5 Life-Lessons from 5 Superman Movies

Well kids, the time has come.  Once again Hollywood is taking another shot at the Man of Tomorrow, the original superhero, and an American, if not worldly, icon.  Man of Steel premiers in theaters this week.  Christopher Nolan and David Goyer, the men behind The Dark Knight Trilogy, have teamed up with 300 and Watchmen director Zach Snyder to give us a modern take on Superman. Being a Superman fan I’ve been fearful of this film with every piece of news I heard about it, but that’s an opinion for another blog entry.

I’ve spent the last 5 Sundays re-watching the last 5 Superman films.  Just yesterday I was chatting to someone about upcoming movies and I mentioned Man of Steel.   She said she really didn’t like Superman and that she liked Batman more.  Well, anyone who knows me knows that this is a good trigger to set me off on a major rant!  Some people seem to think the Man of Steel is just a big blue Boy Scout who never does anything wrong and always plays by the rules.  To those nay sayers I simply reply, “You obviously don’t know Superman.”  I’m sure they’ve never watched an episode of Smallville or even read The Death and Return of Superman.  There is a reason the character has been around for 75 years and inspired the entire genre of superheroes.  There are a lot of life lessons to be learned from this character, and these cinematic adventures are just five of them.

Superman (1978): Director Richard Donner was the first to give a serious take on Superman’s origin and create an epic film for all others to live up too.  Christopher Reeve plays the double role of Clark Kent and Superman with superiority.  Gene Hackman isn’t the most ruthless of Lex Luthor’s and I’ve never been fond of Margot Kidder as Lois Lane, but the film itself and Reeve's performance is enough to carry the film to glory.   My only negative comment about this film would just be the ending.  Superman spins the world back-in-time to save Lois, but Jimmy still remembers Superman saving him?  In an otherwise flawless film that was a pretty big plot-hole Mr. Donner. Plus we all get to hear all John Williams classic score in this film for the first time, big plus!

Life-Lesson Take-Away from Superman: You have to find out who you are and you’re place in this world.  Plus you have to do whatever it takes to protect the people you care about, even if it does involves spinning the world back a few minutes.

Superman II (1980): By the time Superman premiered Superman II was already in production and almost finished filming, but a disagreement between Donner and the film’s producers got Donner fired before filming was done and he was replaced by Richard Lester.  Having seen the Richard Donner cut on DVD I think it was for the best, but looking at Lester’s Superman III it was probably a combination of both directors that made this film fly higher than the original.

 In this sequel Superman gives up all his powers and super status to be with Lois.  Of course this is the exact time that Krypton's three greatest criminals, led by General  Zod, come to Earth to take their revenge out on Kal-El.  Terence Stamp rules this film with is portrayal as General Zod and the reason Zod has become such an iconic Superman villain.  I’m sure Michael Shannon’s Zod performance in Man of Steel will be scarier for today’s audience, but he won’t win my fear until he says, “Kneel before Zod!” I am looking forward to a more updated fight scene between Superman and Zod.  More like Neo vs. Mr. Smith in The Matrix Revolutions.  “Mr. Kent, welcome back.  We’ve missed you.”

Life-Lesson Take-Away from Superman II:  Clark’s selfish desires almost caused the entire world to be placed under Zod’s rule, but eventually he realizes that Superman belongs to the world, not just Lois.  We all have responsibilities.  We have people who count on us to do our jobs and even if it would be better to just let go you might end up getting a lot of people hurt.  Also look out for bear-skinned rugs that are pink!

Superman III (1983):  It’s probably a toss-up between this film and the next Superman film as to which one is the worst ever.  I vote Superman III because it tries to take itself seriously, which is what makes it so bad.  Richard Pryor plays a computer genius who falls under the wing of an evil billionaire, who is not Lex Luthor.  Pryor’s character and his employer try to create kryptonite and end up with something that makes Superman go crazy instead.  Clark becomes a jackass version of himself and must find his sanity in order to take down the bad guys and their super computer located in the middle of frikkin nowhere!

Pryor’s character is so dumb there is not a scenario in this reality that would make me believe he’s a computer genius.  Pryor’s antics take center stage in this film and overshadow Reeve’s channeling the Man of Steel’s inner turmoil.  This dumbs down the film and makes it horrific to watch.  The only redeeming quality of this installment is Annette O’ Toole as Clark’s high school crush, Lana Lang.  Lana is a far better character than Lois, and easier on the eyes if you ask me. O'Toole went on to play the character of Martha Kent in the series Smallville.  She’s stated the reason she got the job is because when the creators found out she was in Superman III they insist she be in their version of Superman. 

Life-Lesson Take-Away from Superman III:  We all have our inner demons to fight.  We have to find a way to beat them down so we can do what we must do, and what is the right thing to do.  But if you ever find yourself fighting your alter ego in a junkyard you might as well just drop a car on yourself and be put out of your misery.

Superman IV: The Quest For Peace (1987):  The only reason I like this film better than Superman III is because of it’s even more ridiculous and can in no way be taken serious. That makes it such a good bad movie to watch.  Superman is on a mission to rid the world of all nuclear weapons.  But he didn’t count on Lex Luthor stealing a sample of his hair and attaching one of his genetic experiments to a bomb that Superman just happens to throw into the sun, thereby creating his own worst enemy, Nuclear Man. Duh, Duh, Duuuh!

The film is a little over 90 minutes and is so bad it’s hilarious to watch. Just last week as my wife and I were watching it and she had to point out the ludicrously of Clark going on a double date with Lois and Superman.  I mean that’s just crazy!  Reeve should have stopped at Superman II, or least not been given the opportunity to help write this one himself.

Life-Lesson Take-Away from Superman IV: The Quest for Peace:  The world has problems people, lots of them.  As much as we would like to change the world we can’t change to people in it.  All we can do is keep “it the same as it’s always been……On the brink. With good fighting evil. See you in twenty.” Oh and never trust a film where Jon Cryer is the comic relief.

Superman Returns (2006): Well, after those last lines by Christopher Reeve we do get the next Superman film, twenty years later!  Brandon Routh steps into the red boots while Kevin Spacey shaves his head to play his arch-enemy.  Superman has just flown in from his five-year journey to find the remains of his home planet.  But everyone else has gone on without him.  Lois Lane has a family and little secret to tell the Man of Steel.  Meanwhile, Lex Luthor is out of prison, rich as a hell, and is planning on using kryptonian technology to re-invest in his real-estate ventures while wiping out most of America.

A lot of people didn’t like this film, which is probably why it took seven years for another Superman movie to be released, but I’m a fan of it.  It doesn’t have a lot of action, but instead of taking a tale from the comics and fucking it up royally like most adaptations do (I’m looking at you Brett Ratner) director Bryan Singer took the essence of the Superman characters and made something different, with a little homage to the Christopher Reeve films.  He still made it feel like a pure Superman story.  Some argue that Kate Bosworth isn’t your classic Lois Lane, but she’s a mom now, parenthood changes us all!

Life-Lesson Take-Away from Superman Returns:  We grow up, we move on with our lives, and people we leave behind also move on.  We have to try to keep the people who are important to us in our lives or we may lose them.  And if your ever gone for five years and your ex has a kid who is four years old you’d better find the next ship back to Krypton!

A part of me thinks Man of Steel will be bad and another part hopes it will be good.  Either way it has gotten people talking about the character again and I hope it shows them that the battles Superman face are the ones we face ourselves.  I mean he’s called the Man of Tomorrow people, he ain’t goin anywhere!