They don’t make movies like Superman any more. Reeve was not only the definitive Man of Steel in looks and performance, it’s (still) the definitive superhero movie. The first half hour alone is f’n perfection, and as much as I love his work on Star Wars, that was easily John Williams’ best score ever. He deserves just as much credit as Richard Donner (if not more) in storytelling as his music so incredibly important to Clark’s journey from Smallville to the Fortress of Solitude.
Also, real talk…Superman III? Outside that slapstick title sequence…not as bad as most folks make it out to be. Is it a shameless Richard Pryor vehicle? Sure. Is the plot goofy as all get out? Absolutely. But it’s fun as hell, Robert Vaughn’s Ross Webster is arguably a better Lex Luthor than Gene Hackman’s, and that junkyard fight was f’n epic. I can’t defend Quest for Peace, but III gets way too much crap.
And while Reeve will always be #1 in my book, Tom Welling really had everything going for him to give him a run…especially with the torch pass, it’s just too bad he never seemed to want it, and was too embarrassed by the suit constantly bringing up the “no flights, no tights” mantra as if that would always apply if the studio ever pursued him for a transition to the big screen, which I still can’t believe they didn’t. It’s a shame, he was Superman to a generation of fans and he never really gave them a satisfying payoff…even if it was televised.
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