Superman |
India • 1980 • 135m •
  • Directed by: V. Madhusudan Rao. • Starring: Taraka Rama Rao Nandamuri, Jaya Prada, Jayamalini, Satyanarayana Kaikala, Pandharibai..  The hero, Babu, witnesses the murder of his parents by- get this- Cowboys. He vows revenge, and spends the rest of the 2 hours and 15 minutes of the flick getting it. Throw in some dance numbers, bad hairdos, outrageous acting, and you have yourself a classic of Indian Cinema few have ever seen. The actor, who plays Superman, Rama Rao Taraka Nandamuri, looks like a fat Elvis impersonator, complete with a Giant H on his chest (it stands for Hanuman the monkey god). In his over 50-year career in cinema, he made over 300 movies, and was a founder of his own political party!
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Review:
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.
Review by Zbigniew_Krycsiwiki from the Internet Movie Database.
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