There’s no doubt that our cynical world needs a superhero saviour. What it doesn’t need is an irony-deficient beefcake who wears his underwear as outerwear and stalks his exes. Superman Returns resurrects the red undies, but it fails to breathe life into a dated myth of American decency and supremacy.  

In 2006, Superman is played by Brandon Routh, an unknown from Iowa who looks just like Christopher Reeve. Routh achieves commendable movement on a face like a beautiful block of granite, while his co-star Kate Bosworth carries off a difficult dramatic transition from blonde to brunette. (Oscar nominations will probably elude her until she tackles a role that requires a large prosthetic bum.) Combine their great hair and make up with shock and awe special effects, and Kevin Spacey playing a suitably cartoonish Lex Luthor, and you’ve got a slick blockbuster.

But what does it mean beyond this? There’s been lots of talk about the movie’s Christian allusions, and there’s no denying that Clark Kent looks like a Mormon. In addition to the Superman-as-Christ analysis, there’s the Superman-as-post-9-11-hero reading. Jim Schembri from The Age got quite misty-eyed with this one, calling the film a “commentary on life after 9/11”, with Superman a symbol of our restored faith that good (America & allies) will triumph over evil (terrorism).

As a projection of America’s self-image, Superman is a big buff fusion of both these interpretations. He’s a talisman in tights, used to ward off evil and demonstrate America’s vigour, moral righteousness and patriotism to the rest of the world. Unfortunately this image of ethical superpower is almost comical in the age we live in. It’s hard to see Christian goodness in the bloody, chaotic occupation of Iraq, or world-leader competency in the wake of Hurricane Katrina in New Orleans. The imploding, violent, greedy nation we see on the news has no correlation to the land of milk bar innocence that Superman both symbolises and strives to protect.

Superman’s parochialism is also hard to swallow in 2006. His deceased Krypton Dad wanted him to help the entire hapless human race, but Superman’s supersonic hearing is a little selective. Apart from a few token appearances outside his adopted nation, Superman concentrates his rescues efforts to the city of Metropolis. Here the spectrum of human atrocity is limited to bag snatching, bank robbery, Lois lighting up a cigarette and Lex Luthor’s real estate ambitions. It’s kind of cute that he thinks no damsel in distress is too trivial, but as an alien Superman should really have a more global consciousness.

It’s Superman’s old rival Lex Luthor who is the big picture guy. Lex plans to wipe out billions across the globe with a monopoly on high-rise crystal land mass. Now if Superman represents US heroism against the world’s new evil of terrorism, does that make Lex the face of Islamic extremism? Well he’s dastardly, isn’t afraid of a bit of carnage, and is determined to bring down the preachy and apparently invincible Superman.

Lex’s thugs get great pleasure from seeing their mighty enemy made defenceless by Kryptonite. In parallel, there are those in both the Arab and Western worlds who felt and feel that 9-11 was America’s comeuppance for being too big for its superpower boots. But this isn’t the movie’s message. Superman Returns is portraying America as noble under attack, and its enemies as cowardly, opportunistic and mindless.

Unfortunately, a pretty boy from Iowa in a pair of patented red undies isn’t enough to convince us. We live in complicated times, when the traditional delineation between goodies and baddies is losing credibility.

By the time the last Superman movie screened in 1984, Superman’s relevance as a symbol of “the American way” had already become a bit of a joke. Well like a bad Dad joke, it just keeps repeating. Superman Returns had the opportunity to deliver us with something totally new. Think illegal alien turned vigilante and people’s hero. How about Queer Guy with an X-Ray eye? Instead we get the same square-jawed relic who doesn’t seem to realise the world has changed.