Superman (1978) still solves the problem nobody else has

Richard Donner’s film had to invent the modern superhero picture, and the thing it got right is the thing the genre keeps losing: it is sincere without being stupid.

The structural problem

Superman cannot lose a fight. Any story about him has to find stakes somewhere other than physical threat, which is why so many versions of the character are boring.

This film’s answer is to spend an enormous amount of time on the person. The Kansas section is nearly forty minutes and contains almost no action — it is about a boy who can do anything being told he must not, and burying the man who told him.

By the time the character puts on the suit, the audience knows exactly what he has given up for it.

Reeve

The performance is the film. He plays two distinct people, and the trick is not the glasses — it is posture, pitch and timing. There is a scene where Clark nearly drops the act, and you watch him decide not to, in real time, without a word.

What has dated

The third act has a plot device that is famously hard to defend. It was contentious in 1978 and it has not improved. Also the villain’s plan is thin, and the comic register around him sits awkwardly against the Kansas material.

Watch it if

You want to see the template being built. Also because the flying sequence still works, which is remarkable for effects of that vintage.