I have a long history with Superman on this website. Well, really, it’s more like a three-post history. Twice I wrote about how every time I try to rent anything about the Man of Steel, the DVD is broken or the player falls apart or my house catches on fire or whatever, leaving me unable to enjoy anything about the character. Of course, I’d seen Superman: The Movie several times in my youth, so it wasn’t a truly terrible problem, but it was still frustrating.

On another occasion, I reviewed the direct-to-DVD animated feature Superman: Doomsday. I began that review by relating a discussion I’d been having with a friend of mine:

“A friend and I had an argument recently. This argument was about whether Superman movies were awesome or terrible. We indulged in a bit of mature back and forth on the subject—”You’re an idiot, Superman rocks!” “No, you’re an idiot!”—but when all was said and done, I came away having learned three very important things: I was right, he was wrong, and Superman is great.”

Today, I was finally able to rent a working copy of Superman: The Movie, and watch it again for the first time since my innocent youth. I couldn’t wait to point out to my friend what a dingleberry he was by outlining for him all the film’s great moments.

But you know what? That movie really isn’t very good at all. It’s not an abomination or anything, and it’s certainly skillfully made and well performed. It just isn’t very good.

Superman can hoist a helicopter with one hand, but he loses his grip on Lois Lane while they go flying leisurely about the sky? I know Margot Kidder is weird, but I don’t think we’re supposed to believe she weighs more than a helicopter.

Based on Lois’ article, Lex Luthor knows that Superman is from the now destroyed planet Krypton, and he is even able to figure out just when the explosion must have occurred and that certain meteorites that fell to earth may well have been debris from the shattered planet. I can accept this. But then, somehow, he immediately leaps to “also, these rocks will be totally fatal to a native of Krypton.” What? How does he come to that conclusion? He says something about some kind of radiation, but how does he know what kind of radiation these rocks have been exposed to or whether they’ll be fatal to anyone or everyone? Why would he suspect these rocks to be any more lethal to Superman than a chunk of granite would be to Queen Elizabeth?

Luthor seems to know everything there is to know about Superman’s abilities, yet he still wastes time trying to kill him with bullets, fire, and ice. What’s the point, Lex? That surely must have been an expensive series of traps to set up (especially since he seems to have done it in about 12 hours). Yet you must have known it was utterly futile.

Also, his master plan to sink the west coast into the Pacific involves launching a missile into the San Andreas fault. Fine by me; that’s just the kind of thing a supervillain would do. But he also launches another missile at Newark, New Jersey for absolutely no reason at all, unless all along his plan was to make Superman foil his plot but do it just slightly too late to save Lois Lane’s life. The only reason for the missile launched at New Jersey was to service the plot, to create a situation where Superman would have to fly really fast and make time go backwards. It’s a pretty nice favor Luthor did for the script writers.

I know what you’re thinking: You’re thinking But Luthor knew Superman wouldn’t have time to stop two missiles going in opposite directions. True. But he also knew that he had Superman tied up with Kryptonite and drowning. Superman was moments away from death. Luthor had no reason for a backup missile and, in fact, the only reason Superman escaped was because of Luthor’s ridiculous Plan B: If he hadn’t launched a needless missile at Newark, his assistant wouldn’t have freed Superman so he could rescue her mother back in Jersey.

There’s also the fact that Gene Hackman and Ned Beatty, as Lex Luthor and his henchman Otis, seem to exist in a totally different movie from Clark Kent and Lois and the rest of the Metropolis gang. Sort of a precursor of what was to come with Richard Pryor’s bizarre inclusion in Superman III.

Today, my faith in the Last Son of Krypton was shattered. Sure, I knew that movies 3 and 4 in the series were awful, but I’d always remembered the first two as being a-ok. Now I don’t know what to think about anything. If I was wrong about this, what else was I wrong about? Is Armageddon a masterpiece, Nashville a failure? Who knows!

Wait, I know. So I’d spent years looking at Superman: The Movie through the filter of childhood. No need to turn my whole world on its head. I confess to this one mistake but rest assured: I am right about everything else I have ever or will ever say.

If You Hated This, You Will Also Totally Hate:

• Superman: Doomsday
• Superman: Getting Worse Each Time I Think About Him
• No Supes for You
• My Superman Woes
• Leave Jersey Girl Alone!