Superman is one of the most iconic fictional characters of all time. I’d even say he’s
the most iconic superhero of all time. And when there’s something really iconic, it’s
bound to get a bunch a bunch of films, probably varying in quality. So today, I’m going
through all 6 Superman films, and at the end I’ll decide what is the best Superman movie
and what is the worst. Should be fun, so let’s start.
Superman So we’re gonna start off with the all time
classic, Superman: The Movie. Now as I’ve learned from comment sections of my videos,
there are some people who truly don’t like this movie and think it’s really overrated.
And I’m sorry to all those people who are going to now be upset with this review, but
I think this is a great movie. It isn’t perfect, it’s got some dumb moments for
sure, but this was back in the 70s and it was essentially the first really big superhero
film. The film is full of great casting. Christopher
Reeve is the perfect choice for a 1970s Superman. He’s heroic, he can pull off that suit,
he can act dorky as Clark Kent, he completely embodies the character. Sure he wouldn’t
fit in Man of Steel or any of these modern superhero movies, but for this kind of movie,
he totally works. Then there’s Gene Hackman as Lex Luthor, and he isn’t really a super
accurate representation of Luthor, but he still does a good job and makes for a good
villain. The rest of the cast is also pretty solid.
The music in this is phenomenal, one of the best scores ever put to film. John Williams
is just the best at making music that fits with the world, whether it be music for a
1930s adventure, a dinosaur theme park, or a superhero flying into space. The special
effects are amazing for the time, and even now, obviously you can tell that they’re
special effects but they don’t look like garbage, they still look pretty good.
The main thing I love about this movie, and I’ll say this time and time again, is that
it’s so full of awe and joy and hope and all that. For lack of better words it feels
pure, and it feels like a lot of genuine hard work was thrown at it. And I love it for that.
The movie’s also silly and dated in a lot of parts, there are a lot of campy moments
and all that, but I feel like that kind of helps. It’s fun for a 70s Superman movie
to be a bit silly and cheesy. It’s part of what it makes it Superman.
My only real complaint with this is that ending. Stupid moments are fine, but this just took
it to a new level. What’s the point of any conflict if Superman can just reverse time
by flying around the Earth? That being said, it’s not the worst thing ever, and it’s
definitely not the stupidest thing that happens in these Superman movies.
Overall, this is a cinematic classic and will live on in history as the movie that really
started this superhero movie genre. It’s full of fun and joy and is good for people
of all ages, and I’m gonna give it a 9.2/10.
Superman II So after a pretty huge success with the first
film, Superman II was put into production. And there was so much behind the scenes drama
with this movie from this director being fired to this director being fired that ultimately
this should have come out a total mess. But in the end I actually liked it. It’s not
flawless and it’s not as good as the first film, but there are some good things going
on here. For one, the villains are really good, better
than the ones in the first film. Terence Stamp is fantastic as General Zod, and his whole
crew, great direction to take the sequel. The fight between Zod and Superman, sure it’s
really dated but it’s good for the time. The special effects again are pretty good
for the 80s. There as a new subplot with Lois Lane figuring out that Clark Kent is Superman
and I actually kind of liked that. It was new and interesting and it makes sense for
her character. And all in all, quite a bit of the stuff the first movie did well this
film also has. Good music, good casting, good tone, all that kind of stuff. It isn’t as
good, but it’s still pretty fun. Now for what I didn’t like. It has some
more cheesy and stupid moments, but this time they don’t really flow as much as they did
in the first movie. There’s another dumb unexplained ending where Superman erases Lois
Lane’s memory by kissing her, because Superman can do anything I guess. He also randomly
throws a Cellophane S out of his chest for no reason whatsoever, though I have to say
that did make me laugh. I also don’t think Lex Luthor necessarily needed to be in this,
you’ve got Zod, so you could’ve just gone with that. The comic relief and humor in this
also isn't fantastic and this feels a bit less genuine than the first film. It’s not
as well constructed or as entertaining. All that said, Superman II isn’t as classic
as the Superman I, but it’s still a solid movie. It’s got an excellent villain in
General Zod and some cool moments, which all adds up to an 8/10.
