Superman Returns

Skippable, and it is the most respectful dead end in the catalogue. Bryan Singer made it as a direct sequel to Superman II, nineteen years later, treating the third and fourth films as though they had not happened, and it is more an act of preservation than a new film: the Williams theme, the credit style, archive Brando footage, and a lead cast partly for his resemblance to Reeve.

The premise is genuinely interesting and the execution is where opinion splits. Superman left Earth for five years without telling anyone, and comes back to find that Lois has a partner, a child and a Pulitzer for an article titled Why the World Doesn't Need Superman. A film about a hero discovering he is not necessary, and behaving badly about it, is a real idea. It also involves him watching her home from outside with X-ray vision, which the film presents as longing.

The aeroplane rescue in the first act is one of the great superhero sequences and has not been bettered: a shuttle separation going wrong, a dive, and a landing in a baseball stadium. Kevin Spacey's Luthor is back to property speculation, and the plot about growing a continent out of crystals is the weakest part.

At a hundred and fifty-four minutes it is slow and mournful where audiences wanted momentum. It made enough to be arguable and not enough to continue, and the character was rebooted seven years later.