Superman II: The Richard Donner Cut – Review

A vision of the original script and structure by Richard Donner is presented in this alternate version of Superman II. It is quite different, despite featuring the same overall villains and plot.

Jor-El (Brando) pronounces judgment on Zod (Stamp), Ursa and Non for their hatreds and insidious plots. They are banished to the negative zone, with Jor-El held responsible for this act by Zod who vows unending revenge on his line. The trio floats through the cosmos while Superman grows on Earth.

Sprinkled moments of the first film play out over the first bunch of minutes, reflecting the negative zone villains’ movements while Superman (Reeve) deals with Lex Luthor (Hackman) and his plots against humanity. Superman saves the planet, shooting Lex Luthor’s missile into space as in the first movie’s climax. However, this time we wind up seeing that he has sent it on an unfortunate collision course with three notorious negative zone villains, freeing them. What are the odds.

This produces similar results to the theatrical cut, but it sets up a completely different experience with different scenes, plot beats and even actors in this version of Superman II.

Lois (Kidder) gets praise on her ‘Luthor in the Clank’ story, and then Clark rolls in late, never around when Superman is. This clicks something in Lois’ head as she quickly draws on a Superman picture in the paper, adding a hat and glasses to liken it to Clark. Hmmmm… she thinks.

Clark bumbles into Perry’s (Cooper) office, and Lois chides him for having all these convenient excuses. The duo is assigned a story to pose as newlyweds in Niagara Falls and research the honeymoon racket. Some of the local hotels are bilking poor young kids for all they are worth and the paper can expose it. Real human interest stuff, make your Aunt Hattie cry her eyes out.

As Clark plays dumb about Lois’ Superman revelation, she jumps out The Daily Planet window to prove her point. Meanwhile, Lex Luthor attempts not to murder his comic relief buddy Otis (Beatty) and astronauts have odd sightings on the moon. Again, mostly the plot is the same with background structure, but the playout definitely differs.

I have to say, I like the theatrical version just fine and it is a good sequel, but the script and dialogue in this version is a tad sharper to me. Lois uses her brains a bit more and even builds up Clark. The general order of story events fits a bit more logically also. This cut feels a touch more serious, as well as a more natural extension of the first movie, but the theatrical cut still has some fun moments too. Overall, the two movies remain interesting comparison pieces, and there is no weird clothing change in the Donner version.