Superman: The Homage

Whilst Batman Begins was being filmed Warner Bros sought to resurrect their other superhero franchise and bring Superman back to the big screen.  The project was called Superman:Flyby and the premise was a complex trilogy to make Superman dominate the cinema for the next ten years.  Playing with timelines and resurrection it's little surprise the story had JJ Abrams' fingerprints all over it.  Production meandered as the traditional problems with a Superman film reared their head; difficult casting, directors in and out whilst even choosing locations was difficult.  Abrams loitered as Warner Bros approached Bryan Singer whose idea of a returning Superman was approved when presented to Richard Donner.  Singer was a safe pair of hands having superhero experience with X-Men and the shining light of The Usual Suspects in his back catalogue.

The silly decision to cast Josh Hartnett as Superman was annulled amid typecasting and commitment fears.  The door opened for a pre-vegan Brandon Routh.  He certainly looked the part.  It's rumoured Kevin Spacey and Kate Bosworth signed on without reading a script whilst James Marsden began a quest to appear in as many superhero franchises as possible.  If they reboot The Green Lantern you know he'll be fishing around.

Routh is pretty darn good as Superman and as Clark Kent.  He manages to capture some of Reeve's charm as Kent without overdoing the goofiness and then step into the blue suit retaining a level of vulnerability that we haven't seen in previous Superman incarnations.  The main problem is the story he finds himself in.

Superman has been absent for five years, looking at the space debris of Krypton. Quite why is never really explained.  Neither is Kent's parallel absence.  He's been away 'finding himself' or something yet returns without so much as a suntan.  Verisimilitude goes so far but now it's got to the point that Lois Lane will only know if Clark Kent is Superman if it's announced via neon sign.  That rohypnol kiss back in the day was mighty powerful.  Maybe it's because Lois Lane now has a son, a son full of afflictions and weaknesses that he may as well have a neon sign that says 'Son of Superman.'  This brings worrying thoughts though.  When Supes and Lois got their freak on what stopped him getting carried away and blowing her head off?  Why was she so blase about shagging an alien? How defective are Lois' genes that they make the son of Superman so sickly?

Right, that's enough of that. Lex Luthor is trying his old real estate ploy again albeit with a twist.  Spacey looks like he's having immense fun as Luthor and hams it up darkly, changing wigs willy nilly whilst actually getting down to the nitty gritty of trying to fight Superman by levelling the playing field.  The Luthor trip to the Fortress of Solitude is inspired in it's villainy, matched only by the look on Spacey's face as he demands to learn everything from Jor-El and the Kryptonian crystals.  The inclusion of Brando as Jor-El takes us all the way back to 1978 and the supersaturated whiteness of Krypton.  It's comforting after Nuclear Man and the wilderness years.  Odd use of a model train set sees Luthor's real estate scam updated.  The only nagging doubt is just how he managed make a Kryptonite sheath for his island crystal.

Luthor's Return to Oz moment

Back to Superman, he's returned and had a beer with The Liability Formerly Known as Jimmy Olsen, but now what?  As Kent and as Superman he's alone, discarded.  The world has, seemingly, moved on.  The world doesn't need Superman anymore.  Or does it?  Handily, Luthor's model train set experiment has some aeronautical ramifications and affords Superman the opportunity to extol the virtues of air safety but ruin a ball game.  It's good, and quite the spectacle, but you can't help feeling that Superman Returns could have done with one more big set piece like this one.  The tumbling Daily Planet doesn't count.

Hey, that's an interesting theme. Shall we explore...oh, no. OK then.

It's clear that Superman Returns is a sequel and an homage to Donner's original Superman two parter but it's in this homage that sit jarring anachronisms.  Superman isn't really updated, it seems the only real updates have been rolling news channels and a ban on smoking in the workplace.  In this Internet age what would Kent really be doing in print media? And just who gets to walk back into a job after five years? Especially as he wasn't really any good.  It's lovely that Eva Marie Saint lives on the old Kent farm and plays Scrabble but in the city you'd expect a little more advancement even if the city is the misty eyed Metropolis.

Superman Returns is an OK film, not a great one and it did well enough at the box office to warrant a sequel.  Sadly, the studio and director would get distracted whilst the option on Routh's contract would expire.  It's telling that he's more remembered as Scott Pilgrim's confused vegan foe.

