Superdome (1978)

Good movie, but best of all time? Hardly . . .

Instead, you get a movie that's enjoyable enough, but leaves you feeling like it could have been much, much more.

It’s fine. It's literally the definition of a fine movie. You’ve seen it before, you know every beat and outcome before the characters even do. Only question is how much escapism you’re looking for.

The story, direction, characters, and writing/dialogue is akin to taking a tranquilizer shot to the neck, but everything else was so well done.

I, like everyone else in the country watch the Super Bowl every year. I'm not even a sports fan, but I don't think most people are. Anyway, it's still weird how this is a movie all about and yet the movie stops right before the game even starts! Yeah, I don't even think we see a single football in this movie! I'm not the biggest fan of sports movies. I was at least expecting this to be a story about how a guy worked hard to be in the Super Bowl. There's this weird pointless plot involving a bunch of people dying that has nothing to do with anything.I barely remember anything that happened. I never realized how much Tom Selleck looks like Burt Reynolds. It's amazing they had anyone recognizable in this. This movie is just plain boring and needlessly padded. There's just nothing memorable in its extreme blandness. It seems to go on too long and it has mostly nothing to do with the Super Bowl. They could have just had it about any football game and it would be the same! *

The Super Bowl is a few days away. Veteran player Dave Wolecki (bland Ken Howard) has a bad knee and neglects his fed-up wife Nancy (shrill Susan Howard). Handsome quarterback McCauley (a pre-"Magnum P.I." Tom Selleck, who manages to make an amiable enough impression despite the weak material) is being courted by a management firm represented by desperate agent Chip Green (Van Johnson struggling with a thankless role). Meanwhile, a killer attempts to spoil the big game by bumping various folks off. Can gruff manager Mike Shelley (a grouchy David Janssen) catch the psycho in time? Sound exciting and compelling? Well, it just ain't because of Jerry Jameson's slack direction and a hopelessly talky'n'tedious script by Barry Oringer that gets bogged down in far too many dull and uninteresting soap opera-style subplots. Moreover, the meandering narrative unfolds at a plodding pace, thereby negating any tension or energy this made-for-TV outing needs in order to be remotely engrossing and entertaining. Worse yet, not only does all the behind the scenes drama and politics prove to be incredibly dry and boring, but also this clunker fails to adequately capitalize on the New Orleans setting or the rampant mania of the fans. Hell, it even punks out on showing the big game at the conclusion! This movie attempts to generate a few thrills towards the end, but it's much too little and too late to alleviate the overall numbing drabness. Only a neatly varied cast that includes such familiar character actors as M. Emmet Walsh and Michael Pataki and professional football players Bubba Smith and Dick Butkus keep this one slightly watchable. A total snorefest.

The championship game is only a couple of days away, but things in New Orleans aren't as they should be. From players with marital problems to drug overdoses to gambling problems to a killer on the loose, life is getting in the way of what should be a memorable, wonderful time. Can things be put back into order and a killer stopped before the big game is ruined? Despite what you might think when you first read about Superdome, this is not a football movie. In fact football is nothing more than a plot device and an after thought. Instead, Superdome is another of those lousy soap opera-ish 70s made-for-TV movies populated with Hollywood has beens and those that never will be. The cast sleepwalks its way through the thing with no one really looking good. The best (or worst) example is Van Johnson in a very small role looking generally lost as to why he's there. The plot is dull, uninteresting, and unbelievable. Donna Mills as a hit"man"? Yeah, right! It's about as believable as the affair she has with the liquor soaked David Jansen. The movie also lacks any pace. Trying to get all four or five story lines into the film zaps whatever flow Superdome might have had. With no drama or suspense in sight, Superdome ends up being a very poor example of a 70s made-for-TV movie. The lone highlight for me was the voice-over work from the late Charlie Jones - a sportscaster I miss listening to. The eloquent way he overstates the intrigue and over-hypes the atmosphere in New Orleans is pure cheese at its finest.Like most others who have seen Superdome, I also did so courtesy of Mystery Science Theater 3000. It may be one of the KTMA public access episodes, but it's one of the best examples of the shows early start. So even though I've only rated Superdome a 2/10, I'll give this episode a generous 3/5 on my MST3K rating scale.

This TV movie goes to show that bad films do exist. The only reason I saw this was it was covered on a KTMA MST3K. It's Super Bowl at the Superdome in New Orleans. However, no football is played whatsoever and we see the behind the scenes look at basically nothing. With the many stars in this film, it made no difference. I really don't know why I watched this.