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Super/Man: The Christopher Reeve Story is a documentary that does what it says on the tin, but benefits greatly from the fact that the man who portrayed the iconic Superman, in the iconic 1978 movie along with three sequels, captured a great deal of home movie footage throughout his great highs and very low lows.
While I thought Christopher Reeve would want to capitalise on his superhero fame and making similar movies, I didn’t realise he’d done a lot of theatre work along the way, hugely enjoying it because “I like to know the whole story from beginning to the middle to the end“; and when he made it big on the cinema screen, he wanted to appear in a large number of roles and test his acting skills to the limit.
Hence, largely different roles in Monsignor, Anna Karenina, Noises Off, and period drama The Remains Of The Day, all of which were a far cry from the man in the cape. Additionally – and perhaps, prophetically, he took the lead role in 1995’s Above Suspicion, playing a cop who ends up paralysed.
Just a year later, on 27th May 1995 and following a horse-riding accent where the sequence events couldn’t have been any more horrific, he went from being a very active man playing catch with his sons, skiing, sailing, flying a plane etc, to being a paraplegic, and once he was eventually released from the hospital, he was only able to look out of the window to see the areas in which he used to run around.
One could argue that worse outcome would be that if elements of the fall had been very slightly to one side, he’d be dead, but as the documentary makes you confront and consider the two possibilities, it’s a discussion you could be having for all eternity.
However, given that Reeve’s home care cost around $400,000/year, which is not small change for anyone, and given that Warner Bros have made over $400 MILLION from his Superman movie, why didn’t they stump up the cost?
Celebs contributing include Glenn Close and Whoopi Goldberg who Reeve later directed in his 1997 TV movie, In The Gloaming, plus Susan Sarandon and Jeff Daniels, while Reeve also took the lead as a paralysed man in the 1998 remake of Hitchcock’s Rear Window.
Additionally, I didn’t know that the late, great Robin Williams was his roommate in college, and we also have archive footage of him, too.
He also directed the 2004 TV movie, The Brooke Ellison Story, about the young lady who was hit by a car and paralysed at the age of 11, and later died in February this year from complications from quadriplegia, aged just 45.
Family-wise, there’s his sons Matthew and Will, the latter of whom is his spitting image, daughter Alexandra, partner Gae Axton (1978-87) and later, his wife, Dana, whom he married in 1992. Tragically, however, while the punishment on Reeve’s body took its ultimate toll on October 10th 2004, at the age of 52, it was just 17 months later when, at the age of 44, Dana passed away from lung cancer, despite having never having smoked.
As a former singer bars and hotel lobbies, it appeared this was due to the exposure of secondhand smoke, similar to British musician and TV presenter Roy Castle.
However, both Christopher and Dana’s legacies live in, as their 1998 Foundation, which his children still continue today, has helped many other people to walk again, following similar tragedies to what put him in a wheelchair.
And given that Reeve’s theatre work attracted him because “I like to know the whole story from beginning to the middle to the end“, this makes it even more tragic how he obviously didn’t know how his whole life was going to pan out.
To think that the Superman role may not have been his, given that those considered for the role included Arnie, Neil Diamond (yes, the singer!) and – as stated in the discussion “Bruce Jenner”!
Super/Man: The Christopher Reeve Story is rated 12-certificate cert for 2 f-words, although additionally, a clip of Arnie is shown in his Terminator role, where the f-word in “F**k you asshole!” is bleeped. 12-certs allow for a maximum of four f-words, so I can only presume the archive Arnie clip was already bleeped in advance as there was no need to with this.
I wasn’t sure if someone slipped in a c-word, but that’s not present according to the BBFC.
Super/Man: The Christopher Reeve Story really is one of the best documentaries I’ve ever seen. It treats its main subject with complete respect, tells the full story – as Reeve would’ve liked for the plays in which he starred – and it helps that Reeve and his family made so many home movies before and afterwards, so there was a plethora of archive footage.
Touchingly, the final moment shows his last scene in Superman, as he flies into space and breaks the fourth wall, smiling at the audience. That stays with you.
Super/Man: The Christopher Reeve Story is in cinemas now, but isn’t yet available to pre-order on Blu-ray or DVD. However, once announced, it will appear on the New DVD Blu-ray 3D and 4K releases UK list. In the US, it will also be shown on HBO Max.
Detailed specs:
Cert: 
Running time: 104 minutes
Release date: November 1st 2024
Studio: HBO Max / Warner Bros
Aspect Ratio: 2.00:1
Cinema: Odeon Trafford Centre
Rating: 10/10
Directors: Ian Bonhôte, Peter Ettedgui
Producers: Ian Bonhôte, Robert Ford, Lizzie Gillett
Writers: Ian Bonhôte, Otto Burnham, Peter Ettedgui
Music: Ilan Eshkeri
Participants:
Christopher Reeve (archive footage)
Alexandra Reeve Givens (Christopher’s daughter)
Matthew Reeve (Christopher’s son)
Will Reeve (Christopher’s won)
Kevin Johnson (Christopher’s brother)
Dana Reeve (Christopher’s wife – archive footage)
Pierre Spengler (Superman producer)
Brooke Ellison
Gae Exton
Steven Kirshblum
Michael Manganiello
Susan Sarandon
Glenn Close
Jeff Daniels
Whoopi Goldberg
Laurie Hawkins
John Kerry
Reviewer of movies, videogames and music since 1994. Aortic valve operation survivor from the same year. Running DVDfever.co.uk since 2000. Nobel Peace Prize winner 2021.