Superman II

The first two Superman movies were shot at the same time, but the producers and the original director, Richard Donner, got into an argument (mainly over the budget) and fired him before the second movie was finished. This caused 1980's Superman II to suffer a lot more than it should have, ruining a potentially awesome sequel. Although it returned the original cast, Gene Hackman, Christopher Reeve, Ned Beatty, etc., it had a new, hastily hired director, Richard Lester, who admitted to have never heard of Superman before working on the movie. I'll say that again. The director of Superman II had never heard of the character until he was hired. We're in for a long ride.

The opening credits relied heavily on flashbacks from the first movie, but notably absent was Jor-El. Apparently Marlon Brando had got into a complex salary fight with the producers, and they decided at the last minute to cut his part out of the movie and replace it with Superman's mom. While I think it is nice to see more of Kal-El's mother, it really doesn't look good to reshow the imprisonment of General Zod without the main prosecutor, Jor-El. Now, I've heard a lot of stories about how Marlon Brando was especially difficult to work with at this time. He demanded a massive salary and refused to memorize his lines, using cue cards instead. Now I don't know all the details, but from what I understand, even though his parts were entirely removed from Superman II, he was paid anyway. If that was the case, then the producers should have bitten the bullet and left him in the film. He is perhaps the most captivating actor I've ever seen, and he really would have helped this movie. I have to take a point off for his omission.

The score drops to a 3 for just overall stupidity and sloppiness. There were so many last-minute changes that a lot of plot elements were never properly explained (I'll get to the big ones later) and a lot of transition scenes had added-in voice overs trying to explain things while the screen showed generic background footage or faraway doubles impersonating the main characters. The worst with these scenes was Lex Luthor because Gene Hackman left when Richard Donner did, so they had to get someone to impersonate his voice for those stupid little transition scenes. This movie was also victim to Lester's lack of knowledge of Superman. In one scene, Clark Kent is crossing the road and gets hit by a taxi. Clark is unharmed, of course, but the taxi is totaled. Clark would never be so careless to destroy property like that and provide an opportunity for people to become suspicious of his secret identity. Also, we see Lois squeezing the juice out of a ton of oranges in an effort to stay healthy while she's smoking a cigarette. Apparently, this was because of a deal the studio made with Marlboro. Not only did they include large Marlboro billboards and trucks, but they insisted on making Lois Lane a chain smoker. Just terrible. Thankfully after this movie, Congress passed a law prohibiting cigarette companies from advertising to minors through movies like this.

I will add a point for Lex Luthor's escape. Not only was I impressed with how he was able to create a hologram projector and a machine to track Superman while in prison, I was really glad that he left Otis behind. Not only was Otis a bumbling idiot that didn't add to the story at all, but this act showed Luthor's heartlessness. It was also fitting that Luthor would team up with Zod. Of course, this would have been even better had Luthor prepared a piece of Kryptonite to use on Zod when he needed to, but alas!

The score will rise to a 5 for the continuing fun of Lois and Clark's relationship. I liked watching Clark trying to save Lois without using his powers, and it was pretty sweet when he finally revealed his secret identity to her. This is also one area that I think was actually an improvement over the original Richard Donner version. Originally, Lois is even more obsessed with proving Clark is Superman, and she jumps out of a window of the Daily Planet and shoots Clark point blank with a gun. Both of those were a little extreme for my liking, and I preferred the Niagara Falls jump and Clark falling into the fire. The Niagara Falls scene had the added benefit of Clark cutting a tree branch with his heat vision to help Lois, and the fire scene (while a little cheesy) had none of the creepiness of Lois shooting Clark with a gun, even if it was a blank.

Now to take a point away again. While it's true that Superman's powers had been rather flexible in the '50s and '60s, they had more or less stabilized by the '70s. In any case, the first Superman movie clearly established what he could and couldn't do. But for some reason, Richard Lester decided that more powers would be more exciting, forgetting that less is usually more in these kind of things. So although we see General Zod levitate a gun and a person, I must insist that Kryptonians do NOT have the Force! Or at least they shouldn't.

But I'll give that point back for Terrence Stamp's performance as General Zod. He's cold, calculating, and pure evil. Truly a classic villain. My favorite Zod lines are "Why do you say such things when you know I will kill you?" and of course, the classic, "Kneel before Zod."

Sadly, that is the last point I'll add. Plot holes, character inconsistencies and poor special effects will doom the rest of this movie. After Superman reveals himself to Lois, he flies her to the Fortress of Solitude, where he very quickly decides he wants to marry Lois and for some stupid reason he has to give up his powers. He never marries Lois, but he does sleep with her (something Superman would never do), then they somehow have a car to drive to Alaska. Where did that car come from? While at a diner, he learns about Zod and decides to walk all the way back to the Fortress, where he somehow regains his powers. We're down to a 4.

Back in 1980, the massive fight scene probably would have seemed pretty cool, but by today's standards it was simply unbearable. It seemed like a slow-motion high-wire trapeze act. It should have been so much better. One particularly stupid part had Superman getting hit by a bus, everybody thinking he was dead, and the three Kryptonians blowing the people away with their super breath. This scene lasted way too long and was filled with way too many stupid Richard Lester gags like people's ice creams cones being blown over and a man continuing to talk on a pay phone despite being blown over. But nothing compares to the sheer stupidity of the fight in the Fortress. Richard Lester became extremely liberal with his Kryptonian powers — creating shadow clones, teleporting, and what in the name of Jor-El was that shield sticker thing?! Good job Superman, you put Non in a minor inconvenience for a couple of seconds. The score is a 3.

In the end, Superman defeats the evil Kryptonians by throwing them down some very random and large crevices in his fortress, presumably killing them. But Superman is not supposed to kill! He could have found another way. Just lock the powerless bad guys in jail — they wouldn't be able to escape! Later, he decides that Lois can't know who he really is. Why not?! It works in the comics! Now, the original plan was to have Superman fly around the earth backward to go back in time to before the Kryptonians arrived, which would have been a pretty good plan, but the producers decided to move that climax to the end of the first movie to make it more exciting, leaving this second movie without a decent ending. So they hastily devised an "amnesia kiss" for Superman. It was pretty darn stupid. The score has fallen to a surprisingly low 2.

Ultimately, this movie fell victim to two main things. The first was money. The producers were upset with Richard Donner for going over budget, so they fired him halfway through. They also didn't want to pay Marlon Brando, so they cut his character. Then they made a deal with the devil to advertise Marlboro cigarettes to try to score some extra cash. The second main problem, which stems from the first one, is hiring a new director who knew absolutely nothing about Superman. Richard Lester didn't know or care to find out how Clark Kent or Superman were supposed to act. He also openly disdained Richard Donner's epic take and religiously influenced vision, and purposely tried to make everything look flat and feel like a comic book. Without these two major problems, this would have been a fairly decent film. A few years ago, they did release the Richard Donner Cut of Superman II, which is better, but still could have used some work. It probably would've gotten a 5. But the official Superman II earns a truly pathetic grade, leaving me with a lot of fear for its notoriously awful sequels.

Final score: 2