SUPERMAN - richard donner - 3.0 / 10

The special effects are lame and the story's completely lacking in any sort of logic or believability (turning the Earth backwards to reverse time? Really?) so I can't for the life of me understand why this film is so revered. Let's start with the opening scenes set on Krypton concerning Jor-El (Superman's father) and his run-ins with the Council. He first sentences some bad guys (the sequel's villains) to some sort of alternate dimension as punishment for some non-specific crimes. Why this is in the film is never made clear as it plays no part in the rest of the plot and does nothing to define the character of the people later involved in the film proper. Then Jor-El tells the Council that the planet is doomed. They don't believe him, of course, and instruct him not to leave the planet. Why he listens to them is never adequately explained and really what could they have done to him if he decided to leave when the planet was exploding? Then, of course, there's the fact that both Jor-El and his wife know what kind of life Kal-El (Superman) would have on Earth (i.e. that he would be a god among men). How do they know this? And more importantly, how does their knowing this impact the story in the least? In short, why bother having them know this?

Okay, so dissecting the specific illogicalities of the film is sort of a zero sum game as you're left with really no film whatsoever if you take away everything that doesn't make sense. But seriously, turning the Earth backwards, what the fuck? I guess the concept of trying to make superhero films set in the recognizably real world is something of a recent development but this is really pushing it. Especially when you take into account all the ways in which Metropolis is shown to be New York (multiple Twin Towers shots, the Statue of Liberty, etc.). It just isn't very consistent, is what I'm trying to say and even if the film is planning on being cheesy and silly it still needs some consistency. The fact that the sequels only got worse really says something about how far down the bottom is for these superhero flicks.