Batmania and the Burton Vindication

 

The mid '80s were a time of trickle-down travesties and trade union bashing.  It was all rather miserable and bleak and I was merely a child.  Despite the doom and gloom two things were happening in sunny Los Angeles: Jack Nicholson turned chewing scenery on screen into an art form and Tim Burton became attached to possible Batman movie.  Burton, an animator, had been faffed about by Disney and stumbled into success when Pee-Wee's Big Adventure inexplicably became a box office hit off a tiny budget. Further success came with the sublime Beetlejuice and Warner Bros decided to greenlight Batman with Burton at the helm.  Then the problems began.

One of the best graphic novels ever

Now, as we learnt from Superman a comic book movie can't have a smooth production.  The '80s had seen the rise of the graphic novel with Frank Miller and Alan Moore giving Batman a grittier, bleaker flavour, truly The Dark Knight.

When Michael Keaton was cast as Bruce Wayne/Batman it seemed that the new movie would be completely at odds with this.  Burton was known for cartoon colour whilst Michael Douglas changed his name to Keaton (after Buster) and shed the taxi cab for comedy.  Now think back to Batman's previous big screen outing in 1966.  Were Warner Bros making their version of Who Framed Roger Rabbit?  Unfounded omens didn't look good and Warner Bros responded by hiring Bob Kane as a consultant who approved of the project.

Burton bristled against the producers as he tried to cast Brad Dourif as The Joker whilst they had already approached Nicholson for the role amidst rumours of David Bowie and Willem Dafoe.  Who else but Jack could be The Joker?  Well on the way to legendary status and one of the few remaining hellraisers of Hollywood, Nicholson would bring Oscar laden credibility to the production.  He'd done big, hammy characters with The Witches of Eastwick and The Shining and long shouldered the burden of stardom from Five Easy Pieces onwards. Not that bagging Jack would be easy.  An incalculable fee that made the Guinness Book of Records and a contract that would make it easy to be louche were minimum requirements.  Let's face it Jack can do what he bloody well wants and we'll all approve at the smallest glint of that grin.  Factor in a horse riding accident and an oddly predictable writers' strike and cameras were almost ready to roll.  Filming at Pinewood was secret and such was the clamour building that police had to be called when footage went missing.

Batman was a changing beast.  It was changing from a superhero movie or a comic book film into a revolution.  The marketing alone changed the nature of the summer blockbuster.  Teaser posters were everywhere.  Spring sunshine was soaked up by black posters bearing only the symbol of the bat.  Merchandising became omnipresent, from the usual novel to the slightly unusual cereal.  I've still got my Mattel Batmobile knocking around.  It needs a lick of paint and those eBay prices make you faint.  Batman had two soundtrack albums with a Prince soundtrack cementing Batman's place in the zeitgeist.

Batman saw a change in the approach to traditional origin story telling.  The Wayne tragedy occurs in flashback and whilst there are a few liberties taken with the comics it's true enough, establishing just enough of Bruce Wayne's pathos without becoming cloying.  Unfortunately, we also have an origin for The Joker when the ambiguity and mystery of the comics make him all the more fearful by not giving him a definitive past.

Our opening scenes produce a neat and clever twist as comic book fans are invited into the Wayne's mugging only to be displaced.  This displacement is largely down to the film's tone and setting.  Our perceptions of time are being played with.  Burton's retro-futuristic Gotham is an homage to Fritz Lang yet it's populated by ageless automobiles and muggers taunt us with the very '80s American Express.  The '50s curves of the Batmobile caressed the ugliness of the city in a way Nolan's and Schumacher's never did. Amongst the seediness is an elegance and colour is supplied by Burton and exploited by The Joker.  Green and purple collide with newsprint and darkness throught the film.

Our main players are introduced and sub-plots established.  A jealous love triangle, police corruption and Mob betrayal give way to the chaos of The Joker as he attempts to eliminate Batman at the bicentennial parade.  There's a pace to the story that is hampered by the writers' strike as the middle section of the film becomes a number of set pieces loosely connected.  The Joker's mime act lacks build up and the unexplained disappearance of the Gotham City Police Department is jarring as is Batman's attack on Axis Chemicals.  It's a shame there hasn't been a director's cut to add some flesh to these bones.  There's plenty on show that is glorious, from the pure glee on Nicholson's face after joy buzzer deployment to the excellence of Keaton's performance of the fractured Bruce Wayne,  looks like Burton got that one spot on, from the model cathedral to the parade balloons leaking Smilex gas.  The juxtaposition of the manic Joker against Bruce Wayne/Batman's (probably more dangerous) pathology is as potent as it ever will be.

