Sunday Movie Matinee: Superfilms

Movie Matinee

Superfilms!

I was asked for my thoughts on the new Superman movie Man of Steel.  I could have just done that, but after watching the first three Christopher Reeve movies with a few friends recently, I feel the need to talk about the new movie in reference to the old.  The reason for that: I feel much of the criticism of the new film is due to referring to what has gone before.

Superman III (1983)

and

Superman IV: The Quest for Peace (1987)

Suck.
Let me elaborate on this.  Superman movies had been alright up to this point.  That was the case, I'm certain, because of the involvement of Richard Donner, the director of the first movie and half of the second.  Superman II director Richard Lester was on his own for the third movie.  An early draft of III contained Mr Mxyzptlk, Brainiac, and Supergirl that was actually pretty interesting, but Warner Brothers thought that it wasn't that great.  So instead we got this...

Superman III doesn't feel quite like a Superman movie it all.  It feels like too completely separate films (a story about superman visiting smallville and a wacky 80s comedy involving greedy people and computers) intercut with each other.  In short, this movie is almost not worth talking about.  There are only five good things about this movie:

1. Christopher Reeve once again does an admirable job as Supes.
2. Almost no Margot Kidder.
3. Annette O'Toole's Lana Lang
4. "Sling! Sing-a-pore Sling!"
5. Evil Superman.

When Superman begins to be effected by the gunky Kryptonite and becomes a Jerk, I think the movie is at it's most interesting.  I mean, he rams an oil tanker, messes up the leaning tower of Pisa, and blows out the olympic torch just because.  I also really like the sequence where he has a battle with himself, especially since the good part of him is represented by Clark Kent.
This movie is pretty bad, much worse than the first two, but it is nothing compared to the shitstorm that is Superman IV.

The fourth installment in the series brings back Margot Kidder's Lois Lane and Gene Hackman's Lex Luthor in the series "Final" installment.  Some of the ideas at its heart aren't too bad.  Superman decides, at the behest of a little kid, to disarm all nuclear warheads on the planet to try and force world peace, something he later learns that he can't do.  There is also the Daily Planet getting taken over by an entertainment mogul out to turn the respected paper into a tabloid.  Not bad things, inherently.  But then there's this.

That's "Nuclear Man," created from a strand of Superman's hair, some of lex luthor's dna, and the sun... or something.  Instead of having a real supervillain from the source material, they get an 80's rocker looking dude with long nails. 
The effects are cheap, the plot cuts corners and makes no sense and Superman is given new powers again.  In the end, he totally kills Nuclear man by dropping him into a reactor.  And come to think of it, He sort of just abandons the villains in the third movir in that cave in... is killing the same as let-die?

Don't forget to use your nails boys!