I watched "Superman: The Movie" last night. The first of four Superman movies starring Christopher Reeve. It was great. It was interesting to see how different movies have become in the last twenty years. While most movies today focus on action packed sequences and visual effects, this movie focused more on character development and surrounding themes. In fact, in this movie, Superman doesn't even show up until a whole HOUR into the movie. Not only that, the movie is over 150 minutes which is really long for a movie these days. Most movies today are only around 2 hours.

First of all, I realized that I had never seen this movie all the way through before. The last time I watched it was when I was a kid, but maybe I didn't have the attention span for stuff like this. Either way, one of the best parts was being able to see Christopher Reeve in his glory days. Seeing him again at full strength and not confined to a wheelchair was just awesome.

Visually, the movie is a joke compared to 21st century movie effects. Many times you can totally tell that you're watching a minature set, or blue screen effects. In the scene where Superman tumbles rocks and boulders in front of a community to save them from water from a broken dam, you can totally tell that the set is a minature set. In fact, Mr. Rogers Neighborhood had a better minature neighborhood set in the intro credits.

But the movie just goes to show that visual effects do not tell a story. While they do add to a story, not being able to fool the eyes does not take away from the story itself. "Superman I"  starts from the very beginning, showing audiences Jor-El and Kara sending their son across the galaxy in order to save him from the destruction of their home planet. The movie also shows Kal-El being found by his adoptive earth parents and him being raised as a teenager by them. Finally, an hour into the movie, he finally dons the tights and cape and flies off to Metropolis. Basically, the first hour of the movie describes the last 5 seasons of Smallville (but without the weird indian cave magic).

Watching the movie makes me realize just how much Bryan Singer paid tribute to these movies in Superman Returns. Many of the flight scenes in the new movie were taken from the old movies. *SPOILER WARNING* One of the coolest things was that the speech from when Superman talks to his son is very similar to the speech that Marlon Brando (as Jor-El) gives to his son, baby Kal-El in Superman I.

In the end, I really enjoy seeing Brandon Routh as Superman/Clark Kent. But I have to admit that Christopher Reeve really was the original Superman and that next to him, the new Superman can't compare. I think that the cast and crew of Superman Returns thinks the same way, as much of the new movie is truly a tribute to the old Superman movies. In fact, Superman Returns is actually dedicated to Christopher and Dana Reeve (in the ending credits).