It'll be twenty years before an unnecessary argument over whose Joker is better: an argument that can't be settled by the way.

It'll be twenty years before the breaking of Bruce Wayne is explored again and Batman's position as a necessary but flawed hero is restored.

Before then there's some PVC, nipples and neon and too much pantomime but Batman will return.

Superman: The End?

The ejaculation of Superman

Hang about. Superman doesn't need oxygen again? He can speak Russian? He's got another glowy crystal space dildo?  Superman can make things invisible just by squatting near them?  Has Superman's outfit faded in the wash?  These are just a few of the many, many questions raised by Superman IV: The Quest For Peace.  The biggest question of all is just who thought this would be a good idea.  Donner wouldn't go near it and Lester wouldn't touch it with a bargepole either.  The previous films had been huge affairs, lavish almost but here is the Poundland version.  The unmistakable concrete of Milton Keynes dominates as New York's Metropolis becomes a memory.  The Salkinds had sold the rights to the franchise, presumably in a moment of prescience, and despite a halving of budget Cannon Films still put the film into production.  Perhaps it was assumed that the sheer earnestness of the storyline would drag them through.  Cannon obviously weren't content with releasing Masters of the Universe in 1987 so along came another outing for Superman.

Despite the return of Gene Hackman as Lex Luthor as well as Christopher Reeve and Margot Kidder everything is just a bit flat.  Reeve didn't really want to come back and was effectively lured in with promises of stroy input, a Street Smart shaped carrot and maybe, just maybe a directorial pop at Superman V.

Reeve wanted the story to be more serious; more faithful to Superman lore and a step away from the good time slapstick of Superman III.  Unfortunately, it seems Cannon Films' scattergun approach to production and corner cutting took greater precedence.  Solid gold nobility in the form of ending the Cold War and nuclear proliferation is the soup du jour.  Croutons take the form of tedious underdeveloped sub plots. The corporate takeover of The Daily Planet is uninteresting and Luthor's newly acquired nephew (who is most definitely not Matthew Broderick) is annoying.  Gone are the days of Puzo's grand vengeance story arc and Mankiewicz rewrites.  And then......then there's Nuclear Man.  Dolph Lundgren was away having a dust up with Frank Langella so the 'role' went to the unknown Mark Pillow.  Poor old Mark couldn't build a career on these fragile foundations.  A flimsy script, dodgy locations and cheap special effects are a plague on all their houses.  Oddly enough, no one seems remotely bothered that Lex Luthor's hair has grown back.  If I'd been Hackman and was playing a role for the THIRD time I think I'd have had a word.  Or a shave.

United Nations based peril

The last time I saw the United Nations on my tellybox Cary Grant found himself in a spot of bother, now Superman goes for his Polaris Missile Removal Scout badge.  ICBMs in their hundreds are rounded up and cast into space.  Yes, it all sounds vaguely familiar and Superman really should have worked out how The Phantom Zone broke two movies ago but on he goes.  These aren't the only feelings of deja vu suffered during Superman IV:The Quest For Peace.  Meanwhile we are asked to accept that Luthor has become a master genetic and nuclear scientist whilst behind bars.  Some pre-Jurassic Park genetic tomfoolery sees Luthor make his evil Superman clone and Nuclear Man is 'born.'  It's all a bit pointless, Superman first appeared in 1938 and so was nearly 50 at the time of production.  As proven by Batman there is a plethora of material to plunder for effective villains.  Couldn't we have had an attempt at Bizarro, Brainiac or even Mister Mxyzptlk?  No, instead we're left with the strangely animated Nuclear Man.  In two year's time Tim Burton will use animated techniques to help The Joker and Batman to much more successful ends.

Everything's just so flimsy,  it's hard to invest or arouse any real interest and you begin to get itchy feet around the 40 minute mark.  From 1978 to 1983 Superman was, literally, on top of the world.  Superman IV: The Quest For Peace was such a hammer blow to the hero's heart it's surprising that even 1999 was early enough for Warner Bros to bash the reboot button.  Especially if those Tim Burton and Superman Returns rumours were true.

