It’s conceivable to feel affection or nostalgia for the hokey, visually clumsy 1978 Richard Donner Superman. But reverence? Yet, that is what Bryan Singer, director of the new Superman Returns, has been professing in publicity interviews. Singer is a great talent, and the new movie is vastly superior to the old one. But the careful respect with which the director approaches the material is ultimately what keeps this from being a really exciting or important movie. And it so longs to be important.

Like Batman Begins, last summer’s DC Comics spectacular from Warner Bros., Superman Returns wants, above all else, to avoid ridicule. Studio executives seem to have said, we’ll give you mountains of money, as much as you need — just don’t embarrass us with another Batman and Robin or Superman IV: Quest for Peace. In this aspect, both movies succeed; they are rarely, or never, cringe-inducing or campy-silly. But there’s also a certain dullness to them, a lack of risk-taking, or exhilarating imagination. Compare them to Tim Burton’s Batman Returns, Sam Raimi’s second Spider-Man movie, or even Ang Lee’s much-maligned The Hulk. Whatever their flaws, in those movies, there seemed to be real creative fire at work, and real feeling — and a willingness to go for broke visually and emotionally, to risk absurdity, in order to reach operatic heights.

There is much to admire in Superman Returns. It has a visual elegance and consistency that couldn’t have been easy to bring off — gigantically budgeted spectacles can look patched together and ugly, as the 1978 Superman often did. And the holy-holy-holy tone applied to Superman’s relationship to us Earthlings (he’s our Savior, we are repeatedly reminded), which might be expected to wreck the movie, actually provides some of the emotional high points. (Grandiose superhero mythology seems to play to Singer's strengths.) The unfulfilled love story between Superman and Lois Lane also produces a surprisingly strong emotional tidal pull. And there’s not a dry eye in the house when the words of wisdom spoken earlier by a magically reincarnated Marlon Brando, as our hero's father, are repeated by Superman to someone I can't name without spoiling a clever plot point.

Other pluses: The stately pace makes for a long (over 150-minute) movie, but helps avoid the rushed, chaotic feeling of many action fantasies. The brilliant notion of having Superman’s “flying” often instead become silent, graceful hovering or floating, is beautifully accomplished. Kevin Spacey is an inspired choice to play a merciless villain with a sardonic edge. Kate Bosworth, as Lois Lane, has a difficult role (torn between two lovers and also between two rather ridiculous headlines Lois has written, one of them implausibly a Pulitzer winner), but she more or less maintains her dignity and credibility.

Christopher Reeve, certainly the best part of the seventies' movie, is a hard act to follow. The part doesn’t require an actor exactly — more like a convincing presence. As written, Superman is also Super-Nice-Guy, and his resolute cheeriness and politeness could become grating. But I believe Brandon Routh accomplishes what he needs to in nearly every scene. Who knows if this should be called acting, or what he could do with a different kind of performing challenge? But, as a physical and vocal presence, he is convincingly and satisfyingly Superman. (He may find it hard now to be accepted playing any other role.)