STEEL & HEART SUPERMAN FLIES AGAIN - BUT WITH HEAVY EMOTION.

Byline: Bob Strauss Film Writer

Call him the Man of Tempered Steel.

The new movie Superman can still save plummeting airplanes, and bullets bounce off of his eyeballs.

But the hero of ``Superman Returns'' isn't the same invulnerable alien we remember from the four Christopher Reeve movies of the 1970s and '80s, or from George Reeves' 1950s TV show. He may not be as whiny as the teenage Clark Kent on the current series ``Smallville,'' but he is a sensitive soul who's been wounded by the one power super-strength, the ability to fly and X-ray vision can't overcome: love.

``I wanted to do a story where Superman had been gone for some reason, and he returned -- and the world had moved on without him to some degree,'' says Bryan Singer, who conceived and directed the new $200 million-plus production, opening Wednesday. ``And Lois Lane had moved on without him, and that became the insurmountable obstacle that Superman had to overcome beyond Kryptonite and a villain.''

So Superman, played by newcomer Brandon Routh, theoretically went into outer space sometime after the events shown in 1981's ``Superman II'' (We're supposed to think the reviled ``Superman III,'' which mutated into a mirthless Richard Pryor comedy, and the sappy ``Superman IV: The Quest for Peace,'' never happened.

For reasons never clarified, he didn't say goodbye to Lois, played in ``Returns'' by Kate Bosworth, who was understandably unhappy about that. After five years searching for the remains of his home planet Krypton, Superman/Clark comes back to Metropolis to find Lois with a young son and engaged to Richard White (James Marsden, who played Cyclops in Singer's ``X-Men'' and ``X2'' movies), the nephew of their cranky editor Perry (Frank Langella).

Arch-nemesis Lex Luthor, played by a head-shaving Kevin Spacey, is loose too, and pursuing his most outlandish revenge/world-domination scheme yet. Somehow, though, Soap-operaman's ... er ... Superman's aching heart seems to be the main concern.

After raising superhero cinema to new heights with the socially allegorical ``X-Men'' films, Singer was itching to leap the next tall building.

``The development of a more emotional story is a place I hadn't gone as a filmmaker,'' says Singer, whose other work includes the twisty crime caper ``The Usual Suspects,'' and the hit TV show ``House,'' which he executive-produces. ``There were bits of it in `X-Men,' but not to this level.''

Singer's approach got the green light from Warner Bros. after earlier Superman projects developed by Tim Burton, Kevin Smith, Wolfgang Petersen, Brett Ratner and ``Charlie's Angels'' auteur McG all failed to launch.

``I never despaired that there wouldn't be another Superman movie,'' says Paul Levitz, president and publisher of Warner's corporate sibling DC Comics, which has been publishing Superman's adventures since 1938.

``The challenge that you've got is that you don't want to make the wrong one. We paid for `Superman IV' for a long time.

``The trick in all of these is to balance the familiar with the fresh,'' Levitz observes. ``If you just go, `OK, here is the Superman movie again, he's going to do the same six things that you already know,' end of story. So it's a new actor, and that's very nice, but who cares? You have to provide something in it that surprises people, both in what you're able to do visually, taking advantage of the change in technology and your own visual sense as a director, but also in how you build the story.''

For all of ``Returns''' emphasis on feelings, Singer knew that he'd better come up with exciting action and visual spectacle, too.

The toughest part to get right? The same thing the first big ``Superman'' movie tried to achieve in 1978: Making you believe a man can fly.

``Ultimately, to make Superman appear to actually fly and the cape to look real for today's audiences' palate was the hardest thing,'' Singer reveals.

``Remember, Batman and Spider-Man have masks on. This guy is exposed -- expression and hair and everything. So it was very challenging.''

Finding the right guy to expose that way was, of course, all important. Twenty-six-year-old Routh had auditioned for the Superman project previous to Singer's, and when the new director saw his tape, he summoned Routh to an hours-long coffee klatch.

``That script was a different character, so he wasn't sure if I was the guy for his,'' says Routh, who looks like he could have been Christopher Reeve's son. ``We talked about the character in depth, and my background and history, and got a really good sense of each other and where we saw the character going.''

That background included a wholesome childhood in central Iowa, in an area not all that different from the Kansas farm country where Ma and Pa Kent raised their adopted space baby.

``I got to run in cornfields and actually do things like that growing up,'' Routh says with a guileless grin.

But flying required a whole different skill set.

``We were able to highlight things that could look different between this film and the ones that have come before it. We devoted a lot of time to how the character flies and walks, making him graceful and having a presence,'' says Routh.

``Superman Returns''' real mission, though, is to make its unimaginably powerful hero as humanly relatable as possible.

``I was very pleased with what Bryan has done,'' says Spacey, whom Singer directed to his first Oscar in ``The Usual Suspects.'' ``The care and the length of time he took in the beginning of the movie to allow the characters to establish themselves -- it didn't feel rushed, which I thought was really good.''

