Warner Bros.When Superman returned in the aptly named 2006 movie Superman Returns, the comeback was short-lived. A continuation of the Christopher Reeve-led Superman movies that began with Richard Donner's classic 1978 film, Superman Returns, was a disappointment. Reviews were okay, and it did fine at the box office, but the general response was tepid, with criticism about the length, some miscasting, and a general lack of action that made a lot of the much-hyped superhero movie super-boring. A planned sequel was scrapped, and revelations about the problematic director and actor behind the villain would only further damage Superman Returns' reputation. However, despite all Superman Returns' many flaws, there's one action set piece in it that's among the best sequences in superhero movie history: when Superman stops a plane from crashing.In the two decades since Superman Returns, superhero movies overtook cinemas and it's only recently that we're seeing the craze abate somewhat. Over those years and dozens of movies, the films keep feeling a need to raise the stakes. Saving the day? Ha. Audiences have seen that before. Superheroes soon found themselves saving the world, the galaxy, the universe, and eventually the multiverse in increasingly elaborate sequences. Many of these involved fighting an iconic supervillain or getting some sort of MacGuffin into (or out of) some glowing portal. The problem with this escalation is that it can all start to feel like a bunch of noise. When everything is so heightened and massive, there's less of a frame of reference to make the superhero's heroics feel, well, super.That's why, if anything, Superman Returns has one great scene that holds up even better today than it did 20 years ago. The film stars Brandon Routh as Superman, and Routh does a more than capable job stepping into the impossible-to-fill boots that the late, great Christopher Reeve once wore. (Routh obviously wouldn't reprise the role in the never-made theatrical sequel, though he did get to show off his superhero charm in a couple of recurring roles in TV's Arrowverse in the 2010s.)Ignoring the events of Superman III and Superman IV: The Quest for Peace, the movie picks up after the events of Superman II and a five-year time skip during which Superman has been out in space investigating the ruins of Krypton. Upon his return, it appears that Metropolis may have moved on without him. Lois Lane certainly claims to have moved on. (She's played by Kate Bosworth, a bit of a miscast as Bosworth doesn't quite have Margot Kidder's essential brassiness.) Lex Luthor certainly hasn't moved on, though, and he's plotting a scheme to use Kryptonite crystals to create a new continent's worth of real estate while also destroying his nemesis and the Eastern seaboard in the process. (Regrettably, Kevin Spacey is pretty great in the role, playing a more menacing version of Luthor that still gets at a bit of the campy qualities of Gene Hackman's original.)Despite a few fun performances, like a henchwoman played by Parker Posey, Superman Returns is largely a melancholy affair. It's a movie that doesn't have Superman do a lot of punching but does have him look, conflictedly, at Lois Lane's fiancé and the young son she shares with him—a life that he could have, perhaps, had. There's a world in which this unorthodox approach to a superhero movie could be lauded, and it's worth remembering that the '78 Superman isn't exactly action-packed by modern standards. Unfortunately, Superman Returns can't quite pull off the tone it set for itself, making the entire film feel misguided……Except for that great plane crash sequence. It's the movie's first action sequence—and it takes place surprisingly late into the film, another possible reason why audiences weren't enthused. Lois, who is still a journalist at The Daily Planet with a Pulitzer to her name for an op-ed titled "Why the World Doesn't Need a Superman," is aboard an airliner that's going to fly an experimental space shuttle into the upper atmosphere. Once they reach the right height, the shuttle is supposed to detach and fly off into space; the plane will land safely, and Lois can file her story. Except, when Luthor's ill-timed experiment with stolen Kryptonite causes massive power loss, the space shuttle malfunctions. It can't detach from the plane, and it's sending the airliner into space and blasting the plane's tail to shreds with its booster rockets. Superman flies into action, freeing the space shuttle and then trying to stop the plane's fuselage from careening down to earth.Superman isn't fighting a costumed supervillain but gravity. Stopping it from crashing isn't as easy as it seems; he grabs onto the wing only for the metal the plane is made out of to fail him as it tears off. You can almost feel the wind wooshing as the ground gets nearer and nearer while Superman tries to halt the plane, however, he can. In many ways, the sequence solves a lot of problems that often plague on-screen depictions of Superman. The character is so powerful that it's often a challenge to give him a challenge without resorting to Kryptonite or some absurdly equally powerful supervillain. Here, he's never in danger, but Lois and everyone else on that plane certainly are. He also doesn't feel overpowered. A Superman who could effortlessly stop the plane and keep it in one place would've negated the need for this entire set piece, which would've been a shame. Having Superman struggle contextualizes and gives meaning to his impressive feats of speed and strength when he finally does get the plane to stop, moments before it would've otherwise crashed into a baseball stadium. Less than a decade later, a different Superman would be trading blows with General Zod and utterly leveling Metropolis in Zack Snyder's Man of Steel. It's certainly a bigger action scene than Return's plane crash; that doesn't mean it's better.It would be a lie to say that the rest of Superman Returns is close to as thrilling as this one sequence. On the whole, the movie is probably better than its reputation would suggest, though that's a far, far cry from it being "great" or even "good." That it co-stars Spacey and was directed by Bryan Singer, both of whom have since been accused of sexual misconduct, makes recommending Superman Returns an uncomfortable affair. In the grand scheme of things, it's okay that Superman Returns didn't stick around. It would be nice, though, if other superhero movies could look at that one plane crash set piece and remember what an action scene can be.Superman Returns is streaming on HBO Max.