Superman

• Also marketed as Superman: The Movie
• Directed by Richard Donner
• December 10, 1978 (The Kennedy Center) / December 14, 1978 (UK) / December 15, 1978 (US)
• Based on Superman created by Jerry Siegel and Joe Shuster

An alien foundling raised by a Kansas couple adopts a mild-mannered identity while working at a Metropolis newspaper and battling a villainous criminal maniac.

An instant classic, Superman (also marketed as Superman: The Movie) came out when comic book films were uncommon but also when you could expect the rare comic film to be more reflective of the source material rather than the source material becoming reflective of whatever whims those behind the comic book film had. It is a near perfect distillation of the character of the era.

After some impactful opening narration that sets the tone, the movie opens with a classic score. John Williams wrote many great pieces of movie music and was at his peak of skill at this time. Those opening notes have become iconic. He also wrote a score that evoked the character and the film. It tells some of the story of the film while taking your mind to a sense of wonder.

More importantly the movie is fun and hopeful. It has moments of humor that also uplifts the spirit of the viewer. It’s bright and colorful and exciting. It is an artistic comic book movie with perhaps one of the most iconic soundtracks. It is a movie with near perfect casting along with especial effects that, though occasionally dated, still make you go “Wow!”

Superman takes its time. It doesn’t try to overwhelm the audience with super heroics or cool scenes but never lags. It builds the characters and their lives and the general situation. Richard Donner had the ability to make art in a genre not known as artful. Then again he was behind the classic The Omen.

Here the main character does experience a personal journey. Superman (Christopher Reeve), despite having near God like power, is not initially up to the task. He’s hampered by very human flaws and human issues we can all identify with. There is tragedy and personal pain which make him uncertain and doubt himself at times.

Christopher Reeve embodied Superman AND Clark Kent. He played two essentially different characters. One wasn’t just a variation of the other. He truly was an individual working to hide his identity. The nuances and the way he played the part you BELIEVED he was Superman because he WAS Superman. The tagline was “You’ll believe a man can fly” and you almost do. Reeve was the Big Blue Boy Scout working at The Daily Planet for the blustery Perry White (Jackie Cooper). 

Unlike today’s costumes that was all Christopher Reeve in a stretchy suit which was in part his decision. I don’t think they even had any muscle padding in it and it worked. It was pretty much a one-to-one translation from the comics to the screen.

The undeniably great Marlon Brando as Jor-El and Reeve aside, this was filled with talented actors. There is Gene Hackman, Margot Kidder, Glenn Ford, Jackie Cooper, Terence Stamp, Valerie Perrine, Ned Beatty, and Sarah Douglas who all play some part in this with a few of those roles growing in the next movie. They all treated it like the finest script and a job worthy of doing well. There are moments of humor, but Superman wasn’t a comedy and it wasn’t campy. As I said before, it just reflected the material at the time.

Otis (Ned Beatty) is the most overt bit of bad comedy in this. He’s the goofy sidekick you might’ve found in older comics and perhaps that’s a nod to what Richard Dohner and others involved were more familiar with. Yet he’s a good character. It never weighs down the film and offers a counter to the performance of Hackman.

Gene Hackman is over-the-top as criminal mastermind Lex Luthor. Hammy yet sinister. In personality the performance is the equal of Superman. For a mere mortal going against a being with unimaginable power, you needed an actor that could outsize the personality of the powers of the hero. While his plot is just a land scheme, Hackman makes it feel like so much more-missile launch aside.

Margot Kidder was a great actress. She was in plenty of enjoyable movies with more than her fair share of films that will be remembered long after we are gone. Her Lois Lane usually gets the intelligence and personality right but she’s a little too dismissive and sometimes downright rude or cruel to Clark. Was Clark so desperate for affection or misinterpretive of cruelty that he was willing to put up with her abuse? She was just horrible towards him. There’s no reason Superman or any man should want to have a single date with her.

The internal monologue we hear of Lois Lane during the flying sequence is like fifth grade teenage crush poetry. I can see some lovesick isolated girl in a bad movie staring out a window writing it. Perhaps the weakest lines in any superhero film and certainly the weakest lines in this entire movie.

Her treatment of Clark-as-Superman makes his reaction to what happens to Lois a little illogical. It’s necessary for the movie to work out of the way it did but if I had been Superman I would have felt bad but not so bad would alter history just to save her. Not unless I was some self-flagellating masochist.

It nicely gets set up though early on in the movie. The reason he does this even if I don’t see much of a relationship between the two is because he’s driven by the guilt over having this great power and not being able to save his adoptive father (Glenn Ford) whom he loved. For whatever reason he has feelings for Lois and in this instance he can help her.

This came out at the tail end of the disaster movie craze so we get some pretty well-crafted practical shots involving devastation once the missile strikes. Mostly. I remember watching this on ABC and even then some of the stuff looking little hokey. Miniatures can work but only if you do not get it too close. Some were noticeable even in lower resolution but a few more declined in quality under Blu-ray.

There is emotion and feeling more often than not in this. It is a human story about a person with great power. It is a fun and exhilarating story that leaves you cheering at the end. It is filled with highs and lows.

Superman the Movie is one of the best if not the best superhero films ever and a certified classic. With great music and great performances and a great script it is quite possibly cinematic perfection or as close to it as you can get.