A Review of "Superman II"

"Hello, I'm Sarah MacLachlan. For only $50/month, you canpledge to house and feed Kryptonian refugees such as these folks done in by the destruction of their homeworld."

Well we talked about Superman and how it was such a pop culture smash hit when it was released. Richard Donner's brilliant big-screen portrayal of the Man of Steel was the first serious take on the character in quite some time, if not ever. Depends on how you look at the Adventures of Superman series starring George Reeves and whether or not you saw it as campy or not. Well, since Superman was such a huge project undertaken by its producers, Ilya and Alexander Salkind, they decided to ensure Superman's silver-screen triumph by shooting the first movie and a sequel back-to-back, with the sequel being a continuation of the first movie's subplot involving the Kryptonian villains General Zod, Ursa and Non. The problem? Well there was a lot of production mischief going on behind the camera. Donner was hired to be the man to shoot Superman and Superman II back-to-back. He had finished Superman, but was so at-odds with the producers that they actually fired him when he was only about forty percent done with Superman II. There was still much of Superman II that needed to be shot. Following Donner's dismissal, the Salkinds hired comedic director Richard Lester to finish Superman II using some of Donner's existing footage. What we get in Superman II is still pretty epic, but not quite as epic as what Superman brought us. Lester took Donner's original story ideas and downplayed them, even having Superman coin one-liners or have much of the fights be kind of like slapstick gags. The cellophane 'S'. Need I say more?

Margot Kidder posing with Sylvester Stallone

The movie opens with a replay of the beginning of the first Superman. Before the destruction of Krypton, the criminals General Zod (Terence Stamp), Ursa (Sarah Douglas) and Non (Jack O'Halloran) are sentenced to banishment into the Phantom Zone. There's a distinct lack of Jor-El in this scene, unlike the first time you saw it. Marlon Brando's fees were too high to allow the producers to use his footage so they cut him and reshot the banishment scene, but it's acting like it was the first banishment scene even though Jor-El's not there? I don't fucking know, just roll with it. Then the movie rapidly switches gears to a showdown in Paris, where a bomb is reported on an elevator in the Eiffel Tower. This (I guess) is supposed to pick up right after the first movie, so we're going from two stolen hydrogen bomb missiles to a bomb threat in Paris in sub twelve hours. The world is a fucked up place. Clark Kent (Christopher Reeve) arrives in the Daily Planet's office, only to ditch and fly around the planet to Paris, where he saves Lois Lane (Margot Kidder) from the elevator bomb, heaving it into space. So, let me get this straight. Lois gets her life saved in the California earthquake caused by the fault line, and then immediately buys a ticket to Paris to investigate something else? Doesn't she ever quit? Unbeknownst to Superman, but knownst to us, the elevator bomb hits and destroys the Phantom Zone as it passes by Earth, freeing the Kryptonian villains Zod, Ursa and Non who absorb energy from the Earth's yellow sun and fly toward Earth's moon.

*Laughs Uncontrollably*

Following that debacle, the Daily Planet chief editor Perry White (Jackie Cooper) sends Clark Kent and Lois Lane to Niagara Falls to pose as a newlywed couple in a weird resort. Lois beings to suspect that Clark and Superman are the same person. That night, when Clark recovers Lois' comb from a lit fireplace, Lois discovers that his hand is unburned, forcing Clark to admit he is Superman. Literally on an accident, too. He just tripped on the rug in the room and his hand went in the fireplace. Unbelievable. Now that the jig is up, he bails on their Daily Planet assignment and takes her to his Fortress of Solitude in the Arctic, and shows her the traces of his past stored in energy crystals. One is the green crystal that created the Fortress and opened Superman's contact with his parents. Superman declares his love for Lois and his wish to spend his life with her. After conferring with the artificial intelligence of his mother Lara, Superman removes his superpowers by exposing himself to red Kryptonian sunlight in a crystal chamber, becoming a mortal man. Clark and Lois spend the night together, then leave the Fortress and return from the Arctic by automobile. In answer to your question, yes this is how the kid in Superman Returns is conceived. Yes, I know, we'll have a huge problem with that one, but we'll get there. Just bear with me. We've only begun. Anywho, arriving at a diner, Clark is beaten up by a truck driver named Rocky. Why is his name important? Because what man named "Rocky" isn't going to be an abrasive insecure jerk who jumps to fisticuffs first? While this exercise in superpower futility is going on, the Zod gang travels to the White House and force the President of the United States (E.G. Marshall) to surrender on behalf of the entire planet during an international television broadcast. When the President pleads for Superman to save the Earth, the gang demands that Superman come and "kneel before Zod!" Clark and Lois learn of Zod's conquest and, realizing that humanity alone cannot fight Zod, Clark returns to the Fortress to try to regain his powers.

"My name is Gene Hackman. Vote me for best
actor in this movie and I'll send you a free
Rolls Royce convertible!"