``I hesitate to call them flaws, but Superman has to learn things just like us,'' Routh reckons. ``Even though he is more intelligent than us, he still has to learn about things like love.''

Bob Strauss, [phone]

[e-mail]

Gay? Christ? Who is this guy?

There are a number of controversies -- and shall we say conjectures -- already surrounding ``Superman Returns.'' We'll start with, ah, basics first:

The new Clark Kent/Superman Brandon Routh says that coming from a swimming background helped him make flying look like swimming on screen.

Funny, when Routh mentions swimming, the first image that comes to mind is his trunks. Maybe that's because the bulge in Superman's tights has been a subject of intense pre-release discussion for months. Some have suggested that there's been a little post-production computer enhancement in that department.

Routh is understandably a bit embarrassed about the matter. But he's a good sport about it, too.

``You know, lighting is a big deal for anything, my nose can look big in certain lighting, too,'' the actor says, then realizes he may be getting too self-effacing. ``My girlfriend of two years is very happy, so I guess that's all that matters,'' Routh clarifies.

``I wish we had the resources or the interest in the post-manipulation of Brandon's package,'' Singer says with a shrug. ``That's a silly rumor. But in reality, in designing the suit, there's a certain amount of modesty that has to exist, and yet he's Superman, so he's gotta have something. So there was discussion. Ultimately, it was left to my taste.''

That whole business has led to even more massive media speculation that Singer's Superman might be gay. Perhaps that seemed to be a logical leap because it's the director's own orientation, and the ``X-Men'' films make appropriate parallels between their mutants' struggle for acceptance and the gay rights movement.

But as it turns out, ``Superman Returns'' is the most breeding-conscious movie since the last ``Cheaper By the Dozen'' sequel.

``I joke about that,'' Singer laughs. ``I say, when you look back at all of my movies and then you look at `Superman,' you'll see that I've never made a more heterosexual movie in my life.''

Gays aren't the only ones who want to claim Superman as one of their own. Religious folks see strong Christian references in the tale of a supernatural savior of men who was sent to Earth by his father (still played by the immortal Marlon Brando, by the way, via digitally resurrected footage the deceased actor shot for the '78 production).

Singer is a little more accepting of that notion, even if Superman does do some things Jesus wouldn't do -- unless you believe that ``Da Vinci Code'' stuff.

``We always kind of viewed the first movie as the story of Moses,'' says Singer, who was raised Jewish. ``They send the child away to find his destiny. This story, well, if you grow up in a Judeo-Christian culture, the Christian allegory and those influences are not in any way lost to me. Or to the making of this film; I think in a very celebratory and meaningful way, it kind of recognizes that.''

-- Bob Strauss

CAPTION(S):

26 photos, 3 boxes

Photo:

(1 -- cover -- color) Need a hero?

`Superman Returns' wants to fill the role

(2 -- 3) no caption (Superman)

(4) KATE BOSWORTH is LOIS LANE

(5) BRANDON ROUTH is CLARK KENT

(6) KEVIN SPACEY is LEX LUTHOR

(7) no caption (Brandon Routh)

(8 -- 13 -- color) no caption (Superman comic books)

(14 -- color) The Man of Steel saw a big screen debut in the 1948 moive serial ``Superman'' and the 1950 serial ``Atom Man vs. Superman.''

(15) Superman (Kirk Alyn); Lois Lane (Noel Neill)

(16 -- color) ``Superman and the Mole Men,'' a 1951 theatrical film release essentially served a pilot for the popuar syndicated television series ``The Adventures of Superman.''

(17) Superman (George Reeves)

(18 -- color) Christopher Reeve as Superman

(19 -- color) Lois Lane (Kate Bosworth) and Superman (Brandon Routh) in ``Superman Returns.''

(20 -- color) Superman battles Ursa (Sarah Douglas)

(21 -- color) Superman battles General Zod (Terence Stamp)

(22 -- color) Left: Lex Luthor (Kevin Spacey) and Kitty Kostowski (Parker Posey)

(23 -- color) Martha Kent (Eva Marle Saint) embraces her adopted son Clark (Brandon Routh).

(24 -- color) Lana Lang (Kristin Krouk); Clark Kent (Tom Welling); Lex Luthor (Michael Rosenbaum)

(25 -- color) Superman (Dean Cain) and Lois Lane (Teri Hatcher)

(26) Superman (George Reeves) Lois Lane (Phyllis Coates)

Box:

(1) Gay? Christ? Who is this guy? (see text)

- Bob Strauss

(2) MEET BRANDON ROUTH

- Wire Services

(3) SUPERMAN: A HISTORY

Jon Gerung/Staff Artist

Sources: dccomics.com; warnerbros.com; wikipedia.org