meh. so much of the movie is tied to the appeal of its fx though. we're not talking about citizen kane. the plot, dialogue...that's pretty inconsequential to the movie. although I'd like to add, that the plot was ridiculously bad (reverse time by reversing the rotation of the earth?), and playing lex luthor, the only villain of the movie, for a clown...mmm...no.
I agree in general about the can't compare/bash older movies for not having cgi. hell, cgi is utterly abused these days. my point is that the awe of seeing superman on the bigscreen was all the movie had going for it. it was a shit plot. a shit script. a shit premise. the sequel did a lot to correct most of those issues.
2 cents, of course. but I do feel pretty strongly that the only "greatness" of that movie is nostalgia, having little or nothing to do with the thing as a movie.
PS - the save the whales plot was far worse than "reverse the earth" theory.
Life ducks, and you sigh.