Superman - 1978

The Super:

Christopher Reeve. This guy’s a fuckin star. Carries the movie, like a school bus dangling over a bridge, on his meaty shoulders. He performs admirably as the Caped Crusader, but is having much more fun doing the Clark Kent schtick.
Margot Kidder. The original Lois Lane is earthy and funny and vivacious. I’m glad she didn’t plummet from a helicopter to her death.
Gene Hackman. I remember hearing that the evil plot in this movie was a real estate scheme and that felt a bit low-stakes, but we have unfortunately seen that wiping out millions of people to develop on beachfront property is something that extremely bad people love to do IRL, so, you know. Gene was having a lot of fun chewing the scenery here and I’m glad to see that he returns with the classic Luthor chrome dome configuration.
Lex Luthor’s bumbling minions. Where have all the bumbling minions gone? Hapless goon Otis deserves his own 19-film arc, and John Williams does his best work scoring him with a piece that I’ve taken to calling “Tuba Doofus”.
The Krypton stuff. Great miniatures. I love when baby Kal-El’s spaceship hits the ceiling and wobbles like a model on a string. Marlon Brando is certainly a guy who does stuff.

The Pooper:

Pacing. It’s a 3 hour movie, and we spend a lot of time with Krypton and then with young Kent. You can feel the presence of the studio note demanding that we see the fucking super-suit in the first hour when Kal-El flies out of his Ice Palace at exactly 59 minutes, and then it’s another 20 minutes or so until we get the actual Boy Wonder. The climax of the film drags and has way too many moving pieces.
Speaking of, I’m not clear on the rules here. Superman has nigh-unlimited power but I’m not sure that they sold him stabilizing a major fault line by lifting some hot rocks. But what REALLY irks me about the earthquake scene is that after the tremors are over, entropy seems to reverse, as buildings right themselves and debris even returns to its origins. Couldn’t the earthquake, you know, still have happened?
I hate that Superman flies so fast that he reverses time and/or travels back in time to save Lois. What the hell is that. Write a different ending
For some reason, the infant Kal-El ages several years during his trip to Earth and when he emerges from the spaceship he is a small boy who is not wearing any clothes. Why does a blockbuster film meant for family consumption feature a shot containing a small boy’s nude penis.
A lighthearted scene where Superman rescues a cat from a tree and gives it to a little girl ends with the girl telling her disbelieving mother and then getting audibly struck. Child abuse, lmao
Several jokes are made about, and one person actually perpetrates, sexual contact with an unconscious person. The 70s!
I’ve reserved my hottest take for last: the main John Williams theme rips off his own Star Wars theme from the year prior. It’s such a parody that I’m not sure I could tell it apart from the Spaceballs theme. Especially when it gets to the B part, you could overlay the two. Try harder, John!