For this month’s next review for Genre Grandeur – New York Films of the 70’s., here’s a review of Superman (1978) by Darren of Movie Reviews 101.
Thanks again to Paul of Silver Screen Classics for choosing this month’s genre.
Next month’s genre has been chosen by Howard Casner of Ranting and Ravings and we will be reviewing our favorite French Film Noir.
Please get me your submissions by the 25th of Jul by sending them to noirhoward@movierob.net
Try to think out of the box! Great choice Howard!
Let’s see what Darren thought of this movie:
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Superman bought to life one of the most iconic comic book movies for the first time in a large scale movie, Christopher Reeves steps into the costume, as he tries to make it in the normal world as Clark Kent. In this world, Superman helps fight crime, only for the villainous Lex Luthor (Gene Hackman) wanting to put an end to him after he gets involved in stopping his criminal activities. Superman will see him learning how important he will be to the world, even needing to take on a fresh enemy who knows his weakness, before doing the unthinkable to save the world and the woman he loves.
This could be considered the birth of the big comic book movies, we might well have seen glimpses with Batman before, but this one took things a lot more seriously for the first time.
We do have an excellent cast here, with Christopher Reeves being the best Superman by a long way, the early role for Marlon Brando is great to see, with Gene Hackman having a blast in the villainous role. Margot Kidder as Lois Lane became an icon in a moment, with her performance making the character one of the most important in comic book movies too.
We have such an entertaining film, despite my own reserves against Superman, which are mostly that he is just too powerful, it doesn’t seem like he ever has to overcome anything to win the battles he finds himself involved in. in this film, we do get the large destruction involved, with an undo button, which might well feel cheap in the end, but does leave everything open for a happy ending for future films to continue on with.
My rating 3.5/5
Darren
Movie Reviews 101
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