I have never really seen the original Superman movies in their entirety and since almost all of them were available for instant viewing on Netflix, I decided to partake in a little marathon.
Superman: The one that started it all. You can see why this one is still used as a standard bearer to compare newer comic book films. Director Richard Donner just did a fantastic job here. The cast was absolutely perfect. Reeve does a great job of doing nerdy as Clark and heroic as the Man of Steel. The star though is Gene Hackman who is awesome as Lex Luthor. I used to think that 2006's Superman Returns was bad because Superman is an uninteresting character, but this film has a great energy level to it, making Returns just a bad movie. This may not have the visual sophistication of today's comic book films, but it's still a great movie. Rating: ****
Superman II: Still a fun movie, but definitely a notch below the original. It's really apparent, at least to me, that there were changes made mid-stream during this film. If you're unfamiliar with the backstory, director Richard Donner got into a fight with the studio and was replaced halfway through. As a result, Marlon Brando is completely gone from the film and Gene Hackman is missing from a large chunk in the middle. I plan on seeing the Donner cut that was released a few years ago to see how significantly different it is. FYI, this is the only one for some reason that is not available to instantly view. Rating: ***
Superman III: The quality level significantly drops off here. After the Donner incident, Gene Hackman didn't return for this one and Margot Kidder (who played Lois Lane) is only in it for literally five minutes. In place of them we get Robert Vaughn, Richard Pryor, and Annette O'Toole. They're all fine actors but sorry replacements for the characters we've come to love. The story here is really stupid and the whole film is way too comedic. That is for one of the final scenes where a woman is turned into a machine. I saw that scene when I was a kid and it scared the shit out of me and seeing it today still gives me the willies. Overall, this is just a plain awful movie. Rating: **
Superman IV: The Quest for Peace: This provided the death knell for the series and is often slammed, but I found myself enjoying this one a lot more than III. Most of the original cast was back and they all seem to still be giving it a go, which helps. Sure, the film comes off a bit preachy with its whole nuclear disarmament storyline, but I wasn't bothered by it, maybe because I'm seeing it so long away from the time when this was a major issue. The battle between Superman and Nuclear Man is also pretty cheesy, but I've also seen worse. One thing that's surprisingly though is that the visuals in the film look really cheap. Visually the films seemed to regress over time, which isn't a good thing. I also felt the story could have been bolstered more; this is the only film in the series that clocks in under 2 hours. So while it's an imperfect film, I'd recommend it over III. Rating: ***
Also available for instant viewing on Netflix is a 1 hour documentary that aired last year on the Starz channel called Starz Inside: Comic Books Unbound. It covers the history of comic books and their film adaptations. It's an interesting look at the genre with a lot of interviews with people from the industry. At only an hour long though, the coverage is fairly superficial. It may not provide a lot of surprising information, but it's still a cool look at a genre that was once ignored by Hollywood and has now become one of its biggest cash cows. It's worth a look if you've got the time.
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