
not the same

This Superman has the right mix of seriousness and humor.
Krypton is destroyed in 1948 when it's pulled into the sun. Jor-El (Marlon Brando) just before the catastrophe sends his infant son Kal-El in a space capsule to the less evolved distant planet of Earth, where the galactic scientist knows that the Earth's yellow sun will grant his son, the planet's only remaining person, superpowers he will use as a force for doing good in the world. The toddler crash lands in the wheatfields of Kansas where he will be raised by the folksy farmers, the Kents (Phyllis Thaxter & Glenn Ford), as their adoptive son Clark. We follow Clark through his nerdy teens at Smallville High and see how as he matures so do his vast superpowers from his X-ray vision to his ability to fly. After his kindly adopted father dies of a heart attack, Clark treks to his abandoned Fortress of Solitude in the north and after listening to recorded messages from his real dad emerges as Superman. He then heads to the big city of Metropolis to become a reporter on the Daily Planet, where as mild-mannered Clark he plays at being gorky. After Superman rescues Lois and a downed helicopter and stops a number of crimes, he makes a name for himself as the ultimate crime fighter. The joke is that Lois falls for Superman, but can't take the bumbling Clark seriously as a lover even though he has a crush on her.
The plot centers around Lex Luthor (Gene Hackman) as a wig wearing, greedy and ruthless real-estate developer with a genius criminal mind, who plans to drop nuclear warheads on the San Andreas fault-line to activate it and set off an earthquake to eliminate California from the map and thereby make his worthless nearby Nevada desert property the most valuable real-estate in the world. Lex views Superman as his main threat and plans to eliminate him so he can execute his maniacal plan, as the rivals confront each other in a save the planet scenario.
Ned Beatty and Valerie Perrine are part of Hackman's evil gang as flunky and moll, and Jackie Cooper is the bossy editor of the Daily Planet.
It's all goofy fun and, I must say, irresistible. Donner has the good sense to keep it a comic book story and not get too smart with material that's meant to be only comic book wise. He keeps up the illusion that Superman is still worth talking about and that's not an easy thing to do, especially for those who are not fanboys.
Review ID: 10000000007734496

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