When Bad Endings Happen to Good Movies, Pt. 1

Superman

1978

D: Richard Donner

**********

Pros: Distinctive visuals, Solid first act, Good acting, Charismatic villain, Excellent score

Cons: Badly executed protagonists, Flawed villainous plan, Awful ending

     I know it’s fashionable to say that Batman is a much better character than Superman.  The logic behind this belief is that Batman relies on his intelligence and ingenuity rather than superpowers, and that Superman is allegedly dumb because of this.  Of course, this ignores the fact that Batman also has the ultimate superpower (a bottomless bank account, which his parents left him) and a traumatic childhood experience.  Don’t get me wrong, I love Batman, but I find Superman a perfectly identifiable character himself when he’s handled right (like he is in Superman: The Animated Series).  While Batman fights crime partially to deal with his own personal demons, Superman does so because it’s the right thing to do and because he has the power to do it.  He’s essentially just a normal guy who’s been given extraordinary powers and he’s trying to do the best he can with them.  Granted, many writers, influenced by quasi-Nietzchian philosophy, have ignored this dynamic (Frank Miller, I’m looking at you).  I think the true reason that Batman is more popular is that he’s just had better luck in being adapted onto TV and film.

     Superman: The Movie illustrates my point, even though it starts out quite promising.  The movie’s memorable opening has an excellent theme song composed by John Williams.  It pretty much goes without saying that the score is one of the most iconic and enjoyable movie themes out there, and the opening credits really gets the viewer excited for what’s to come.  The first scene takes place on Krypton, where Jor-El (Marlon Brando) sentences General Zod (Terence Stamp) to the Phantom Zone. Zod foreshadows the upcoming sequel by threatening Jor-El and his family.  What’s interesting about this scene is how it was shot from different angles and then shown from those angles in the sequel, which was filmed about the same time.  I love the scenes on Krypton for their distinctive visual style.  The monochromatic theme, ethereal lighting and practical sets give it an otherworldly feel.  I will mention that I love practical effects from the 70’s and 80’s.  Others may find them dated, but I really appreciate how much they did without CGI, and each effect has its own look that sets it apart.  I wish I’d see more of this today, since most of the modern CGI effects look the same to me.   

Although one wonders where Kal-El's red cape/blanket comes into this.

     Everyone knows the story from here.  Jor-El, unable to convince the authorities that Krypton will explode, sends his son Kal-El to Earth, where he is raised as Clark Kent and becomes Superman.  The first act, which deals with Clark’s time in Smallville, is well executed.  While he is a young man, we see him yearning for something more, and he is confused by some of the powers he displays.  He is driven to find a new life for himself after his adoptive father dies of a heart attack, and soon after this he discovers the truth about his heritage.   

     This is where the movie starts to go south.  There is a disconnect between the Clark Kent at the beginning of the movie and the Superman of its second half.  Much better interpretations of this franchise have found a way to balance both sides of the character.  For example in The Animated Series, Kent reacts with disbelief and initial aversion to discovering that he is an alien.  Once he comes to terms with the revelation, he embraces his status as the last Kryptonian while still remembering that he was raised on Earth and brought up with its values.  In the movie, he hears Jor-El’s “you’re better than those silly Earthlings” nonsense and just completely accepts it without question.  It’s not very believable, and I always believe that much of Superman’s values come just as much from his adoptive parents as they did from Jor-El.  Henceforth, Superman acts subtly smug and arrogant toward the humans under his protection.  Quentin Tarantino may get a lot of flak for Bill’s interpretation of Superman in Kill Bill: Vol. 2, but in the context of this movie, it’s not a bad assessment.    

