Superman IV: The Quest for Peace (1987)

"No pain, no gain..."

 You know those "bad" films that are actually fun to watch and sort of entertain you in spite of everything? Well...

I mean, I can see why this was the last Superman film of its series. The special effects are endearingly crap. The script is cartoonish. The whole thing is very silly. And yet the whole thing remains eminently watchable.

It helps that the characters are well-established, and that Reeve,
Kidder and Hackman are as excellent as always; this film isn’t big, it isn’t clever, it isn’t particularly well made. But it’s fun. So let’s ignore the silliness and the plot holes, including the one where the superpowers don’t seem to resent Superman for throwing billions worth of expensive nukes into the Sun in a scene which harms back to the left-wing wish fulfilment scenes of the early comic books. Let’s not study the political message of the film too closely, though; this is not exactly a detailed philosophical examination of nuclear disarmament.

So, yes. The film is silly, shoddily made and killed the franchise. But it’s also perfect light viewing after a two hundred mile round trip.

Young Frankenstein (1974)

"He would have an enormous Schwanstucker!"

Ok, so Gene Wilder excels, in the best performance I've ever seen by him, as Victor Frankenstein's grandson Frederick, who he plays in a delightful pastiche of Vincent Price. Gene Hackman is great too, and ends his scene with a splendid ad-lib. But the film is really about Marty Feldman, whom we must all worship. I mean, one of his ad-libs even caused Aerosmith to write their most well-known song. That's impressive.

The film- in monochrome, utilising the same sets, using deliberately similar opening titles- is a superb pastiche of James Whale's two Frankenstein films. The humour is classic early Mel Brooks, but the sense of a cast having fun, and the ad-libbing, make the film. Marty Feldman, though, shows again what paragon of comedy he is.

There aren't as many laughs per minute, perhaps, as later Mel Brooks films, but the jokes are funny, and just as gloriously Jewish. This is a pastiche specifically of the Universal Frankenstein films by James Whale, in monochrome, using similar opening titles and even using the same lab equipment, with riffs on several scenes. But this is a world where you can get on a train in New York and get off at a "Transylvania Station" where things are still very Mittel-Europe and Ceaucescu's regime is nowhere to be seen. It's the world of Mel Brooks at its very best.

Superman II (1980)

"Well, geez, Mr. White! That's terrible!"

"That's why they call them 'terrorists', Kent..."

I'll come back to the Richard Donner cut later; this blog post is about the theatrical release credited to Richard Lester; a straightforwardly directed, action-packed and, without comparing it to the other cut, magnificent film with only two drawbacks, both of which are arguably excusable in context.

This is 1980; to produce a superhero film that is both excellent viewing for a wide audience- with romance as well as thrills- and to remain broadly faithful to the spirit of the comics while doing this is  a considerable achievement. Mario Puzo's script (what a writer to get!) respects the characters on their own terms while giving us a truly epic tale of a god who gives up his powers for love and ultimately gives up his chance of happiness for the greater good. We're halfway to the cliche that is a Christ metaphor but it isn't overdone. I'm not sure that Superman's regaining his powers is adequately explained- finding the crystal at the Fortress of Solitude is not really enough- but I suppose we don't have to be splinter anything. More problematic is the reset button at the end, both in narrative terms (it renders the romance between Lois and Clark meaningless after all they've been through and all the weight that was placed upon it) and in terms of the simple fact that the main female character has her freedom of action taken away be a man to the point of altering her memory, which is undoubtedly a kind of violation. Still... it's only 1980.

Christopher Reeve and Margot Kidder are superb as individuals and, just as importantly, together; they carry this film. Terence Stamp is an effective if actually underplayed villain; I would have liked a little more overacting for a part like this. It's surprising to see Clifton James from Live and Let Die here... in Idaho??? Is the state really as southern as its being portrayed here?

All that notwithstanding, though, this is easily the best superhero film up to this point and arguably for many years after. The bar is well and truly set.

Superman (1978)

"I have sent them you, my only son."

This is, perhaps, the first of the current era of superhero films. The 1966 Batman film was a TV tie-in, while all the others were either movie serials or of that world. This film sets a precedent, and at first it looks like being a good one; Superman is, after all, bloody good.

It isn't a good precedent, though, for the simple reason that the film is an origin story. It happens to work here, yes, but it doesn't in general. Origin stories just mean that you spend most of the film without the title character being able to do any of their usual cool stuff. It works here because Superman's origin story is epic and cool, but generally speaking origin stories are to be avoided.

Still, it works here, and the film is superb. Oh, there are flaws- Gene Hackman is miscast, playing Lex Luthor for broad humour rather than the more camp performance the character needed. Luthor six written like a villain from the Batman TV series; he should have been played as such. Also, there's a glaring continuity error. Jor-El tells Kal-El in the Fortress of Solitude that he's been dead for thousands of years. Yet Kal-El took twelve years to reach Earth and he crashed into Kansas, we're told, in 1948. (So Superman is thirty years old.)  Oops. Also, I'm not sure there's any real logic to the way Luthor infers the existence of Kryptonite. Still, it's necessary to the X plot. Oh, and why is Superman so stupid as to tell Lois one of his weaknesses, namely that he can't see through lead, knowing full well that she's going to write a full page article about it?

All that said, though, the film is epic, huge, looks awesome and Christopher Reeve is perfect casting. It's a triumph, and here are some particular nice touches. The film commemorates thirty years of Superman, so the tribute to Action Comics #1 at the start is an extremely nice touch. Also a nice touch is that all the Elders of Krypton have  different symbol on their chests, and Jor-El's just happens to look like an "S" in the Roman alphabet. Also, well, Marlon Brando. Sadly, though, I must confess to my fellow Doctor Who fans that I failed to spot William Russell in these scenes.

Also s nice touch is the young Clark Kent running faster, literally, than a speeding train. These little touches keep us entertained as the film whisks is through Superman's origins and, this being pre- Crisis on Infinite Earths and the film being moderately faithful to the comics, his takes a good long while. 

Interestingly, though, Jor-El says the line "I have sent them you, my only son". This is a blindingly obvious Christ allegory and I'm not sure that's appropriate; Superman was created in 1938, the year of Kristallnacht, by a couple of Jewish nebbishes. The character is, in spirit, Jewish. He's also essentially a liberal wish fulfilment figure: Superman in his early years would go after wife beaters or put Hitler and Stalin on trial. Here, though, he's a resolutely conservative and all-American figure, his liberal, Jewish origins forgotten.

Nothing dates the film so much as the scenes at the Daily Planet, with typewriters everywhere and not a single PC. Metropolis is very obviously New York here: there are trains to Buffalo and Syracuse.

Sadly, the climax to the film is a bit of a letdown; if Superman can just turn back time so that Lois doesn't die then all future dramatic tension is gone. But this is a film that rises above its flaws by dint of simply being awesome. 

There. After loads of Marvel stuff I've finally blogged something by DC!