Dr. Kobras (Donald Pleasence) has got an evil scheme.  He’s going to use an ancient gold mask to take over people’s mind and eventually take over the world.  Only the Pumaman, a man who has inherited God-like powers, can defeat Dr. Kobras and keep the mask from falling into the wrong hands.  Unfortunately, Prof. Tony Farms (Walter George Alton) doesn’t understand that he’s the Pumaman.  Vadinho (Miguel Angel Fuentes), an indigenous shaman, travels to London to convince him.

Perhaps the worst super hero movie ever made, Pumaman was an attempt to cash in on the popularity of the Superman movies.  Pumaman didn’t start out in a comic book.  He was created directly for the screen and his first movie was obviously meant to be the start of many adventures.  It didn’t work out that way.  Pumaman has plenty of fantastic powers but he’s not sure how to use them and he spends a lot of the movie complaining.  He might as well just be called Whinyman.  From the minute that he meets Tony, Vadinho has an expression on his face that reads as, “I’ve made a terrible mistake.”  Beyond Pumaman just being plain unlikable, the movie also features some of the worst special effects that I’ve ever seen.  The success of a film like that depends on whether or not you believe that a man can fly.  Pumaman flies but he looks really stupid doing it.  That was the failure of Pumaman.

How bad is Pumaman?  Even Donald Pleasence looks embarrassed.  Pleasence always made a good villain.  He set the standard for Bond villains in You Only Live Twice.  Pleasence also had the right sensibility for a good super hero film.  If he had been born a decade or two later, he would have been equally well-cast as either Professor X or Magneto in the first X-Men film.  In Pumaman, he rolls his eyes while delivering his lines.  Not even he can believe this movie.

Pumaman saved the day and then disappeared.  Earth already had enough heroes.