Super/Man the Christopher Reeve Story is the first film to be released under Warner Brothers’s new DC Studios label now headed up by James Gunn and Peter Safran but this is a documentary about the life of the late great Christopher Reeve who played Superman in 4 movies from 1978 to 1987 then suffered a paralyzing spinal cord injury in 1995 following a horse riding accident and then sadly passed away in 2004 aged only 52.
For so many of us of a certain age, Christopher Reeve didn’t just play Superman on film he was Superman in life especially in the years following his accident as he began to become an advocate for those like him with paralysing disabilities and this documentary captures all of this wonderfully and right from the start I felt very emotional and that continued more than once throughout my watching of this doco.
We also see ample amounts of footage of the late great Robin Williams who was a friend of Chris’s since their time at Juilliard together and he too is now no longer with us and at one point you see an interview of Robin with Oprah Winfrey where he talks about visiting him in the hospital after his accident and I nearly started crying because Robin was so gifted, so quick off the mark and had such a razor sharp mine and a big heart that it reminded me that we lost one of the greats when he passed away 10 years ago.
What this documentary also reminded me of is my feelings about those who play Superman on film after Christopher Reeve and that feeling is not that they must just be good in the role but they also have to be worthy of that mantle because of Reeve and the way he embodied that character both on film and in life with his advocacy for those like him and that has been a mixed bag as while Brandon Routh couldn’t do it, Henry Cavill absolutely did and my main feeling watching him as Superman in 2013 was “He is Worthy” and I never thought that would happen but sadly WB didn’t treat him right as he deserved to be.
If I have one complaint about this documentary it is some comments by Superman producer Pierre Spengler and at one point he makes mention of the fact that Superman II was not as good as the first film and boy did that make me a little peeved because he and the Salkinds were responsible for that by firing Richard Donner and his team from II WHEN THEY ALREADY HAD 75% OF IT FILMED.
And reading Tom Mankiewicz’s full script for Superman II left me in no doubt that had Donner been given the leeway he had richly earnt and deserved in 1979 to properly finish Superman II his way I have no doubt Superman II would be sitting alongside the Empire Strikes Back, Godfather Part II, Aliens and Terminator 2 as the gold standard for how to do a sequel to a blockbuster hit.
That aside when this documentary was over and I let my emotions flow through me I knew this was going to be one of my movies of the year and it definitely will be, 4 and a half out of 5.
To read Tom Mankiewicz's full script for Superman II which includes the scenes he and Donner never got to film click on this link: http://superman.rossiters.com/s2_main.html
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