"Superman Returns" is everything you'd want it to be. It's reverential of the source material, yet a unique film all its own. It's steeped in decadent art-deco mood and details, yet completely current. It's joyous with the possibility of discovery, yet deeply moving in its melancholy. It should satisfy purists and attract new converts.

But most importantly for a summer blockbuster, it's just outright thrilling.

With technology having vastly improved since the original "Superman" from 1978, director Bryan Singer has constructed a visual marvel. The enormous set pieces are jaw-droppingly elaborate, especially a visceral near-plane crash toward the film's start that will leave you on the verge of simultaneous laughter and tears. (At a recent screening, it prompted many in the packed theater to burst into applause, and justifiably so.)

Having infused the first two "X-Men" movies with equal amount of dazzle and heart, Singer shows he's the ideal choice to take over the beloved franchise. He definitely has his own vision, but he was smart enough to retain key elements from the original film, including John Williams' score — the first few notes of which will surely inspire a wistful sense of childhood nostalgia — and archive footage of Marlon Brando as Superman's father, Jor-El.

And yet, there's something softer, sweeter, warmer about this "Superman" than its predecessors, both in its tone and its performances.

With his jet-black hair, blue eyes, chiseled facial features and muscular bod, Brandon Routh bears a great resemblance to the late Christopher Reeve — and is just as lovably klutzy in bespectacled Clark Kent mode — but he portrays the DC Comics superhero with more introspection and vulnerability, and not as much slam-bang charisma.

As Lex Luthor, Kevin Spacey does his best work since "American Beauty" and reminds us that, after starring in a string of maudlin flops, he still knows how to deliver a complex, subtle performance. He doesn't chew the scenery as Gene Hackman did in portraying the self-professed criminal mastermind, but he's smolderingly smarmy in a way that's just as amusing.

Kate Bosworth, meanwhile — who happened to play Sandra Dee opposite Spacey's Bobby Darin in the soggy biopic "Beyond the Sea" — gives us a surprisingly toned-down Lois Lane. It's a bit jarring at first until you stop and realize that the hard-driving, chain-smoking girl reporter is a woman now; the mother to a young son with her longtime fiance (James Marsden), Lois has matured and found that her priorities have somewhat shifted.

She doesn't need Superman to save her. She even wrote an editorial, "Why the World Doesn't Need Superman," to prove it — and earned a Pulitzer Prize in the process.

Things have changed in "Superman Returns." And things have stayed the same.

Sort of a sequel to 1980's "Superman II," this new film takes a little while to get going, but begins with the Man of Steel returning to Metropolis after a five-year absence. He'd gone searching for the remnants of his destroyed home planet, Krypton, and comes back to Earth finding that he still hasn't found what he's looking for.

But he knows to begin life again as Clark Kent at The Daily Planet (where Frank Langella has taken over as a comparatively authoritative Editor Perry White) and he responds just as instinctively to the first signs of trouble.

At the same time, Lex Luthor is back, too. He's gotten out of prison on a technicality and has an expanded posse of sycophants, including the always hilarious Parker Posey as his floozy Girl Friday in an eye-popping array of '40s-style ensembles. Here, as in the original "Superman," Lex has his eye on land, but instead of taking over California, he wants his own continent.

As always, Superman must stop him while simultaneously rescuing Lois, both literally and emotionally. Yes, "Superman Returns" is rooted firmly in the action-packed comic book world, which should keep the fanboys happy. But fundamentally, it's also a romance — a story of unattainable, impossible love that aches with longing and sadness.

There is, of course, the theory that Superman functions as a Christ figure — that Jor-El sent his only son to Earth to light the way for humanity. And you could argue that now, more than ever, we need a superhero to swoop down and fight for truth, justice and the American way.

You could even view the timing as significant in "Superman Returns": that the Man of Steel was gone for five years, the same period that's passed since the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001. (And it is a bit conspicuous that the Trade Center towers, which figured so prominently in those romantic late-night flights of the previous films, are absent now.)

All those elements are in there — if you choose to see them, if you need to find them.

So does the world really need Superman? Maybe not everyone. But people who love movies do.

"Superman Returns," a Warner Bros. Pictures release, is rated PG-13 for some intense action violence. Running time: 157 minutes. Three and a half stars out of four.

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Motion Picture Association of America rating definitions:

G — General audiences. All ages admitted.

PG — Parental guidance suggested. Some material may not be suitable for children.

PG-13 — Special parental guidance strongly suggested for children under 13. Some material may be inappropriate for young children.

R — Restricted. Under 17 requires accompanying parent or adult guardian.

NC-17 — No one under 17 admitted.