This film's only redeeming feature is the double date sequence.  Superman and Lois versus Clark and the entirely forgettable Lacy Warfield.  Superman rekindles his slapstick tendencies but it's Reeve's charm that pulls it all together.  You can almost forgive him for another Rohypnol Kiss earlier in the film.  An epic lunar conclusion is sadly a wasted opportunity as is the Great Wall of China spat and I'm struggling to even wonder that much about all those deleted scenes.  Even The Liability Formerly Known As Jimmy Olsen is an afterthought.

For now, Superman's star has fallen.  There's a bigger shadow coming to take over the late 80s and 1990s.  The Dark Knight is coming back and he looks a lot like Beetlejuice.

What about Synthetic Unity?

And now Pinky, we will take over the WORLD

1983 was a bit of an odd year cinema wise.  The battle of the Bonds rang out as Octopussy clashed with Never Say Never Again whilst George Lucas released his extended toy advert Return of the Jedi.  Another of the 3s came in the form of Jaws 3-D; three doesn't seem like a lucky number.  Much maligned by the public and critics on release Superman makes his return in the less than originally titled Superman III.  Now, that title is slightly misleading.  Whilst it is Superman III, it's less a superhero movie and more a vehicle for Richard Pryor.  Pryor is cast as Gus Gorman a secondary character and then promptly takes over overshadowing Reeve's overdue top billing.  Pryor was aided in this by director Richard Lester, the usurpation of Richard Donner now complete.  After this, the now mainstreamed Pryor got himself a $40 million contract with Columbia and went on to Brewster's Millions and the like.

Whilst Superman and Superman II were effectively parts of the same film the Salkinds now have their man in charge to deliver the version of Superman that they always wanted.  They've seemingly won the war with Donner but not without consequences.  Gene Hackman refused to have any part of Superman III whilst Margot Kidder is marginalised and so we have a Superman devoid of his nemesis and love interest.  Their replacements aren't entirely effective.  Lex Luthor is replaced by the lightweight Ross Webster played by the efficient Robert Vaughn and Annette O'Toole steps in to be Lana Lang, an entirely unneeded Lois Lane mark II.

Casting isn't the only departure as Superman III has an overly slapstick feel and veers into camp territory from the outset.  The space based opening credits of the first two films is replaced by a slapstick sketch.  If it wasn't for the titles and the merest hint of the Man of Steel you wouldn't know it was a Superman film amongst all the sight gags and penguin based near misses.  Pamela Stephenson meanders through the chaos and will be recycled as the Woman In The Red Dress for The Matrix.

You look very familiar

A nice touch with a photo booth reaffirms Superman's presence before we make way for The Richard Pryor show.  Pryor is Gus Gorman, a bum who develops a penchant for manipulating BBC style computers.  When I was at school there was Repton, we didn't even have the vaguest notion you could use one of those beige beasts to control the weather or an oil tanker.  It makes you wonder what a Sega Dreamcast could have really done.  It's also slightly scary to think that the iPhone in your pocket is a vastly more powerful piece of kit than anything Gorman tapped away at to analyse Kryptonite.

Superman III is a very confused film.  So much seems to have been done on the hoof and this scattergun approach doesn't lend itself to a coherent story.  Why should Kent's return to Smallville coincide with Gorman's need to use an untraceable computer?  It shouldn't but it does.  The return to Smallville also affords the opportunity for The Liability Formerly Known As Jimmy Olsen to find a rival.  Little Ricky might be prepubescent but he makes Olsen look redundant.  Yeah Ricky is a bit of a drip but he has more of an affect on Superman than Olsen and Lane have combined in the previous two films.  This is all down to the best part of Superman III: Supes chemically induced internal conflict.

