Running Time: 115 min

Cast: Christopher Reeve, Margot Kidder, Gene Hackman, Marlon Brando 

Superman II's story follows on from its 1978 predecessor, Superman: The Movie. An accident occuring from a Superman rescue in the climax of the first film leads to the freeing of the three Kryptonian criminals - General Zod, Ursa and Non - from their prison, the Phantom Zone. They head towards earth where they find they have extraordinary powers, and that the planet is also home to the son of Jor-El, who had imprisoned them. Meanwhile Superman/Clark is developing deeper emotional ties with Lois and inadvertantly reveals his identity to her. Despite warnings from Jor-El's spiritual presence, he gives up his super-human powers to take her for wife. A non-super hero returns home to find the greatest threat to his country and planet, and no means to fight it...or is there?

[This article assumes that you have some familiarity with the 1981 theatrically released cut of Superman II, and is mainly a comparison between that and the new version. For more explicit details on the new cut see the Wikipedia link]

For Superman fans this had been one of the most anticipated releases of 2006. It represents a watershed in cinema history, when a film-maker has been allowed to resurrect his vision for a film, decades after the release of the product. Director Richard Donner who was originally shooting the first two Christopher Reeve Superman movies together got fired before the second one was completed due to loud differences with the producers and was replaced by Richard Lester. To garner credit as sole director, Lester had to have a more than 50% stake in the finished film. So he shot a lot of alternate material for scenes Donner had already finished, and though the overall story arc was fixed, this led to numerous differences between Donner's original vision and the theatrically released product. The other significant aspect was that Marlon Brando, who played Jor-El, sued the film's producers, the Salkinds, for non-payment of dues associated with Superman I. To avoid paying him more money, the producers decided to scrap all the scenes he had shot for Superman II and substitute those with other actors or omit them. This new cut restores all that footage, and represents as best as it can, Richard Donner's original vision for Superman II.

So how does it stand?

The important thing to remember here is that this cut is really more a blueprint than a finished version. Although Donner had shot quite a bit of Superman II before he was fired there were still several sequences that hadn't been done/finished, and the fact that in this new cut he wanted to avoid as much as possible using any of Lester's footage, means that it is never going to be as smooth as the theatrical cut. Crucial parts like the attack of the Phantom Zone criminals on the rural town in Houston are treated in an abbreviated way and jarringly intercut with the sequences of the relationship between Superman/Clark and Lois. The pace is breakneck and not in a pleasant way. The lack of enough final cut Donner footage also seems to have allowed for the inclusion of some pointless jabber, especially between Lex Luthor (Gene Hackman) and his assistant Miss Tessmacher on their way to the Fortress of Solitude, and inserts that would have in a more lesiured and in control setting been easily snipped out. Fans have complained about Lester's tendency to force in slapstick humor, but the inclusion of a "where's the toilet?" joke in the Fortress of Solitude is way more tasteless than anything Lester inserted into this film.

These are the major flaws. What's good then? The main benefit comes in the restoration of the Brando footage. Although I didn't think so much of the scene where Kal-El argues with his father and ends up losing his powers (given how petulant he is in this scene I just have to wonder once again what exactly he learnt in those 14 years of philosophical tutelage dad Jor-El gave him), the scene where Jor-el gives up his existence in the spiritual plane to give his son back his powers is a genuinely moving one and well worth the restoration of this cut. Couple this with the final scene where Kal-el, now bereft of his father's presence even in spirit, destroys the last bridge of memory to his heritage, the Fortress of Solitude, and you realize the grander and more somber arc of Superman's story as envisioned by Donner and his screenwriter buddy Tom Mankiewicz.