Superman (1980) Poster

(1980)

User Reviews

Review this title
6 Reviews
Sort by:
Filter by Rating:
3/10
Indian, musical Superman
Zbigniew_Krycsiwiki31 March 2016
His parents killed by Indian cowboys in their living room, Indian Clark Kent prays (sings) to Vishnu(?) statue which comes to life, and endows him with superpowers. His skin becomes so strong that a hypodermic needle cannot pierce it!

Psychedelic opening credits 14 minutes into the film seem leftover from the 1960s, and for some reason, the screenplay/ director credit is the only one given in English, the rest are in Telugu.

Indian Superman spends several scenes clad in a yellow suit and tie, which abruptly disappears when the action begins, and reappears when it's over, a la Turkish Batman (Yarasa adam - Bedmen)

Whilst chasing a van, Indian Superman ever so slowly flies after them, when driving his car proves futile, and engages in a well done fight sequence on top of the van, while it barrels down the road. I mock this film a bit, but this scene is pretty good, really. It's surprisingly well choreographed, and it's obviously being done on top of a real van while in motion. But what is not good is the lengthy, ponderous, drawn out song and dance routines, which drag this out to its ungodly long run time. Two hours and fifteen minutes is an insanely overlong amount of time to spend here, it has only enough good material for about a half hour.

I have absolutely no idea what the plot is about, because this is only available in unsubtitled Telugu, and while I speak a multitude of languages, Telugu isn't one of them.

Indian Superman, with his pencil-thin moustache, is good for a few laughs, especially as he stomps on one guy toward the end, before fight a sumo wrestler- looking guy. His flight scenes, across the night sky, look like the filmmakers took a still photograph of him and moved it from one side of the screen to the other. This scene, and his fight on the van, are the two funniest scenes.

A friend saw a few minutes of this, as I was watching it, and he kept laughing and repeatedly saying, "This sucks!" I wouldn't go that far. It's occasionally unintentionally funny, but it could have been twice as funny if it was only half as long.
12 out of 15 found this helpful. Was this review helpful? Sign in to vote.
Permalink
4/10
Superman
BandSAboutMovies7 July 2022
Warning: Spoilers
Raja, like his entire family, is a devotee of Lord Hanuman, which explains the H on his costume. When he was a child, his father Raghunath Rao wanted to offer the family's prized jewels during Hanuman Jayanthi. Three thieves steal them and kill Raja's mother and father, orphaning the family. Raja prays to Lord Hanuman for a way to achieve revenge and is gives him superhuman powers. He receives no answer, so he stabs himself in the stomach and bleeds all over the statue of the deity, which finally brings him the answer he seeks.

Over the years, Raja gets his revenge, but the hard part comes when his sister Lakshmi becomes pregnant to Mohan, the son of Maharajm who is the third thief, a man who even hires a sorceress to destroy the hero.

So yes - absolutely nothing like Superman.

This movie also has attack elephants. And sumos. And twenty karate fighters.

A Superman that kills for revenge sounds like something that Zack Snyder sails the seas of mayonnaise to, but this movie is definitely more entertaining than anything he's ever done and cost less than an hour of his craft services.

Like seriously, Superman fights a demon and then straight up snaps the bad guy's neck.
0 out of 1 found this helpful. Was this review helpful? Sign in to vote.
Permalink
2/10
Only watch if you're intoxicated
Jordyboy21871 October 2021
People always talk about the blackface in this movie but nobody brings up the terrible makeup in general. The white characters in this film are just Indians with bleached skin and the black characters just don't even exist. The costume design is awful, which is strange because usually that's the one thing Bollywood always get right. The set design is plain and dull and half the time I can't even tell what country a scene is set in. We cross between different countries but it's hard to distinguish between them as everything is just so dull and generic. Again this makes no sense as India is far from a dull and generic looking country.

The acting and dialogue is so bad it makes the Star Wars prequels feel like Shakespeare. Everything is over the top and goofy. This movie is not faithful at all to the comics. The only thing about this movie that somewhat stays faithful is Superman's iconic red and blue suit. However they still managed to butcher that by not having the iconic 'S'.
2 out of 3 found this helpful. Was this review helpful? Sign in to vote.
Permalink
10/10
The height of Indian cinema
croxonruganii17 October 2021
This film uses the hight of 1960s Indian film technology to make perhaps the most faithful retelling of the superman origin story. People seem to forget that originally krypton is destroyed by three Indian cowboys. I don't understand why people knock this film as really the Henry Caval version could only have been improved by a pencil thin mustache and rampant murder of everyone in black face. This film is only matched in callibur by such classics as street fighter the movie (which has much worse action) and the garbage pail kids (which has much worse songs)
8 out of 8 found this helpful. Was this review helpful? Sign in to vote.
Permalink
10/10
Better than batman v superman
ccreilly1 October 2021
This film was an utter masterpiece. Whoever came up with superman should be president. Would highly recommend.
7 out of 11 found this helpful. Was this review helpful? Sign in to vote.
Permalink
10/10
Superham
The most hammy retelling of Superman, with complete disregard for source material and special effects. One of the best films I've ever seen; I cried laughing.
2 out of 2 found this helpful. Was this review helpful? Sign in to vote.
Permalink

See also

Awards | FAQ | User Ratings | External Reviews | Metacritic Reviews


Recently Viewed