Movie Review: Superman (1978)

Synopsis: With his home planet deteriorating, an infant is sent to Earth by his parents and is raised by a pair of farmers who hide his both his alien origins and his superpowers created by the sun. As an adult, Clark Kent moves to Metropolis and gets a job as a newspaper reporter at the Daily Planet while secretly fighting crime as Superman. He soon faces his biggest test though, a master criminal by the name of Lex Luthor, who has control of nuclear weapons.

Who's in it? The movie stars Christopher Reeve, Margot Kidder, Gene Hackman, Ned Beatty and Jackie Cooper.

Review: The cats, still adjusting to the time change, woke me up earlier than I would have preferred on a Saturday and, since it was too early to go get my wife coffee, I wound up watching Superman on one of my movie channels. It's been several years since I saw this film in its entirety and, while I'm sure there are those who will disagree, I think this still sets the standard for superhero movies.

I think the thing I like most about this film is how it manages to show Clark/Superman's (Reeve) origin story in quite a bit of detail without those early scenes bogging down the rest of the film. We learn why he's on Earth, we learn why he chooses to use his powers for good and even get a hint about how tough his childhood must have been. Just enough details to understand the character if you've been living under a rock and had never heard of him while still allowing plenty of time for the movie to happen.

The supporting cast, in my opinion, is what makes this movie though. Kidder's Lois Lane remains the best version nearly 50 years later while Hackman is very believable as Superman's archnemesis Luthor. The latter was probably slightly more important because as I've said in the past, a hero is only as good as the villain he/she is facing.

The ending to this movie is probably the only thing I would have changed, even slightly. While I could probably get on board with the whole "being able to fly fast enough to turn back time" thing, I felt like the writers glossed over quite a bit in the process, including what happened to the missiles that apparently just disappeared. Whenever I see that, I wonder if maybe the writers couldn't think of a way for Superman to stop both missiles and just invented a new power to solve it, though it did admittedly create a few moments of suspense.

Final Opinion: I don't care how many times they remake this movie or superhero; modern filmmakers will probably still be compared to this film and with good reason. This is worth watching or rewatching when you get a chance.

My Grade: A