, ought to be preoccupied with acceptance. But it isn’t an issue for him except when it comes to Lois; everyone else welcomes him back with open arms.

Think, however, about the dramatic possibilities inherent in the basic concept of Superman Returns, which is that Supes has been gone for a while and the world has moved on. What would a populace that’s become accustomed to having a superhero around make of his absence? How would a nearly god-like being who’s accustomed to being adored by the public react to suddenly being superfluous? Or even resented? How would he prove himself again to the people who trusted him to protect them and who felt abandoned when he flew off to god-knows-where, maybe forever for all we knew? And what would the Superman that Christopher Reeve played — a benevolent, tender-hearted hero who loved the human race that adopted and raised him, and who was appalled and guilt-stricken when bad things happened to it — think when he learned that some disaster he could’ve prevented — something like 9/11, say — took place in his absence? I know many people would cringe at the idea of mixing one of our greatest modern tragedies into a film that’s supposed to be frothy summertime escapism, a lowly comic-book movie, but the thing is, actual comics are often far more in tune with the real world than the movies that are supposedly based on them. Don’t misunderstand, I’m not saying that I would’ve preferred a downbeat, angsty Superman movie about real-world issues. But Bryan Singer had the opportunity to make this character relevant in a way he hasn’t ever been, at least not on screen, to lift Superman beyond the semi-serious, semi-goofy level at which Chris Reeve and his director, Richard Donner, placed him, and transcend the usual expectations for a mere comic-book movie. He could’ve done this even within the sequel framework if he’d wanted to, but he didn’t. He paid lip service to these ideas in a handful of scenes while essentially replicating the plot of a thirty-year-old Superman film. And, as a result, a movie that could’ve been fantastic is merely good enough. And in a way that’s even more disappointing to me than if SR had been an outright disaster.