This review is of the first hour and forty minutes of the 1978 Superman movie. I was a little drunk and tired and everyone was calling it a night. Some spoilers, but come on it’s been 32 years.
Things start off with some cool swooshy effects on the type. You’ll believe Helvetica can fly.
Then there’s a trial on the planet Krypton. Three Kryptonian criminals are on trial for treason. A couple of futuristic hula-hoops are spinning around them, indicating these are hardened criminals; you don’t break out the hoops for petty crime.
Some giant old man face holograms sentence the criminals to travel around space locked in a two dimensional pane of glass. Everything is glass or crystals with these Kryptonians.
They all live in houses made out of rock candy. The whole planet is a big icy fragile crystal disaster waiting to happen. Honestly, I’m surprised a fiery sun took out Krypton, looks like a hyper kid and an exuberant dog could decimate their shit in a day.
If you put a stack of wine glasses on a block of ice, you’d have Krypton’s strongest fortress. At one point Marlon Brando has the gall to look surprised that glass dust is raining down in his eye.
He sends his baby to earth in a crystal rocket (again with the crystals) to avoid the horrific destruction of Krypton. The baby crash lands in a field in the 1930′s. A farmer and his wife find him naked in a field and decide to keep him. Guess it must have been easier to keep any strange infants you found in the middle of the road back then. The baby lifts their old-timey car up in an amazing feat of baby strength. Lucky for them this was an incredible supernatural baby because otherwise there would have been some explaining to do about how they let a baby get crushed by a car.
That baby grows into a teenage Clark Kent. His parents ask him to keep his powers on the down low, so he keeps a low profile by kicking footballs into the outer Earth atmosphere and outrunning trains in full sight of every passenger aboard.
Clark finds a green glowing crystal in his pajamas, and how that crystal got into his pajamas he’ll never know. He takes the crystal to the Arctic circle and throws it into the snow. Whoosh now there’s a big crystal house for him to live in. His dad Marlon Brando leaves him a video voice-mail about how he can’t get involved in human history.
Superman flies out of the crystal fortress in a brightly colored tights and cape, in keeping with his father’s wishes that he not draw attention to himself.
If Superman’s outfit is skin tight, why does he need a big yellow belt?
Now Superman has a job as a reporter. He must be sad he can’t wear that cape to the office. I work at a newspaper and I’d be fine with it if the staff wore capes.
Lois Lane really sexes it up for Superman because he saved her from a helicopter crash, if you can consider a full length layered nightgown sexing it up. Superman takes her flying around the city and manages to drop her at least once. This isn’t a balloon you tied to your paddleboat, Superman, this is a beautiful lady ready to let you into her lacy underthings, all seven of them.
Did I mention this whole time Lex Luthor is vamping around in an underground lair he built about thirty feet from a subway platform? Books on the shelves, globes, a whole super-villain living room set somehow transported in sight of a major metropolitan city’s most trafficked transportation hub. Seems like the Metropolis Transit Police would have a few questions about that elaborate wooden bookcase you’re hauling down the subway tracks.
He wants to lure Superman down into his living room so he can kill Superman with some bad crystals from Krypton (Nooo how could you betray me, crystals!). Luthor calls them Kryptonite, which is also slang for bomb ass weed.
I was exposed to kryptonite in an underground lair once, in college.
Maybe to be continued in Part 2, if I ever watch the rest of the movie.
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