Out of a desire to be definitive, this lavish Superman adventure allows itself to become bogged in biography. It presumes a familiarity with Superman mythology, and often plays on that familiarity, but it is still willing to bore the audience with elementary information about life on Krypton (where the culture is proven to be advanced by having the inhabitants speak in British accents) and about Superman's rural upbringing on Earth. After an hour or so, the movie finally arrives in Metropolis (an uncamouflaged New York City, the Statue of Liberty and all, fills the bill) and introduces Christopher Reeve (forceful as the Caped Wonder, but rather lame as newsman Clark Kent, speaking in a gosh-darn-golly Andy Hardy idiom). And the rest of the movie recalls the Batman television show in the late 1960s, with its vaudeville villainy, facetious flag-waving, and Boy Scout morality. Gene Hackman, Marlon Brando, Margot Kidder, and Valerie Perrine; directed by Richard Donner. (1978) — Duncan Shepherd
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