     The problem isn’t the late Christopher Reeve, who does an amazing job as Superman.  He’s great at playing three aspects of the same character: the young Clark Kent, the dashing Superman, and the nerdy adult Clark Kent.  He was particularly good at the last one, where he carries himself in such a way that you could really believe that he was able to pass himself off as a completely different person with just a pair of glasses.  That’s good acting.  In fact, every member of the cast does a great job with what they’re given.  Margot Kidder is good as Lois Lane, even though I dislike her character in this movie.  The movie goes a bit far in its homage to the classic era of Superman by including the patronizing view toward women.  I know that in the original comics, Lois Lane was often depicted as often trying to fail at exposing Superman for laughs, but this movie was made in the Late 70’s.  There’s no excuse for not trying to depict the relation between Kent/Superman and Lane in a more mature light.  When you make an adaptation, you stay faithful to what worked, and you improve the inferior aspects of the original.  It gets even worse when they depict Lois as not even being able to spell basic words like “rapist.”  It’s not like you need that to be a journalist.  While the characterizations of Superman and Lois Lane are off-putting, they are not quite bad enough to ruin the movie.  After all, the former is fighting the good fight, and the latter…well…she doesn’t murder anyone.

     The villainy in this movie comes from Lex Luthor (Gene Hackman), who is very witty and extra memorable with his tacky coiffure.  He’s especially amusing when he’s chiding his dim-witted sidekick Otis (Ned Beatty, who’s just as good at playing buffoons as he is at corrupt authority figures).  His plan involves nuking California off the planet after buying cheap desert land which will become the new West Coast.  Of course, how he expects this to become a popular real estate destination after he’s murdered most of the potential customers is a mystery, especially considering the fact that this land is now directly east of a nuclear fallout zone.  Yeah, it’s a pretty stupid plan.  Just as silly is the ghetto way he executes it: by sneaking a bug onto a nuke in plain sight on the road.  I prefer powerful corporate authority Lex.  Still, even this logistical plothole isn’t enough to ruin the movie for me.

THIS FUCKING SCENE, HOWEVER...

     Yes, the iconic turning-back-the-world scene.  Long story short, Luthor diverts a missile and Superman rescues a whole bunch of people from a resultant earthquake.  During this time, Lois is smothered in her car after being too dumb to get out of it, causing Superman some grief.  He then flies around the world, somehow reversing time and rescuing Lois.  Admittedly, the visuals for this scene look great, but I still hate it.  For many people the ultimate moment of failure in a comic book movie is the infamous Bat Credit Card from Batman & Robin.  But then again, that was just a stupid throwaway joke in a movie that sucked anyway, not a painfully atrocious deus ex machina that ruined what otherwise would have been a decent movie.  That’s right.  I just said this is worse than the Bat Credit Card.  It’s funny how I often hear people writing off movies with fun action scenes for having “invincible heroes,” but I never hear anyone complaining about this scene.  This doesn’t just show a lack of vulnerability or suspense, it removes any conceivable possibility of it.  It destroys anything that even remotely resembles a serious stake in the movie.  How am I supposed to be invested in a movie when the protagonist can just turn back time whenever things don’t go his way and is therefore unable to experience any potential loss? 

     Not only that, it makes no sense.  Yes, I know this is a comic book movie, and I can suspend my belief enough to accept that a man can fly.  I can even believe that he can fly fast enough around the Earth to reverse its rotation, but you cannot make me believe that you can reverse time itself just by moving a physical object backward.  Hell, even when Calvin & Hobbes made a reference to it, Stupendous Man merely made it Saturday again, which if he had reversed Earths position, technically would have happened, even without reversing the passage of time itself.  The scene also has the mother of all time paradoxes.  If Superman went back to save Lois, did he retroactively unsave all those people because he cared more about his sweetheart than them?  Are there two Supermen during that time?  However, by removing himself from the planet, did he remove himself from the time reversal, allowing all of his heroic actions to occur unencumbered?  If the time reversal affected everything on the planet, except Superman, who was in orbit, how did his rescue of that city even get reversed in the first place?  That would have caused quite a paradox.

     I must note that I never really liked this idea of giving Superman truly god-like powers over space and time.  Superman has his powers as a result of the way his alien body reacts to its environment (i.e. yellow sunlight).  In other words, he’s subject to his surroundings.  I do believe in the classic Superman powers (flight, strength, near invulnerability, cold breath, heat vision), but punching reality is too much for me.  One might say that I can’t just hate a movie for its ending, but that’s hogwash.  I single scene can destroy a movie, especially if it’s something as crucial as the ending.

EDIT
I know that The Nostalgia Critic made the same complaint years ago, but this is still my opinion.