Smoking kills. Subtle

 Now, we know Superman is an alien and we know that he's going to have some Daddy issues.  Juxtapose that with his protection of the human race from itself and what's left for poor old Kal-El?  Who's giving him a foot massage at the end of the day?  A little bit of tar based blagging from Gorman and we find out that Superman isn't very happy at all.  Some misconstructed Kryptonite leads to Superman, slowly going bad.  The change is subtle in comparison to the visual comedy style Lester has employed so far.  Superman has a cheeky glint in his eye as he fancies a bit of sexy time with Lana before going on a massive bender.  Superpowered peanuts lead to a trip to the junkyard and Superman's internal torment gains physical form.  Whilst this makes little or no sense the battle is magnificent and leads to perhaps the most iconic Superman image ever:  Clark Kent tearing his shirt to show he is Superman Regained.  It wasn't just a case of getting the cape and tights down to the dry cleaners.

Hey kids! Johnnie Walker is bad!

Our reinvigorated hero now has one small job, to defeat Webster who we had largely forgotten about.  Webster's evil scheme has evolved to involve oil tankers, ransoms and now a cave housing the world's most powerful computer.  You see, Gorman had gotten bored of hacking financial systems and traffic lights on his BBC and felt he needed a bit more oomph to really take control.  Apparently weather control isn't enough.  So, some pocket based blueprints become a computer that will give James Cameron ideas and Superman is lured into a trap.  Now for some more inexplicable goings on.  I can deal with a massive computer becoming self aware.  I can deal with said massive self aware computer turning Webster's sister into the genuinely scary Robocop forerunner.  But I can't deal with the massive self aware computer putting Superman into a giant zorbing ball to suffocate him.  I've seen Superman fly through space to turn Earth back in time, I've seen Zod talking on the Moon so why am I now being asked to accept some zorbing based shortness of breath?  It's a good job Superman has access to the pink goo from Ghostbusters II to sort this misfiring computer.

There's still time left for a needless cameo from a future Eastender and a few extra pounds per square inch to put a smile on Lana Lang's face.  Yeah, Superman III is muddled and overly comic but there are some lovely moments and it probably stands as my favourite of the Superman films even with the niggling unanswered question of why Lorelei plays dumb.  Despite all this there's a feeling that the Man of Steel is running out of steam.  He's got one outing left in the 80s and it's not one to look forward to.

Holy Skunk Sweat it's Planet Houston

Superman II is fraught with controversy, or, at least, it was.  If I'm completely honest I have no idea if I saw Richard Donner's restored version first or the Donner/Lester mash up.  There's a kebab joke in there somewhere that I'm too lazy to make. Due to the majority of scenes being filmed alongside Superman we still have a high level of continuity despite some minor flaws.  Brando is surgically removed from the original Superman II  edit to cut costs and Hackman stood by Richard Donner and has minimal screen time.  The hiatus in production sees Christopher Reeve practically Hulk up and Margot Kidder fade away, yet despite all this Superman II falls into that very small group of sequels which are better than their originals.  The main reasons for this look like extras from Cabaret and are called Zod, Ursa and Non.

Our sequel is primarily concerned with Zod's hateful urge for revenge on Jor-El.  The beauty of it all is that we already know this thanks to the original.  Vendetta isn't just the purview of the Mafia but it helps when the ideas are Mario Puzo's.

Zod's Night Off

Hang on a minute.  Zod has been floating through space in the time it's taken Kal-El to grow up.  Is Zod aware that Krypton is no more and Jor-El gone with it? I suppose there'll be a handily placed crystal to help answer such questions.

We are forced to remember Zod et al from Superman due to the jarring introduction to Superman II.  The opening credits are essentially a highlights package from 1978 with a brass introduction.  It's absolutely ages before that swoosh of Alexander Salkind Presents and still no top billing for Christopher Reeve.

Reeve builds on his Woody Allen impression whilst Kidder has gone all gung ho in Paris.  The Inspector Clouseau theatrics are all a set up for an inadvertent jailbreak just off the dark side of the Moon.  It seems that the Kryptonian prison of choice, The Phantom Zone, is a bit fragile near nuclear events.  Given that stars are basically supermassive nuclear reactors and The Phantom Zone floats through space this is a shocking design flaw.  Brando may not be on screen but Jor-El's presence is definitely felt.  That aside, Zod, Ursa and Non's lunar trip is a masterpiece (CLIFF CLAVIN!).  It seems that Kryptonians don't need to breath oxygen which is at odds to Superman's almost drowning in Superman and the big suffocating bubble in Superman III.  Oh, alright, I won't nitpick but I will point out that The Phantom Zone made more noise than the Death Star blowing up.

