Superman II: The Richard Donner Cut

Starring: Christopher Reeve, Margot Kidder, Gene Hackman, and Terrence Stamp

Written by: Mario Puzo, David Newman, Leslie Newman, Robert Benton

Directed by: Richard Donner (with some sequences from Richard Lester)

Before the review, a little anecdote I shared in the review of the Lester version of Superman II. Richard Donner was concurrently filming Superman: The Movie and Superman II. After the first film’s success, as Donner was working on finishing II, the producers and the studio tried to get him to boost the campiness and the humor aspect. Donner refused and left.

After watching the Lester version, I was most intrigued to watch the Donner cut as it was quite clear that the humor/campiness was the Lester’s version’s biggest detriment.

I will say that after watching the Donner cut, I will no longer be watching the Lester cut. It is a far superior movie…well at least for about 85% of the film.

The opening is still somewhat tedious and long but actually has a point as the Donner cut held that the nuke that Superman diverted into space from the first film IS the explosion that frees Zod and crew. It eliminates the entire Paris terrorism incident and makes the film quite a more coherent connection.

Clark and Lois’ journey to Niagara Falls and “self discovery” begins sooner and is much more developed. In fact the sequence where Lois confirms Clark’s Superman is a much better scene as you watch Reeve transform from Clark to Superman right before your eyes…and it’s actually from a screen test.

Gone is a lot of the campiness. Instead of Mount Rushmore, Zod defaces the Washington Monument for instance.

And the battle sequences are slightly longer in Metropolis and slightly truncated in the Fortress of Solitude as the stupid cellophane and Nightcrawleresque teleporting is gone.

In addition with less concern on budget, Marlon Brando (who was completely excised from the Lester cut ands somewhat replaced by Superman’s mother), is restored in his full glory and Brando adds an air of respectability that is hard to pinpoint. When Superman gets his powers back they explain it all a bit more. At least enough to say okay, there’s something there.

However not all is great.

After the battle, instead of the Super-Kiss (which was bad enough), Superman pulls the EXACT SAME THING AS THE FIRST FILM. Flying around the world to spin time back AGAIN. In someways it’s actually worse than the kiss. In an interview about this project they stated that this was always the way II was supposed to have ended originally, but they used it for the end of the first film since they liked the beat. Now with part II, they obviously couldn’t shoot a new ending, and they truly hated the Super Kiss because Clark should never kiss Lois, only Superman should…so they went with their originally shot ending.

Now. I could almost accept that if they also didn’t say in the same interview that they hoped people would watch the two as one big film. *sigh*

A horrible ending to a film that is leaps and bounds ahead of what was originally released.

Overall though as much as I complain about the ending, the Richard Donner Cut is by far a superior film and it can actually compete with the first film.

B+