Superman II – Review

Welcome back Superman! Also, shockingly, welcome back negative zone floating mirror criminals! Count them… three super villains! Total surprise. They came back. But, so did most of the gang from the first movie and some goofy humor.

General Zod (Stamp) and his top dogs Ursa and Non were thrown into purgatory by poppa supes Jor-El on Krypton before it mimicked Alderaan. In case you forgot all of the origin from the first movie, well, this one gives it all again and then kicks off a similar credits sequence to the first with some nice flashbacks.

Clark Kent (Reeve) hits The Daily Planet offices and Perry White (Cooper) gives him a heads up that terrorists in Paris have a hydrogen bomb and hostages at the Eiffel Tower. Lois (Kidder) is deep in it already, and this makes Clark wonder if she may be in danger. He takes off.

Lois hits the scene and sneaks into the Tower stairs, deciding she is going to resolve this shit herself, hydrogen bomb be damned. Eventually Supes saves the day and ditches the bomb in space, where it explodes, freeing Zod, cause we needed a plot for this movie. Oh, and Luthor (Hackman) is in prison and wants back in the mix, and to regain his hair.

This sequel is pretty fun and Superman’s space bed is epic. If you liked the first one, keep going as this movie is faster paced with less introductory exposition and more Superman action and hijinks. Hopefully Clark remembers that Lois wants freshly squeezed orange juice before she cracks his secret identity.

There is a certain part in the movie where I don’t understand a Superman clothing change, and strangely enough this is semi-explained in the alternate cut of the film.

Most of this film was initially shot at the same time as the 1978 original movie, however a falling out between producing parties led to the director Richard Donner leaving the project, which complicated matters. This sequel went through large reshoots by incoming director Richard Lester. Years later, a cut more akin to the Richard Donner vision was released in 2006.