Lois' suspecting Clark of being Superman is paced wonderfully and the false reveal at Niagara Falls is excellent before Clark's clumsiness around the fireplace ultimately reveals him as the Man of Steel.  It's just slightly surprising that Superman had to save a child and not The Liability Formerly Known As Jimmy Olsen.  Once again the sheer amount of soft focus seems to affect Lois Lane's thought process.  Either that or all those hot dogs have gone to her head.

Once Clark is demasked his and Lois' relationship fully forms and it's now that you see that Tarantino was right when he used Bill for his painful exposition of Superman's myth:

'Now, a staple of the superhero mythology is, there’s the superhero and there’s the alter ego. Batman is actually Bruce Wayne, Spider-Man is actually Peter Parker. When that character wakes up in the morning, he’s Peter Parker. He has to put on a costume to become Spider-Man. And it is in that characteristic Superman stands alone. Superman didn’t become Superman. Superman was born Superman. When Superman wakes up in the morning, he’s Superman. His alter ego is Clark Kent. His outfit with the big red “S”, that’s the blanket he was wrapped in as a baby when the Kents found him. Those are his clothes. What Kent wears - the glasses, the business suit - that’s the costume. That’s the costume Superman wears to blend in with us. Clark Kent is how Superman views us. And what are the characteristics of Clark Kent. He’s weak… he’s unsure of himself… he’s a coward. Clark Kent is Superman’s critique on the whole human race. Sorta like Beatrix Kiddo and Mrs. Tommy Plimpton.'

What we're not ready for is Superman to make such a big sacrifice and, quite bizarrely, become a human by way of a crystal box.  Superman taking Lois to the Fortress of Solitude will be echoed in later superhero films, it's almost inevitable that Vicki Vale will find The Batcave in 1989. 

All the while another strand of revenge is forming.  Lex Luthor has escaped from his jail and is pursuing the secrets behind Superman, hoping to uncover something a little stronger than kryptonite.  Luthor begins scheming as he uncovers the relationship between Superman and the soon to be famous General Zod.

I'll ignore the Christian references as Zod rolls into East Houston, Idaho and Sheriff J W Pepper en route to The White House.  Superman is now in a quandary, having given away his powers and getting bitchslapped by trailer trash he realises that Zod will destroy the human race unless he does something.  Luckily, conveniently and inexplicable easily he becomes Kryptonian again and we're all set for the Battle of Metropolis sponsored by Marlboro.

Superman is bad for smoking

In the '70s and '80s smoking was still sexy,
how else would such product placement happen?  The Marlboro van crumpling under Kryptonian is more glaring than the exploding Coca Cola sign.  If any of this looks familiar it's probably because Joss Whedon ripped it off for The Battle of New York in
Avengers Assemble and the uncanny simliarities within The Matrix trilogy.  It seems Hollywood is doing its best to eat itself.




In a seemingly French moment Superman retreats to his North Pole hideaway pursued by the Phantom Zone inmates with Luthor and Lane in tow.  A classic double double bluff sees Zod dealt with but not before one of the strangest things you'll ever see.

The cellophane S attack is bonkers.  After holograms and heat rays comes this.  It doesn't even do anything except leave you scratching your head.  Despite this Zod meets with an unsatisfactory misty end and Luthor is returned to custody.  All that's left is to sort out the now, apparently messy, love story.  It seems that Lois Lane is a bit selfish and doesn't want to share Superman with his planet saving duties.  It begs the question: 'what did she expect?'  Rather than a messy breakup and a potential expose in the Daily Planet Superman comes up with yet another bonkers turn.  the Rohypnol Kiss wipes Lois' memory and all is good again.  Our ultimate boy scout has gone a bit rapey to keep things 'normal.'  There's only one solution to this ethical problem and that's a scheming businessman and a self aware computer but that's next time when Superman a meets crap Eastenders villain in 1983.

One last thing.....whilst everyone kneels before Zod it's worth noting that Bill Cosby doesn't.

Superman: The Vendetta Begins

Look Ma, no wires

Superheroes all have origins and so have to have origin stories.  The trauma of betrayal that awoke crime fighting desire or the bestowal of cosmic gifts need to be explained in order for the audience to buy into the hero and his code of ethics.  Now Superman is arguably the purest of all superheroes, the embodiment of hope, morality and humanitarianism: the very best of mankind. But he's an alien.  How can you reconcile his stellar immigration and emergence as the World's Boy Scout?