In subplot #37, Lex Luthor (Gene Hackman) escapes from prison with Eve Teschmacher's (Valerie Perrine'shelp, leaving his accomplice Otis (Ned Beatty) behind. Thank you Ned Beatty, your check is in the mail. Luthor and Teschmacher infiltrate the Fortress of Solitude in the Arctic before Superman and Lois arrive. Luthor learns of Superman's connection to Jor-El and General Zod. He finds Zod at the White House and tells him Superman is the son of Jor-El, their jailer, and offers to lead him to Superman in exchange for control of Australia. The three Kryptonians ally with Luthor and go to the offices of the Daily Planet. Superman arrives, after having found the green crystal that restores his powers (the "deus-ex-machnia" crystal) and battles the three. The fight isn't bad for 1980. They came up with some cool ways to show off the archaic blue-screen and rope-suspended flight fights as best as they can, but it's ultimately kind of a weak showdown by today's standards. Zod realizes Superman cares for the humans and takes advantage of this by threatening bystanders. Superman realizes the only way to stop Zod and the others is to lure them to the Fortress, in the barren Arctic, away from people. Superman flies off, with Zod, Ursa, and Non in pursuit, kidnapping Lois and taking along Luthor. Upon arrival, Zod declares Luthor has outlived his usefulness and plans to kill both him and Superman. Superman tries to get Luthor to lure the three into the crystal chamber to depower them, but Luthor, eager to get back in Zod's favor, reveals the chamber's secret to the villains. Zod forces Superman into the chamber and activates it, seemingly once again wiping Superman's powers out again. However, Superman crushes Zod's hand during an attempted handshake and tosses him into a crevice to his death. Luthor deduces that Superman reconfigured the chamber to expose the trio to red sunlight while Superman was protected from it. Non falls into another crevice when trying to fly over it...like a complete dumbfuck...and Lois knocks Ursa into a third. With all three villains seemingly defeated, Superman flies back to civilization, returning Luthor to prison and Lois home. What an ending.

What is even happening in this picture?

At the Daily Planet the following day, Clark finds Lois upset about knowing his secret and not being able to be open about her true feelings. In what is perhaps a bigger "WTF" moment than Superman flying backwards around the Earth to reverse time, he kisses her, using his abilities to wipe her mind of her knowledge of the past few days. How? Why? When did he obtain this power? Who knows but it's caused ire with Superman fans since they first saw it. Does it tongue do it? Do his eyes? Does his mind? What the fuck? Later, Clark returns to the diner and has a rematch with Rocky the truck driver and defeats him easily. Superman is many things, and I guess petty is one of them. Superman restores the damage done by Zod, replacing the flag atop the White House and tells the president he won't abandon his duty again. He's right, but he'll replace his moral and ethical standards for motion picture making in Superman III.

Superman II is a mixed bag. It's still on the epic scale of the first movie, even including a bloated opening credits sequence retelling the first movie's events with the "Superman March" blasting triumphantly... but it's a tad hokey and rushed in its ensuing presentation. It's definitely the result of two directors' clashing styles. There's more dialogue than you'd want in a showdown between Superman and the Kryptonian villains and there's also less fighting than you'd want in a showdown between Superman and the Kryptonian villains. The stuff in the truck diner is fun, especially the end where Superman gets his revenge on the guy...despite the fact that I don't think it's something Superman would do. Lois is just...there. She cries, she mugs and she's ultimately a bystander. Lex Luthor's a hilarious inclusion in the movie, but once he and Eve Teschmacher find the Fortress of Solitude, he totally just leaves her elsewhere and carries the rest of the movie on his own. Like I said, the city fight is pretty good for 1980, but pretty lame by today's standards. There isn't a lot of fighting and there's like a three-minute sequence where the Kryptonians use their super breath to blow a street of Metropolis into disarray, complete with many Richard Lester sight gags. Ugh. Is it worthy as a follow-up to Superman? Sure, but it's just... not on the same caliber or tone and definitely not in the same league as Superman.

Oh right, you probably want to know about The Richard Donner Cut. Well, in 2006, twenty-six years after this movie came out and a couple years after the unfortunate passing of Christopher Reeve, original movie director Richard Donner released a recut version of Superman II, complete with all of the long-thought-lost footage that he shot for it. It still needed most of Lester's footage to cobble it together to make a finished movie, but it ended up making a completely different Superman II. Instead of retelling the events of Superman, the opening credits now just mimic the opening credits of Superman with no other images or movie clips, even using the original recording of the Superman March. The Paris sequence is completely omitted and instead, the missile that Superman diverts from Hackinsack New Jersey is what destroys the Phantom Zone and frees the Kryptonians. Lois's discovery of Clark's secret identity is completely changed and the fight at the end in Metropolis is extended, with just a bit more action and different bits and takes of things. It's a slight improvement, but it pretty much shuts the book at the end by having Superman destroy the Fortress of Solitude. Oh and it ruins everything it tried to build because do you want to know how Superman undoes his revealing of his secret identity to Lois, the Kryptonians, and basically everything after the end of the first movie? HE FUCKING SPINS THE EARTH BACKWARDS AGAIN. THE ENTIRE MOVIE NEGATES ITSELF. FUCK OFF.