Superman - The Movie
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Movie Reviews of Superman - The Movie
Movie Review: Otisburg
Summary: 5 Stars
Originally released in 1978, this first film in the series, directed by Richard Donner, became, and still is, the blue print for the perfect superhero/comic book movie. All future movies of it's kind should be so good. Unfortunatley, most of them haven't been. Save a few. This original film was the "origin" of Superman and Clark Kent. Telling it from the beginning. Basically, here is the story. On the planet of Krypton, about to meet it's end, Jor-El and his wife Lara, send their baby son Kal-El to earth in a small spaceship. Ot crash lands in the small farming town of Smallville, Kansas. The little boy is picked up by local couple, Jonathan and Martha Kent(Glen Ford, Phyllis Thaxter). Right off the bat, the little boy showed super powers. Flash forward several years, and young Clark(as they named him, and played by Jeff East for these scenes), is leaving home. Read to go out on his own and find out who he is and his true calling. Once he makes it to Metropolis, Christopher Reeve steps into the role. He gets a job as a reporter for The Daily Planet, under the employment of Rough and grumy Perry White(The great Jackie Cooper). Soon, Clark is accquainted with feisty reporter Lois Lane(Margot Kidder), and boyishly wholesome photographer, Jimmy Olsen(Marc McClure). Gene Hackman plays millionaire madman, Lex Luthor. With the help of his sidekicks Otis(Ned Beatty), and Miss Tesmacher(Valerie Perrine), Lex plans on taking over the world, unless Superman can stop him. Ned Beatty and Valerine Perrine donate some comedic relief to the proceedings as Lex's team. This is a real high class production. The performances are well done and fleshed out, and carry the film to the grand adventure that it is. Reeve was a virtual unknown at the time, and was only 26 I believe. He did a phenomenal job his first time out, brillaintly creating two seperate people in one, with Superman and Clark. He was wonderful. Hackman is a pro, and he chews the scenery with scene stealing bravado, owning every frame he is in. Kidder was perfectly cast as Lois Lane. She had that right sense of perkiness, determination, and strength, that makes the character endearing. Cooper is a delight with his portrayal of Perry, and McClure brings the right level of 'ah shucks' to his bow tied photographer. One cannot exclude Marlon Brando, who was paid millions for his few days(and few minutes)of work on the film. The script is expertly written by Mario Puzo("The Godfather"). It is such a well structured script that tells the beginning, and origin, of the legend, and is incredibly tight. Richard Donner's direction was flawless. He captures every scene and makes every moment count. There are numerous scenes here etched in fans' heads, and lines as well, and that makes for a rather unforgettable adventure. There are also some nice little cameos in the movie. The original Superman, Kirk Alyn, plays Lois' father early in the movie when they are on a train, and the original TV lois, Noel Neil, plays her mom. Now, with Bryan Singer doing "Superman Returns" for 2006, with Brandon Routh as Clark/Superman, Kate Bosworth as Lois, and Kevin Spacey as Lex Luthor, he has a lot to live up too. With Spacey being cast, it's already on the right track. The best superhero movie of all time.Movie Review: As good as it gets
Summary: 5 Stars
What a great movie. It is an epic, and the pretenders which have come in its wake pale in comparison. Another reviewer opines that this is but only "one of the best adaptations of a comic book". It is more hopeful than the incredibly dark Batman series. I, for one have never seen better in this genre, and defy anyone to come up with its equal. You don't have to have Seinfeld's enthusiasm for Superman to find some magic in this movie. One word dominates the adjectives many reviewers use : Spirit. It is a joy to watch.
This story from the DC Comics is thankfully restored to its original glory by director Richard Donner, who indeed does have an incredibly command of the story-telling ability necessary to compress the whole Superman story into two and a half hours. Donner has us hooked from the wonderful opening: We see a young child (who could be any of us) reading from the opening pages of the original 1938 Action Comics issue that launched The Man Of Steel. Then we see over The Daily Planet building from that same period.
The restored footage is superb, and should never have come out. The additional time on Krypton, as well as the entry into Lex Luthor's lair would have been well worth keeping in the original, and it is nice to see them restored. Seeing Noel Neill and Kirk Alyn (meaningful to those of us who remember "The Adventures of Superman" from television) on the train Superboy runs past is a nice touch, showing homage to the series.
