When the opening credits blast across the screen in Superman Returns using the same time honored whooshing style made famous by Richard Donner back in 1978, it's a giddy moment; alive and filled with the sheer power of the Man of Steel. When Bryan Singer's name flies across the picture with his directed by credit, you get the sense that seeing his name there, that way, is something he's been waiting for all his life. What kid wouldn't want their names swooping across the screen in a Superman movie? Forget Scorsese or Spielberg, when you're a kid you want to be Richard Donner. On screen his name had more flair.

The super-size (more than two and a half hours) "Superman Returns" was written by Michael Dougherty and Dan Harris, working off a story hatched by them and the director, Bryan Singer, after what appears to have been repeat viewings of Richard Donner's "Superman." Released in 1978, that film ushered Jerry Siegel and Joe Shuster's original comic creation into the blockbuster age with frothy wit and a cast that included Marlon Brando in a creamy scoop of white hair and Gene Hackman in clover. Christopher Reeve, of course, wore the cape and tights, while Margot Kidder did a fine approximation of the young Katharine Hepburn at her most coltish. Valerie Perrine and Ned Beatty added some laughs, while Glenn Ford supplied a pinch of gravitas.

The villain stabs Superman repeatedly, and in a long scene, Superman is kicked and beaten. Someone is crushed by a piano. Some younger kids could be upset by the fact that both mothers and sons are in jeopardy, and some scenes are very sad (Superman grieves for his lost father and his changed relationship with Lois; when he's in the hospital, people worry). Finally, it wouldn't be summer without smoking in a movie (every year it happens in kids' films...) -- Lois carries cigarettes; one scene in a bar shows beer drinking.