Easy.  Give him two ridiculously iconic fathers and get Mario Puzo to write the screenplay.  OK, so maybe most of Puzo's story was ditched by Donner and Mankiewisz but he's still got the writing credit.  It helps that it's 1977 and Kubrick has long opened up special effects use and George Lucas is making space age fairytales popular.  Warner Bros and Richard Donner set out to film Superman and Superman II at the same time.  Quite a show of confidence seeing that this is the first of the blockbuster superhero films; a bold gamble on an unknown quantity as the superhero genre didn't even exist.  It seems production was far from plain sailing from the script rewrite to Brando's diva turn and demands, not to mention having to actually cast Superman at three different ages.  Was Christopher Walken really offered the role? Burt Reynolds too?  Nowadays it's hard to see anyone other than Christopher Reeve as the Man of Steel.

It all comes together and becomes the perfect introduction.  We begin on Krypton, the deep space leg of Bowie's Isolar tour.  Krypton is a barren place and essentially a background space for Brando to fill.  Brando's Jor-El is a scientist, a leader and a genius.  Jor-El's hubris is displayed in his dispute

Do not put that up your bum. A & E will bever believe you.

with Krypton's ruling council and not the fact he pops his infant son into a crystal soap dish without as much as a jumper to keep him warm.  Krypton's doom confirms Jor-El's theories yet doesn't explain how he had time to record the history of Earth on crystal sex aids and use them to build his son, Kal-El's, escape pod.

Kal-El hurtles through space and absorbs history, a subtle nod to 2001: A Space Odyssey and a slight confirmation of L Ron Hubbard's belief in engrams.  Not much happens in Smallville till Kal-El crashes at the feet of father number two: Glenn Ford.

Best. Dad. Ever.

Fate may have worked differently and Clark Gable may have been cast as Jonathan Kent and whilst that would have had a cute symmetry for Superman it would have robbed us of Ford's magical turn.  In just one scene Ford shows us effortlessly how a young Clark Kent has been instilled with decency and a very 1950s style of American goodness.  There are few sadder scenes in cinema than Jonathan Kent realising his heart is failing him.  The movie feels like it has barely started and we've so far been introduced to almost everyone important to Superman's development and future including the fleeting appearance of Lois Lane and the reverence for the old Superman TV series.  It's not just Hitchcock who did cameos.

It's about time we saw some scenes of mild peril.  Supes has gotten into his red pants and Clark Kent has become a klutz and inexplicably landed a job in New York Metropolis at The Daily Planet.  He's also developed the rather odd habit of having conversations with a crystal DVD of his father.  Don't worry, Air Force One has engine trouble.  The aching politeness of Superman in his interview with hardnosed reporter Lois Lane is juxtaposed with the introduction of second hand car salesman Lex Luthor.  It seems all that soft focus goes to Lois Lane's head as she swoons and falls in love with the red cape and exposed pants.  It's going to be a while before we find out exactly what Luthor is up to so we'll have to sit back and endure the flirting.  What could have been a His Girl Friday kind of courtship in reverse is disemboweled by a softcentre voiceover and a flying trip.  It's now that we need our villain to come to the fore.

To the fore Luthor duly emerges.  With a plan that wouldn't have been out of place in a 70s Bond film Luthor wants to make a killing on Californian real estate with the handy use of a nuclear missile.  It's a scheme Max Zorin would be proud of but there's just one problem: Superman.  And so comes the cinematic establishment of a classic superhero subplot: Kill The Bat.  For any super-villains scheme to succeed he must first kill the superhero of the piece.  Sure, we've seen Bond strapped to laser targeted tables and penned in with alligators but a superhero has to have one specific weakness that can be exposed.  The Martian Manhunter isn't too keen on fire and The Green Lantern is famously adverse to yellow (yes, the colour) but Superman is OK as his weakness blew up in space.  Kryptonite is gone.  Or is it? Of course it isn't and Luthor has got some.

Events are coming to a head, Lois is bombing along a California road, Superman is having a bath and Luthor's plan is getting close.  All the while The Liability Formerly Known As Jimmy Olsen is having a walk by a dam.  If Gene Hackman hadn't have been cast as Lex Luthor none of this would've worked as it is we can suspend our disbelief right up until the cheat.