There are a whole host of other wonderful little touches. We expect nothing less than to see young Clark Kent eating Cheerios back in Smallville. The dialogue is as snappy as the prose Perry White extols. Wonderful is the scene of Superman's arrival in Metropolis. The helicopter crashes, and Clark Kent looks for a place to change. He walks up to what used to be a phone booth (now, in the late 1970's two pieces of plexiglas open to all) and seeing no place to change, his look says "damn". Then, the greatest compliment of all from a local pimp (the first earthling to see him in costume): "Say, Jim, that's a BAD out-fit!" When Superman catches a falling Lois Lane and reassures her of her safety, she has a great line: "You've got me, but who's got YOU".
Wonderful supporting work by all. Ned Beatty does great work as bumbling sidekick Otis, and Jackie Cooper is Perry White. However, the award for first among equals must go to Gene Hackman, who showed his versatility as Lex Luthor, The Greatest Criminal Mind Of Our Time. His lines, looks and attitude are worth the price of the disc.
So what if a few of the plot turns were implausible! Yeah, I guess one could not reverse the earth's rotation backwards, and thereby make time go in reverse. Maybe one cannot "seal" the San Andreas Fault. But what the hell, if you can suspend your imagination to the point of a flying man, why not cover these little tricks too? And if you cannot suspend your imagination, this is not the movie to see.
For the rest of us, happily not so afflicted, this is a great way to spend a couple of hours.
Movie Review: Still the greatest of all superhero movies to come!
Summary: 5 Stars
In a dying planet called "Krypton", a leader called "Jor-El" ( Marlon Brando) rules over a superpowerful and superstrong humanoid race sends his son " Kal-El" to Earth where he can grow up and protect the people there. A farm couple called "The Kents" ( Phyllis Thaxter and Glenn Ford) find Kal-El's spacepod and decide to raise him as their own to name him "Clark", then over the years he has gotten special powers since he was a baby like superhuman strength, eye lasers, super breath especially when freezing, more speed than a bullet, flying and able to leap tall buildings in a single bound as he must control them. When his foster father dies, he discovers a crystal that was with him during his travel to earth when he was an infant as he goes north to find out who he really is and gains a special costume with a new identity called "Superman", his duty is to protect the innocient people of Earth from evil threats and also protect his secret identity. Clark ( Christopher Reeves) has travled to Metropolis where he becomes a newspaper reporter for the Daily Planet and meets some friends such as "Jimmy Olson" ( Mark Mcclure) and " Lois Lane" ( Margot Kidder), there is a diabolical fiend called "Lex Luthor" ( Gene Hackman) who has a scheme to destroy California with nuclear missles. But as the following days, Metropolis does have it's daily dangers as Superman does his job and also has to stop Luthor from his evil plan.
This movie was a big budget production that was in development since late 1976 when producer Alexander Salkind bought the movie rights for it with Warner Brothers ( who owns DC comics) and hired the director of "The Omen" Richard Donner to bring to life the beloved superhero icon of all time. People were amazed by the teaser back in late 1977 then the movie came out in december of 1978 to become one of the highest grossing movies of the year with rave reviews and a classic for all comic book fans everywhere, Christopher Reeves with the other cast are superb in it even with the three Kryptonian crooks ( Terrence Stamp, Sarah Douglas, and Jack O'Halloran) who get imprisoned and become the villains for the second movie, Ned Betty as Otis and Jackie Cooper as the boss of the daily Planet Perry White. The special effects for it's time were remarkable and not only those but great acting, perfect direction, a superb music score by John Williams and heart to it makes it's the ultimate superhero movie and really set the standard for them for years to come.
The DVD is terrific with quality remastered sound and picture, the movie itself is the extended restored cut which makes the movie even better. There's also a music-only track to hear the isolated score, audio commentary by the creative consultant team and Richard Donner, cast and crew bios, the added scenes that were restored on this DVD, awards, trailer & teaser, TV Spot, screen tests, additional music cues, two deleted scenes and featurettes.
A must have for anyone who wants to own the esstenial superhero flick next to "Batman Begins".
Movie Review: A triumph for composer John Williams
Summary: 5 Stars
'Superman' remains a cinematic milestone, in my opinion, for its superb score by John Williams at the very height of his powers. A 'hot' property after his Oscar-winning 1975 'Jaws' soundtrack, Williams was given his head just as a stream of very bold and innovative blockbusters was in production in Hollywood. Having heard Williams' more restrained scores antecedent to 'Jaws', the picture that emerges to explain his distinguished output in the late 1970s is analogous to a musician who has been paying the bills with jingles for years whilst writing a prodigious and incredible body of unknown work for which he had as of yet found no demand. When the demand finally came, there was, for some years, no stopping him.
