Da-da-da-da-da-daaaa da-da-da-da-daaa

Last night I watched Superman: The Movie for the first time in almost a decade. I was struck by a number of things:

Christopher Reeve, the obvious star of the film, was billed third, behind Marlon Brando and Gene Hackman, respectively.

Margot Kidder was always toothy-faced.

The funniest moment is one that doesn't seem all that funny: Gene Hackman is in a swimming pool (that actually looks like it might once have been a holding tank connected to an underground sewage network). He yells for his lackey, Otis (Ned Beatty), to bring him his robe. Otis grabs the robe and blunders down the steps into the pool and puts the robe around Hackman. Hackman finishes what he's been saying to Miss Tessmacher, then turns to Otis and deadpans, "Next time, Otis, put my robe on after I'm out of the pool." Which isn't really funny. But then Ned Beatty looks down in shameful amazement and opens his mouth and goes, "Unnnooahhh!" Which is very funny.

However dated the film's effects and dialogue and costumes appear, that silly red, yellow and blue costume throws the geek switch on inside me every time.

Terence Stamp has come a very long way.

This film has perhaps the highest body count of any movie ever filmed (an honor it might actually share with Star Wars -- Episode IV, I believe, but I'm not that sure): in the very beginning of the movie, an entire planetful of hokey-white-suited old people is obliterated. The death of young Clark Kent's surrogate father of a heart attack might be the one death that pushes the body count into record-breaking territory.

In an early scene, young Superman's starship is zipping along through the galaxy. It approaches Earth and we see a long shot of it coming closer and closer to our planet. In this shot, Earth is a big fat mural of blue and white. No land whatsoever. And not even a well-painted mural.

Those really cheesy opening titles -- you know the ones I mean -- are still just as cool as they were way back in the day.

All of this doesn't mean the movie is flawless. Actually, it's one of the stupidest movies I've ever seen. Watching the San Andreas Fault collapse and reassert itself in reverse, precisely the way it fell apart, is cheesy. Watching Superman even worry about anything when he knows he can simply fly the Earth backwards and change history is a little boring. And didn't anybody see him jump out of the fiftieth story window in the Daily Planet newsroom and change into Superman? And why the heck didn't the Army scientists double-check the launch coordinates of their missiles before they just blew them out into the sky?

Still. I liked it just the same.