Yep, Superman, the walking, talking pillar of truth, justice and the American Way cheats.  Faced with an impossible choice we are asked to accept the greatest example of deus ex machina ever.  The system restore approach to this story's end sticks in your throat and actually goes some way to lessening our hero.  Shouldn't a real hero be prepared to make sacrifice for the greater good?

Despite the fractured production and the unsatisfactory ending Superman is wonderful.  The introduction of our hero and his backstory, love interest and main antagonist are concise and brilliantly efficient.  The decision to simultaneously film the sequel means a franchise's worth of characters are established along with their motives.  This is an absolute masterstroke and so much better than Marvel's Easter Egg approach in recent years.  Warner Bros took a gamble and their decision to go big and bold paid off.

Dust yourself down as it only gets better.  Better on Planet Houston.

Superman: The Trailer

Have no fear. My mighty pants will save the galaxy for the US of A

I love B movie sci fi.  All of it, from War of the Worlds to The Thing From Another World and The Blob.  Give me Day of the Triffids and a bag of Maltesers and I'll pretty much do what you want.  So Superman and the Mole Men should be great, yeah?

The 1950s were boomtime for B movies and scifi B movies in particular. We're hurtling towards the arrival of James Dean and Hitchcock giving his blondes full colour.  In the meantime, the ample barrel chest of George Reeves squeezes into the blue lycra and oversized red pants.  Oh boy, those pants are huge.

Superman was 13 in 1951, a year older than Batman, Siegel and Shuster's creation was already immensely popular for a teenager. So popular that he warranted a shift in a glorified car park to squeeze out a whopping 58 minutes of film.  Except, it doesn't really feel like a film.  Superman and the Mole Men feels like a Rinso sponsored Disney vs HG Wells mash up.  Superman and the Mole Men is what it is and that is a bottom of the bill extended trailer for a TV series.  Nowadays it'd be one of those special features on disc four of the special edition you just bought that never quite makes it into the DVD player.  The characters are well known to us, there's Lois and Clark, the generic old country boy and the tunnel visioned sheriff.  It's the 50s so there's a healthy dollop of suspicion and the threat of mob mentality but no Fonzie. 

In fact, the cut glass diction of Lois and Clark drives this into a rather serious cul-de-sac, mild mannered Clark Kent is far too assertive in the face of the commies under the bed (well, down the oil well).  There's no hint of Kal-El but from the start you're left in no doubt that Superman is an alien.  He's from outer space.  Now, we've been au fait with this for 75 years but it's never really been foregrounded like this.  He's an outsider, a refugee and never has Superman felt more sci fi than he does here even when flying or seeing through walls.

Lois and Clark are brought into a backwater called Silsby to do a story on the world's deepest oil well.  Quite how this is supposed to boost Daily Planet circulation is beyond me.  But the well is shut!  Nope, there's no Timmy stuck at the bottom but there's definitely something going on.  Lois and Clark do their best wooden impression of Mulder and Scully and oranges glow in the dark and women in floral dresses scream at the camera.  The poor little mole men, all filed down conehead and bug eyes appear and skulk about like this is German cinema.  The allegorical mole men have the unfortunate dispensation of walking like they've shit themselves. 

No, it's not Dan Aykroyd

All tiptoeing and black jumpers with a penchant for making things glow in the dark the mole men may as well have a hammer and sickle on their jumpers and scream 'WE'RE SOVIETS' until they're brought down a peg or two by a little girl who thinks she's just met Orko.

A mob forms and there's some resourceful vandalism of the town's barbers before a whooshing and the familiar display of strength from our hero who then sets about teaching us all a lesson.  Superman's morals are almost as big as his pants acceptance and tolerance abounds.  The Hollywood Code was fully entrenched and television was yet to challenge cinema and so both sides are permanently separated and relatively unharmed, the Cold War intact.

Superman and the Mole Men is from another time and it is difficult to relate to.  It's a little too serious and lacks a few elements we take for granted.  Lois and Clark need a little bit of sexual tension and Clark definitely needs to be a bit more goofy, a bit more affable.  Someone give Terence Stamp a nudge and get him to dig out his cabaret gear.