It's hard to believe, listening to the 'Superman' score in all its moods and variations and subtleties, that not a note of it existed before the commission came - instead it sounds like an extraordinary compilation of inspired moments collected over a long period and seamlessly interwoven into a cohesive film score that is indubitably one of the stars of the movie (would that Brando had made the same effort instead of producing the three-million dollar sleepwalk that begins the film).
One hears strands of Williams' other work of the time in the 'Superman' score: the 'Star Wars' jawa music in the bass-buffoon restrain of the 'Otis' theme; the theme to the 1979 remake of 'Dracula', which is basically an inferior reworking of Superman's 'hunting' music, which can be heard, amongst other places in the film, during the infant Kal-El's journey to Earth.
The score is sinuous and insistent, one memorable composition after another: the various 'heroic' acts of the main theme, thundering its way into the American cultural subconscious; the proto-romantic love theme of Superman and Lois Lane (just wind the poetry forward when it comes, or you may get some bad associations forming!); the unquieting 'hunting' restrain....and of course, the various comic restrains that accompany Lex Luthor's 'nincompoops'.
If other reviewers here rate this as one of Williams' best scores rather than his finest, it may be because it lacks a subtlety that would have been entirely inappropriate for a film on such a grand scale and treating of such a biblical, epic theme. One feels that Williams understood profoundly what the film -and the legend- had to offer and what it was about, where perhaps he may have been guessing or indulging in a little necessary transference for such off-worldly adventures as 'Star Wars', 'CE3K' and the various others he was involved with at that period. It was strong material, and Williams responded with one of the strongest soundtracks ever written.
'Superman' contains much input by various acting and technical talents at the height of their powers, never more so than in the case of John Williams' incredible score, which in my opinion he never bested, and which was never bested by any other 'classical' soundtrack composer.
Movie Review: Still The Best Comic Book Adaptation To The Big Screen!
Summary: 5 Stars
Considering how hard it seems for directors, producers & screenwriters to come up with a decent comic book screen adaptation, Richard Donner and company make it look so easy to do with Superman. By far the best movie based on a comic book, Superman gives us a wonderful story that's both entertaining and heartwarming as it is loyal to the comic book purists who hate when Hollywood takes their favorite comic book heroes and turns them into something completely different.Christopher Reeve was born to play this role, and to me (and millions of others out there) his Superman is the "Definative Superman" that all others will be judged by. He's exactly how we perceive Superman to be: Logical, strong, sensitive, enduring, with a heart of gold and so on. He is also the real reason to see the last two Superman movies. You can say what you want about the movies themselves, but you can't say that he's not good in them, because he is. I paticularly enjoyed the added scene in this film after he's saved Lois Lane from falling out of the helicopter (and other assorted tasks) and goes back to the fortress of solitude where he converses with his father (Marlon Brando) of how good it felt and that he couldn't help himself. Jor-El (Brando) tells him not to be hard on himself, but to be mindful of his vanity, for it was vanity that destroyed the Kryptonians. Finally, Jor-El tells his son how much he wishes he could hug him and Superman reaches his arms out to him as he disappears. I really liked that. He has never (and will never) be able to hug his Dad and there's a true feeling of saddness about this that rings true. I can't believe scenes like this were cut from the original release, especially the "Gauntlet" sequence when Superman goes underground to hunt for Lex Luthor and gets hit by machine guns, masses amounts of fire, as well as cold freeze before finally reaching the entrance of the evil geniuses secret lair. Never should've been cut!
I learned a lot from this DVD. I was very shocked to learn that Alexander & Ilya Salkind hired Richard Donner to direct Superman & Superman II (as a two picture deal) and then fired him after the first film went on to become a huge success. Apparantly it was due to creative differences, but I think they made a huge mistake when they fired him. I'd go so far to say that Superman III & IV would've been hits, had Donner went on to direct the enire series himself. He would've looked at the script for part III and said, "This is terrible! Are you trying to destroy the franchise?!". A special note to readers: Richard Donner did in fact direct scenes for Superman II, and had it not been for the fact that the original Superman had gone over budget causing part II to be delayed, he may have actually finished the whole thing himself. What a pity that we'll never get to see what the Donner/Superman Saga would've been like.