Movie Review: Superman: The Movie (1978)
Superman: The Movie (1978)
Starring: Marlon Brando, Gene Hackman, Christopher Reeve, Ned Beatty, Jackie Cooper, Glenn Ford, Margot Kidder, Valerie Perrine, Marc McClure
Directed by: Richard Donner
I was watching Smallville a month or so ago, and during a revelatory scene they played a rendition of the classic theme score from the 1978 movie. Chills went up my arms. I hadn't seen the movie in years, perhaps a decade, but I was inspired by the song to watch it again. After a quick trip to the video store known as theskooch, I borrowed and watched it, ready to be transported to the wonder of my youth.
Before I get into the movie itself, remember when movies had iconic scores, ones that you only had to hear a few notes from to find immediately identifiable? Movies like Superman, Star Wars, Jaws, The Godfather, Chariots of Fire, and James Bond films? Whatever happened to that? I can't think of any current movies that do that.
Anyway, before watching Superman, I was prepared to allow for less-than-impressive special effects and funny hairdos, since it was released in 1978. I was going to judge the effects based on effects from films contemporary with Superman, not modern films, and maybe get some campy fun out of some of them. I'm willing to forgive the silly glowing white tinfoil suits everyone on Krypton wears, because that was a pretty common way for the future and futuristic things to be portrayed. I remember believing that we would all be traveling via jet packs and flying cars by now. I got a kick out of the flying disc that captured General Zod (Terrance Stamp) and his cohorts to send them to their punishments, even though it looks really silly (as a kid, it really freaked me out). On the positive side for special effects, I must say that the film does a pretty convincing job with Superman's flying, especially for the time.
But, special effects and aging aside, I was shocked at how utterly and completely boring the movie was. Booooooooooorrrring. The first 45 minutes, focusing on the destruction of Krypton, baby Kal's trip to Earth, Clark Kent as a teenager in Smallville (who doesn't look anything like the man he'll grow up to become), the death of Pa Kent, and Clark's time in the Fortress of Solitude were the most boring 45 minutes of a comic book movie I've ever seen. It literally put me to sleep. I couldn't believe how much it all sucked. To make things worse, scenes were added to this snoozefest for the DVD release, making it all longer than the original.
I'm assuming they spent so much time indulging in Superman's origin to A) make the movie feel more epic, and B) to get Marlon Brando (who plays Jor-El) more screen time. I hung in through this because I knew it got better. Then the Smallville stuff happened, which was beyond lame. You'd think the parts where Clark showed his powers would at least be cool, but it only made things worse. I've never seen a more gay run than the one teenage Clark exhibits when racing alongside a train. Seriously, he looked like a marionette (which, you will note, is a much gayer word than puppet).
But, I persevered (after a night's sleep), and continued watching, knowing that the movie would get better once it headed to Metropolis. Of course, when the first third of a movie is terrible, it's already not a good movie. But, I had to see it through, if for no other reason that my home city, Calgary, doubles as Metropolis, and its always fun to see your own city on film (well, unless your own city is Los Angeles or New York, then its old hat). And you know what? The film did get better when it shifted to Metropolis, and the reason why can be summarised in two words: Christopher Reeve.
Christopher Reeve's portrayal of the bumbling Clark Kent, juxtaposed with the confident and heroic Superman, is spot-on. Perhaps the best portrayal of a comic book character ever. It's pretty fun the first time you see each side of Supes portrayed on screen, and Reeve manages to maintain his solid performance throughout. The problem is that almost everything that surrounds his performance sucks. Gene Hackman's Lex Luthor is terrible, made even worse by his bumbling sidekick played by Ned Beatty. Margot Kidder is fine as Lois Lane, but nothing special. She has a nice scene when she meets Superman at her apartment, after he saved her life, but it's completely ruined by her god-AWFUL mental poetry while flying with Superman. Seriously, it sounded like it was written by a seven year old girl.
Skip to the big exciting climax, which is one of my favourite bad movie moments of all-time. Lex Luthor is successful in detonating a nuclear missile along the San Andreas faultline, leading to an earthquake that should swallow up the entire west coast. Superman fights to stop it, but fails to prevent Lois Lane's death from being swallowed and crushed by the torn-apart Earth. Here's the best part: mourning the loss of Lois, Supes does the only thing he can-- he flies around the Earth so fast that it reverses the rotation of the planet. Forget whether or not such a thing is even within Superman's capabilities, I'll allow that it is. What's awesome about this (and by "awesome", I mean "awesomely horrible") is that reversing the Earth's rotation causes time to move backward. BWAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA! Why the screenwriters (amongst whom is The Godfather scribe Mario Puzo) thought this would lead to time travel, instead of say, causing everything on Earth that is not apart of the ground to fly off into space, is beyond me. And even if you do accept the time travel, why on Earth would Superman not travel back in time long enough to prevent the nuclear bomb to go off? He only travels back far enough to prevent Lois' death, says hi to her, then leaves her and Jimmy Olson in the desert with a car with no gas (which makes you think that he thought her initial death was just too quick-- I guess he prefers starvation and dehydration). How did this even save Lois? Wouldn't the earthquake swallow her up again once Superman left?
The movie then ends with Superman bringing Luthor and Beatty to prison, without ever showing how Superman captured them, because, really, who wants to see a guy defeat his archnemesis in action movies anyway? These things are best left to the imagination. I was shocked and dumb-founded at how overwhelmingly bad this movie was, absolutely terrible. I'd rather watch Batman & Robin. Christopher Reeve is the only thing keeping this from getting a zero.
1.5/5
Related Reviews:
Batman (1989)
Smallville Season Two
Smallville Season Three
Superman: The Animated Series Volume One