Saw Superman Returns the other day.
It’s a big-screen extravaganza of the classic comic book tale.
A huge budget production, rich in special effects and riding an out-of-this-world fantasy storyline.
Brandon Routh bears an uncanny resemblance to Christopher Reeve, the Superman I remember.
All the familiar characters were there, just updated for the 21st-century audience. Superman’s ‘mother’ in her prairies farmhouse; Louis Lane, the determined reporter (a modern, feminist reinterpretation); Perry White the ebullient newspaperman and Jimmy White the bow-tied junior hack.
Clark Kent is the socially awkward office geek. Clumsily tripping over things and stammering through conversations. But, with that famous cape and boots he takes to the skies as the ultimate super-hero.
This is a uniquely American story.
At one point Superman is even depicted patrolling the skies over New York, in an eerie echo of the fighter jets over the city on 9/11.
Had America only had Superman and the reassuring certainties of his world that day, everything might, just might, have been alright…
So yeah... 