Superman III So now this is where these movies started
to take a turn for the worse. Superman III is a really weird movie. There’s a weird
mix of trying to be a faithful Superman movie, with trying to be….a comedy, I think? And
it just doesn’t work. However, let’s talk positives. Well, the music is again pretty
awesome in this. There are also some cool special effects and interesting moments. The
whole plot line of Clark Kent and Superman being split into separate entities I liked,
that was actually kind of cool. And the cast hasn’t completely given up yet and are therefore
are ok. And that’s all I liked. Now let’s get down to why this movie doesn’t
work. First up, there’s no more of that wonder or awe or amazement from the first
film. Even the second film had some of that, but all of that is gone by now. This is also
like I mentioned supposed to be more comedic, and I’m sorry but I just didn’t find it
funny. There wasn’t a moment in this movie where I laughed. The action is also pretty
boring now, some special effects aren’t bad but some really don’t hold up, and there
just isn’t anything that interesting. And don’t tell me that you couldn’t do cool
action stuff at this time because this came out roughly around the same time as Return
of the Jedi and Terminator. Hell, even look at the original Superman, that had some exciting
moments. The plot of the movie is for the most part
bad, and in a lot of parts it’s rehashed from the other films. The new elements they
add to it, like the romance with Lana Lang, really don’t work. Again, except for the
Superman Clark Kent split. But even with that, it’s just really silly and corny, and at
this point it doesn’t add to the experience of the movie but rather detracts from it.
In the end this doesn’t feel like it was made for creative integrity, like someone
said, “Oh, I’ve got a great idea for a Superman movie.” It feels more like someone
said, “Well, I guess we have to make another one of these. Let’s get to it.” And that’s
in general not a great way to start the filmmaking process. This isn’t the worst movie I’ve
ever seen, there are some things about it that I kind of liked, but I’m still gonna
have to give it a 3.8/10.
Superman IV: The Quest for Peace So. Here we are. This is pretty much as bad
as a movie can get. It’s not so bad it’s good or ironically good in some way, it’s
just really...really terrible. Like, pretty much everything a movie like this needs, this
movie just doesn’t have. The cast is back again, but they all kind of just look like
they’re there for a paycheck and that’s it. The plot is so unbelievably stupid, and
the Superman movies are known for having stupid moments, but not to this extent. The writers
were like, ah how do we get out of this ah who cares he’s Superman. He can just rebuild
the great wall of China with his eyes, sure! And trust me, that is just one example. The
villain in this is Nuclear Man, who isn’t a good villain, as if it needed to be said.
The action and special effects are really bad, like this slow-mo fight on the moon is
one of the worst action scenes I’ve ever seen. And as the people over at Screen Junkies
pointed out, they actually reuse green screen shots just in front of other backgrounds.
This had a considerably lower budget and so looks really cheap compared to those other
movies. Any awe and amazement and fun in those other
Superman movies, is all gone. This really feels like the opposite of that first film.
It’s not genuine, it’s not exciting, it’s not innovative, it’s just awful. It’s
boring and I didn’t enjoy watching it. So in the end, I do have to say. I saw this
movie quite a while ago. So if there was something really great in this movie that I missed,
then that’s way. However, this is a cheap, slapped together mess that I’m gonna give
a 1/10. Also, just for the record, I’m not including Supergirl in this video because
I don’t wanna watch it.
Superman Returns So after the commercial and financial bomb
that was Superman IV, DC put off Superman for just under 20 years before giving the
character a reboot. And by reboot, I mean kind of reboot, kind of vague continuation….I
think? The thing is with this movie, it has kind of the same tone and style of the original
Superman movies, and if I’m not mistaken Bryan Singer or someone said that this was
sort of a sequel to Superman II, making this less of a reboot and more of the 3rd film
in the franchise. It’s all very confusing, but putting that aside Superman Returns came
out in 2006 and I have some mixed thoughts. For one, Bryan Singer (coming off of 2 very
successful superhero films) jumped over to the Superman franchise and he’s a good director.
His visual and directing style kind of worked for Superman. The cast in this is really good,
Brandon Routh is good as Superman although I feel like they cast him mainly based on
the fact that he looked a lot like Christopher Reeve. Kevin Spacey is a great choice for
Lex Luthor, and the rest of the actors play their characters well. The costume is also
good, it feels like a slightly modernized version of the 70s suit, not so modernized
that it’s unrecognizable, but it’s changed just enough so it doesn’t look goofy. Now
I have to mention, there are two amazing moments or scenes in this movie. One is where Superman
gets shot and the bullet bounces off his eye in slow motion, fantastic. And then there’s
the whole plane catch scene, which may actually be my favorite Superman scene put to film.
