It's 2025 And I Just Watched 1978's Superman For The First Time – These Are My Honest Thoughts

By all accounts, I should be a Superman superfan. I love a pure good guy, a hero with a moral code. I also love a protagonist who fights but isn't a fighter at their core. But alas, I was born in 1996, and the cinematic legacy of the character since then has been, shall we say, messy. I missed the beloved "Justice League" cartoon for whatever reason. Perhaps I was too fixated on what Sam Raimi and Hugh Jackman were doing in the early 2000s. But with James Gunn's "Superman" hitting theaters, I'm ready for my Superman moment. I'm ready to fall in love with the son of Krypton.

First, though, I had to do some homework.

1978's "Superman: The Movie" is widely viewed as a cinematic classic — a bridge between the old superhero serials of earlier decades and the modern comic movie industrial complex. But how does it hold up to fresh eyes in 2025? Better than you might think.

I watched "Superman: The Movie" for the first time, and while yes, it's overly long, uneven in spots, a bit dated, and altogether strange, I had a great time. Christopher Reeve and Margot Kidder are outstanding and have fantastic chemistry as Clark Kent and Lois Lane, and Gene Hackman brings his usual excellence to an admittedly ridiculous rendition of Lex Luthor. "Superman" is carried by its actors, charm, and a knowingly campy tone. It's also quite bizarre. Let's get into it.

Superman: The Movie starts slow but gets better

I should acknowledge at the top here that I'm a huge "Star Wars" fan and that it was hard not to think constantly of George Lucas' original 1977 film while watching "Superman." Both are stylized sci-fi adventure stories that pay tribute to the genre serials of the '30s, '40s, and '50s. And I have to say, that comparison doesn't do "Superman: The Movie" any favors in the first act.

We open on a black-and-white curtained stage and an introduction to the Superman comics of the '30s before launching into an interstellar opening credits sequence that goes wildly hard for the first minute or so and then drags on way, way too long. Never before have I understood better why Lucas wanted so desperately to eschew opening credits in his own film. The momentum through the beginning of "Superman" is uneven, and I have to say that Marlon Brando's stoic presence as Zor-El is more of a distraction than an enhancement.

"Superman" also snakes the challenging decision to do multiple origin scenes back to back — one on Krypton, another when Kal-EL lands on Earth, and still more with him as a young adult. How does he know to throw a mysterious green crystal into the arctic sea to create the Fortress of Solitude? Where did he get his costume? It doesn't matter. The first 45 minutes or so unfortunately buckle under their own weight, but things pick up substantially once we get to Metropolis and the Daily Planet.

Superman: The Movie is silly, but it has a lot of heart

As soon as Margot Kidder pops up on screen as Lois Lane, "Superman: The Movie" suddenly gets good. Reeve is a true star jumping between the roles of Clark and Kal-El as well. The script is consistently funny with bits about his alter ego and a handful of laugh-out-loud lines, though I could have done without the multiple instances of nonconsensual kissing and groping that were played for laughs. Alas, such was the time.

Superman is a movie that doesn't take itself seriously, generally to its benefit. The old serials were clearly close in mind during production, and the film reads more like a series of vignettes, with very little actual character development. This made sense to me given the cultural place of comic books at the time, but I did feel occasionally like the film was too convinced that it couldn't be anything more than a campy romp.

There are blips that cut through the storm of wild color grading (those reds are really red) and silly plotting. Superman's reunion with Lois at the end of the movie is deeply touching thanks to an understated performance from Reeve, and Zor-El gets some good material at the start. ("Has it now become a crime to cherish life?") I also love that Superman always tells the truth and that it's a repeated plot point. And I especially love that his editor describes him as having a "snappy, punchy prose style." The virtues of Clark Kent's writing skills aren't discussed enough, I think.

Whatever grandeur and movie magic may have been there in the late '70s has sadly faded with time. All the wirework and heavy compositing is still fun, to be sure, but the effects just don't hold up the way some other genre classics of the era have. (The suit looks great, though.) That said, I had a great time, and Reeve got me fully bought in on the character of Superman. I'm not sure what more I could have asked for.

James Gunn's "Superman" soars into theaters on July 11, 2025.

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