"Superman Returns" directed by Bryan Singer [review]

Abstract

Like many filmgoers around my age, I remember going to the cinema as a young boy to see Christopher Reeve play the man of steel in the “old” Superman films. The 1978 version of Superman, directed by Richard Donner, was a colossal hit and made a career for the then unknown Reeve; Gene Hackman and Terence Stamp were great value as the villains, and the effects were, for the time, eye-popping. Coming in the wave of blockbusters that arrived during the late 1970s, Superman began a very successful franchise; by the time the series ended in 1987 (with Superman IV: The Quest for Peace) Reeve had earned a packet and had become synonymous with the mild-mannered superhero.