While this storyline is unquestionably traditional, by introducing the question of whether there is a need for Superman, Singer and his team comically deal with modern mores. The idea that the Pulitzer Prize committee would award a point of view that disparages something so fundamentally good and (previously) American as Superman is laughable, but also all too possible. It may do so only for humor’s sake, but conservative audiences won’t be able to resist a plot that introduces the argument that Superman imposes his do-gooding on the world, with Superman coming out the victor.
Similarly, rather than sidestepping the Superman/Christ connection, Singer plays it for everything its worth. As Superman tells Lois: "You wrote that the world doesn't need a savior. But every day I hear people crying for one." Later, after Lex and his thugs beat Superman down Gesthemane-style, he rises, arms spread in a cross formation to the sun as his Kryptonian father’s voice intones over the air, “It is because of their [the human race] capacity for good that I sent them my only son.”
Clerks director Kevin Smith (who was at one point during the decade-long Superman production saga commissioned to write a screenplay) reminded the W.B.’s executives that “Superman's angst is not that he doesn't want to be Superman. If he has any, it's that he can't do it all — he can't do enough to save everyone… Batman is about angst; Superman is about hope."
Smith got it exactly right and it looks like the studio listened. Mainstream Americans may have responded with gusto to the conflicted darkness of the Batman franchise, but that doesn’t mean they’re too sophisticated to embrace light as well. Add to this the fact that the film’s incredible action sequences and delightful cast also make it supremely entertaining, and it would take an audience of steel to resist this Superman.