Batman V Superman: Ranking Every Movie From Worst To Best

12. Superman And The Mole Men

The cinematic pilot for the George Reeves TV series, Superman And The Mole Men is incredibly of its time. And I mean that both in terms of filmmaking and of its presentation of Superman. On a cinematic level, it's incredibly stagey, with the music constant and basic, the acting (from the big city journalists to rampaging country hicks) hammy and a story that's built around studio availability and effects feasibility. Superman really only swoops in intermittently to preach of message of compassion - the main plot is mostly concerned with an lynch mob trying to hunt down the weird, diminutive creatures of the title (the term "Men" can only just about be used - there's just two Mole people involved for much of the film). It's really what you expect, and it does its job well enough. What's most interesting though is its representation of the Man of Steel. Made in 1951, this is loosely based on Golden Age Superman, a whole Earth away from the one in the comics today. So the morals that defined the character are there in abundance, but there's an odd approach to some of the character's key elements; Clark is stated as a mild-mannered coward, but Reeves makes no effort to convey this, even having Kent referring to himself as Superman at one point in a careless joke. Although again, what else would you expect?