Brandon Routh stars in "Superman Returns," in which the Man of Steel returns to Earth after a five-year absence.

"Superman Returns" is an emotional experience for anyone with fond memories of the Christopher Reeve Superman. We don't have to work that hard to remember. Returns is a movie that tugs at our hearts by recycling the characters, the basic story, the settings, the soundtrack and Marlon Brando from the earlier films.

The laughs in this comic-book epic are few and far between. The "gee whiz" factor that Reeve was so good at selling, the new Clark Kent (TV vet Brandon Routh) can't touch.

But it will get to you, if you can be gotten to. Because it has Kate Bosworth, in a star-making performance, turning Lois Lane from the plucky, pushy accident-waiting-to-happen she once was into something sadder, sweeter and smarter.

Bryan Singer of "Usual Suspects/X-Men" fame and his screenwriters try to sort through the messy Superman family history to concoct a tale that acknowledges the previous Reeve movies, and taps into some of the romance of TV's "Lois & Clark" and "Smallville." "Superman Returns" is remake, homage and sequel all rolled into one.

The Man of Steel is back from a five-year absence, the movie says. He comforts his mom (Eva Marie Saint), but he has some 'splaining to do to the world, or at least The Daily Planet. And Lois. He never even said goodbye.Lois has a kid. She lives with a guy. She's won a Pulitzer for writing "Why the world doesn't need Superman." "I moved on," she tells him, when they finally have a moment alone. "So did the rest of us. The world doesn't need a savior."She, of course, is wrong. That's exactly what a world in chaos needs. And we're not just talking about Lex Luthor (Kevin Spacey, a side-of-bacon shy of a full ham). He wants to be the new Prometheus. You're not a god, his girlfriend (Parker Posey) reminds him. He doesn't want to be."I just want to bring fire to the people. And, I want my cut."Singer has made Routh our most messianic Superman, a figure posed on a cross of kryptonite prepared to die for our sins, awakening the better angels of our nature.The effects are mostly grand, the love-triangle story unsettling and the violence more palpable than in most versions of this tale. Singer's Superman is something less than the best "Spider-Man," or first "X-Men." It's more on a par with the last "X-Men" and last summer's "Batman" — as in "no cigar."But if your heart's in your throat when you hear Brando giving his life lessons to the son he sends on his way, or when that Williams score (John Ottman adapted it) wells up one time too many, it's genuine.