What a waste of my time!!!

It is an exhilarating, distressing, funny and profound film, with one of the more memorable film scores in years,

Each character in this movie — down to the smallest one — is an individual rather than a type, prone to spontaneous changes of mood and sometimes amusing outbursts of pettiness or ill humor.

what a terribly boring film. I'm sorry but this is absolutely not deserving of best picture and will be forgotten quickly. Entertaining and engaging cinema? No. Nothing performances with flat faces and mistaking silence for subtlety.

Superman is back!The animated effects of Superman in flight do damage to this serial, made worse by the fact that you know (well, I know) better effects were available in this period! This is a Columbia serial and over at Republic they had better flying man effects that did not involve animation! At Republic they would have used a dummy of a man and made him glide down wires: don't laugh, it looked great!However, Atom Man Vs Superman is still a lot of fun to watch and better than all the Superman versions that came out after 1987.

Most reviewers appear to give this serial the edge over it's forerunner, 1948's "Superman" with most of the same principals involved. Quite honestly, I found little difference between the two except for the inclusion of Superman's arch-enemy Lex Luthor, ably portrayed by Lyle Talbot, who takes on a dual role as the title character Atom Man. With his shaved head, Talbot epitomized the classic look of Luthor from the Silver Age comic book era, and just like Clark Kent and Superman, you never saw Luthor and Atom Man in the same place at the same time.But gee, wasn't Atom Man just the goofiest looking screen villain ever? I mean he was just laughably ridiculous looking with no hint of menace whatsoever to my thinking. The opening chapter had the head of Atom Man superimposed over newspaper headlines of various crimes being committed across Metropolis, along with images of atomic bomb blasts to further heighten the connection with the character.Just as in the first serial, animation is used to simulate Superman's power of flight but the film makers also used close-ups of Kirk Alyn to simulate various flying poses. What cracked me up however were some of the decisions regarding Superman's heroics in the story. In the first chapter for example, Superman prevents a bridge from swaying so a woman in her car can be rescued by the police when he could just as well have saved her himself. The bridge wound up falling down anyway.Perhaps even funnier, at least to me and it happened a couple of times, was when there would be the usual group of reporters in Perry White's (Pierre Watkin) office, and with his phone within arm's reach, Perry would ask Jimmy Olsen (Tommy Bond) to dial a number. So Jimmy would walk all the way around the desk and bystanders to make the call. You really had to wonder what the rationale was for decisions like this to be made.Moving from chapter to chapter, one would be hard pressed to make sense of any continuity in the story. The over riding concept here had to do with some type of special coin Luthor invented that allowed for the transmission of solid objects and people over short distances, a neat precursor to TV Star Trek's transporter beam a couple decades later. Atom Man himself fades from the scene well before the final chapter so the ultimate battle against the Man of Steel one might have expected never comes to pass. By then though, so much goofy stuff happened already you might not even notice.

Both of the Superman serials were the top grossing of all times. I read a scathing review of Kirk Alyn, which I totally disagree with completely. I saw each serial at their release. The first one at age 8, the second at age 10. All of the kids around where I lived, loved the serials. They were again as good as I remembered them when re-released on video. Kirk Alyn was my all time favorite Superman and Noel Neill my favorite all time Lois Lane. Lex Luthor as Atom Man was a great story line as well, this is my favorite all time Luthor portrayal. I did enjoy all the TV series as well, and feel George Reeves did an excellent job and Dean Cain was great as well in "Lois and Clark." Also Christopher Reeve was outstanding in his movie series. The last movie "Superman Returns" seemed to be out of character for the man of steel.

This serial is a sequel to "Superman", the 1948 serial. In this one the Man of Steel is battling the evil Lex Luthor and his alter ego, the Atom Man in a bid to take over the world with another of those deadly rays popular in serials of the time.Kirk Alyn is back as Superman/Clark Kent and once again does a creditable job. Noel Neill is the spunky Lois Lane, former Little Rascal Tommy Bond is Jimmy Olsen and Pierre Watkin as cranky old Perry White. Lyle Talbot makes an excellent villain as Luthor. The serial is populated with the usual assortment of villains from Columbia's stock company including Don Harvey and Rusty Westcoatt. Even veteran "B" western villain Charlie King turns up briefly in suit and tie as one of the baddies. The usual assortment of narrow escapes and explosions abound.As in the original, most of the special effects are handled through the use of animation. Although it looks a little tacky by today's standards, it is nonetheless quite innovative for it's time given the limited budget and lack of technology. Don't forget, Superman IS a comic book character.In my opinion, the Superman serials were among the best ever produced by Columbia. Taking them for what they are, they are very entertaining and enjoyable.