Well, maybe. It’s really exciting, it looks spectacular, and it’s very Superman. When
I hear Superman, I usually think saving people or catching a plane falling out of the sky.
Now I really have two major complaints with this film. One, I found it boring as hell.
With the exception of those two scenes I just mentioned, it’s really bland and forgettable.
I’m fine with movies that don’t have a ton of action, but just something would’ve
been good. I actually nodded off briefly in this movie, and I pride myself on never falling
asleep in movies. The film starts off pretty solid but then as it goes it sort of just
loses its direction and it goes on for too long. And I also didn’t like the ending,
it just really didn’t make sense to me. So ultimately in 2006, by changing up his
movies, Bryan Singer managed to indirectly give us a really bad X-Men movie and a pretty
mediocre Superman movie. I get that a lot of people like this, totally fine, it’s
personally just not my cup of tea. Still though, not without its redeeming moments and I’ll
give it a 6/10
Man of Steel. So now we’ve gotten to Man of Steel. Quite
a few people didn’t like Superman Returns, so DC decided to reboot Superman again and
make him the start off an entirely new DC Cinematic Universe. And everyone I hear from
seems to hate Man of Steel. There are so many people who genuinely think it’s terrible,
and I don’t really get that. This movie isn’t perfect by any stretch, but it isn’t
that bad. Well, let’s look at positives and negatives.
For one, once again, the cast is pretty great. I feel like that’s something nearly all
the Superman movies get right. Henry Cavill is a great choice to play Superman, Amy Adams
is good as Lois, although she looks a lot more like Lana Lang, both of Superman’s
dads were well cast, and Zod was pretty intense. I don’t think he was a fantastic villain,
all I really remember him doing was screaming and punching things, but he played the part
well enough. The visual effects, for the most part, are really cool. That scene where Superman
flies for the first time was a fun scene. This is really the first film where Superman
actually has some intense fighting, where we actually get to see him kick ass, and while
that will lead into a negative later, I really liked finally seeing Superman be able to fight
in live action and have it look cool. This movie also showed a new-er side to Superman,
one that hadn’t really been explored in film before, his more human side. There are
some heartfelt moments, especially between Pa Kent and Clark. And on the whole, the film
is entertaining. As opposed to the last movie, I wasn’t bored in any scene of this.
On the negatives side, the movie feels like two separate movies merged into one. The first
half is kind of a more personal interesting story, Clark Kent growing up, we get to see
some of his life through flashbacks, and he finds the suit and everything’s great. Almost
all of the special effects look really good, and it feels more compelling. And then Zod
comes to Earth and then it is just explosion building crash heat vision explosion. And
there is just so much collateral damage and death and destruction, and it just....it was
just too much. Less would’ve been more. And it also goes on for way too long. I’ve
seen people say, oh why is it OK for the Avengers to smash down a city but Superman can’t.
Well there’s one big difference. You see the Avengers actively trying to save people.
It almost seems like Superman is trying to knock down as many buildings as he can in
this. The thing I find weird is that Superman keeps throwing Zod into a building, and it
does literally no damage to him. But then he keeps throwing him into buildings that
presumably have people in them. Just take him to an empty field or into space. You clearly
have the power to do at least that. I feel like they just really wanted to make up for
Superman Returns, which virtually had no action, and so the last hour of this movie is a massive
action scene. The plot is also a bit too complicated for
it’s own good and there are too many subplots, like there’s this whole thing with Krypton
and the Codex or something and these Matrix babies and it just didn’t really need to
be there. There are also a ton of plot holes and plot conveniences. The movie’s also
really dark, and a dark Superman film can work, but just adding in some small form of
humor would’ve been good. In the end, there are a lot of things that
this movie gets wrong, but there’s still quite a bit of enjoyment to be had. If you
want a more action packed Superman movie and you don’t really care if it doesn’t make
a ton of sense or if it’s well paced, then you’ll love this. I didn’t love it, but
I enjoyed it for what it was and I’ll give it a 7.8/10.
Now for the ruling. For the best, again, sorry if you don’t like it, but I’m going the
original Superman. Man of Steel and Superman II were pretty close, but you can’t beat
a classic. And for the worst, Superman IV. No contest.
So those were my thoughts on the Superman movies. Which is your favorite and least favorite?
Let me know your thoughts in the comments. While you’re at it, be sure to like this
video, check out my Instagram @bhl_hudson, and subscribe for more videos like the one
you just watched. Thanks for watching and I’ll see ya next time.