Amazon.com Essentials:
Director Richard Lester (A Hard Day's
Night) took over the franchise with this first sequel in the
series, though the film doesn't look much like his usual stylish
work. (Superman
III is far more Lesteresque.) Still, there is a lot to like
about this movie, which finds Superman grappling with the conflict
between his responsibilities as Earth's savior and his own needs of
the heart. Choosing the latter, he gives up his powers to be with Lois
Lane (Margot Kidder), but the timing is awful: three renegades from
his home planet, Krypton, are smashing up the White House, aided by
the mocking Lex Luthor (Gene Hackman). The film isn't nearly as
ambitious as its predecessor, but the accent on relationships over
special effects (not that there aren't plenty of them) is very
satisfying. --Tom Keogh
Amazon.com video review:
With great aplomb--and the tag line "You'll Believe a Man Can Fly"--DC
Comics' Superman met with movie magic in 1978. The film featured
Oscar-winning flying effects, John Williams's soaring music, and an
innovative title sequence, and audiences ate it up, along with its
thrilling sequel. Director Richard Donner's casting of the
then-unknown Christopher Reeve couldn't have been better--the towering
Reeve fit the suit and cape masterfully, but his real weapon was
making the bumbling Clark Kent into an endearing leading man instead
of the dry counterpoint to the Man of Steel that Kent had been in
earlier film versions. Although most critics lean toward Richard
Lester's Superman II (1980) as the series high point, which
offered an endearing love story between the Man of Steel and Lois Lane
(Margot Kidder), Donner's first film also deserves just praise in
setting the old-fashioned cornball tone for the series and providing
Superman's backstory from planet Krypton (featuring a high-priced
Marlon Brando as Superman's father). The last two sequels lose much of
the magic: 1983's Superman III seems to have been produced only
to showcase red-hot comic Richard Pryor as a computer hack turned
supervillain, and Reeve himself came up with the story line for 1987's Superman IV: The Quest for Peace, a silly attempt to impart a meaningful message of nuclear disarmament. Throughout the films, the supporting cast is first-rate, with old pros like Valerie Perrine, Jackie Cooper, and Ned Beatty having a grand old time. Even better are the villains, especially Terence Stamp as General Zod and Gene Hackman in his lightest, funniest work ever as Lex Luthor. --Doug Thomas
