SUPERMAN II: THE RICHARD DONNER CUT: There He Goes, Kid. Up, Up, and Away.

Superman II: The Richard Donner Cut (2006 special edition of the 1980 theatrical cut) – Directed by Richard Donner (and Richard Lester, uncredited) – Starring Christopher Reeve, Gene Hackman, Margot Kidder, Terence Stamp, Jackie Cooper, Sarah Douglass, Jack O’Halloran, Ned Beatty, Mark McClure, Valerie Perrine, Clifton James, E.G. Marshall, and John Ratzenberger.

It takes about five seconds for Richard Donner’s cut of SUPERMAN II to improve on Richard Lester’s theatrical release.

Now, I’m not going to spend this review bashing Richard Lester; there’s usually too many hands involved in films to lay the blame or credit at one person’s doorstep, and this is even more true in the case of SUPERMAN II, where issues between the Salkinds (the film’s producers) and Donner led to Donner’s dismissal during filming. SUPERMAN and SUPERMAN II were shot together but production issues during the shoot forced Donner to switch direction late in the process. Instead of filming both movies together, he had to concentrate on finishing the first SUPERMAN film and eschewing the second, even though estimates place SUPERMAN II at 80% complete. Donner finished the shooting of SUPERMAN and then was not retained to come back and finish off II, a task that was given to Richard Lester by the Salkinds. Reasons for Donner’s dismissal include him allegedly taking too long and spending too much money, and his reported unhappiness for the Salkinds deciding they weren’t going to pay Marlon Brando to use his footage (which was already filmed) in the sequel.

Lots of Donner-shot footage never made the theatrical cut, but parts of it would show up from time-to-time in various re-cuts the Salkinds produced for both broadcast television. Finally, in 2006, Richard Donner was allowed to create a new Director’s Cut and much of the footage he shot that never made the theatrical cut was reinstated. Full credit for this new process goes to Michael Thau and his team, who are the people who actually did all the dirty work of finding everything from all that old footage and then cutting it together.

And let me take a moment to say this to Thau and his crew. As a guy who’s never been a huge Superman fan, thank you, thank you, thank you for doing this, because THE DONNER CUT is a fantastic movie.

The result of all their work is something quite unique, as SUPERMAN II: THE RICHARD DONNER CUT is an honest-to-goodness Director’s Cut that’s noticeably different from the theatrical cut. This isn’t a case of 10 or 15 minutes of extended action for the scenes we’ve already seen or even a deleted scene or two being restored. No, THE DONNER CUT is a very different film despite still telling the same story. Where Lester’s film included a dimension of campiness, the DONNER CUT finds a tone (as one would expect) much closer to the original SUPERMAN. Donner creates a story that has that same bit of old time comic book whimsy to it.

Much like SUPERMAN, THE DONNER CUT is a 1940s comic book told in the setting of the 1970s. There are plenty of things that don’t make sense from a realist’s perspective, such as when Lex Luthor (Gene Hackman) escapes from prison in a hot air balloon being flown by Miss Teschmacher (Valerie Perrine) and winds up at the Fortress of Solitude two days later without any sign of being chased by the cops. It’s literally like all the cops in Metropolis went, “He got away in a balloon? We’ll never find him, so why try?”

Donner could have adopted the same attitude, of course. The theatrical cut of SUPERMAN II was released back in 1980 and even though I have plenty of problems with it, it’s a film that’s still held in relatively high regard.

I’m glad he didn’t because SUPERMAN II: THE RICHARD DONNER CUT is an exceptional film, and a true worthy sequel to SUPERMAN: THE MOVIE.

The changes start right at the start and set a much more serious mood to the film. Marlon Brando’s performance as Jor-El has been put back into the film, and adds a much needed sense of gravitas to the film. Leave it to Brando that when he does camp he still ends up as the most serious dude in the film. The inclusion of Jor-El leads to the best scene in either film, when Superman is making his declaration to his father (via the Krypton computer that allows him to speak to a hologram of pops) about being in love with Lois. What comes off as weak and pathetic in the first film is delivered with much more force this time around. We get an entirely different scene, thanks to the inclusion of Jor-El instead of his mother. Superman is forced to make his case in clearer terms, and his father doesn’t weakly ask him if he’s sure about what he’s doing, but challenges him.

I love it. Superman … Clark … Kal-El … Jor-El forces all of them to come to terms with what he’s doing. Jor-El is less concerned with making sure this is what his son wants as he is making clear what he’s doing. It’s a brilliant scene; Jor-El largely rips into his son. He does it with strong words and a quiet voice, but it’s a verbal beatdown.

And while all of this is happening, Lois is standing way up high in the Fortress, dressed only in Superman’s shirt and some white socks. Now … I’m not the biggest Margot Kidder fan in the world, but if you’ve got this shot filmed, you put it in the damn movie. And not just because it’s a better shot, showing Lois’ reticence to interfere at the unbelievable words she’s hearing come out of Superman’s mouth.

Supes still gives up being Supes and still goes to the diner to get his ass handed to him. The diner scene is the same but because the scene preceding it was treated Superman’s decision with such gravitas, the physical pain he feels when Rocky beats him up carries with it a greater weight as well. Added to the film is a new sequence at the Fortress of Solitude when Superman goes back. In the Lester cut, the emphasis is more on Clark’s painful journey through the snow to return to him Kryptonian headquarters, but here the emphasis is on Jor-El giving him one last lecture. He tells his son that he anticipated this change of heart and he’s willing to sacrifice the last of his energy to give his son his powers back. Clark is all weepy and whiny, and it’s really good acting by Reeve who manages to make Superman look strong to the rest of the world, but reveals himself as a child before Jor-El.

And this is really a film about Jor-El’s expectations for his son. In SUPERMAN, Big Blue chooses to listen to Jonathan Kent’s words instead of Jor-El’s, but this film is all about the folly of taking that decision too far. Jonathan isn’t even mentioned here as a philosophical alternative, and while that’s a bit of a shame, it does set up a nice difference between the two films: Jonathan’s words help Clark become a man, while Jor-El’s words show him what it means to be one.

The worst part of the theatrical cut becomes one of the best parts of THE DONNER CUT: Lois and Clark’s relationship. While the original version has Lois as a shrieking harpy, this version sees a much friendlier, inquisitive Lois. Instead of figuring out that Clark is Superman at Niagra Falls, she does it right at the start of the movie in the Daily Planet‘s newsroom. When Perry (Jackie Cooper) tells Lois and Clark they’re headed to Niagra (a scene that wasn’t even in the theatrical cut), Lois is all for it and Clark is the one opposed to the trip. In this version, Lois doesn’t dare Clark to reveal himself by jumping over Niagra Falls, but by jumping out the window in Perry’s office, and this time, Clark doesn’t look for ways to hide his identity for her while she goes careening down the rapids, but rather uses his speed in front of everyone (granted, they can’t see him) to run downstairs and use his super breath to slow her descent. He manages to save her without making it seem as if he’s put his identity first.

The love story between Lois and Clark is so much better developed here – it’s not just that so much of the hokiness and shrillness has gone but that they seem on a much more level playing field. Donner (or Thau, it’s probably more correct to say) has included the original screen test between Reeve and Lois that takes place in a hotel room. He enters and she decides that she’s going to test her theory about Clark being Superman a second time, except this time instead of putting her life at risk, she’s going to put his in jeopardy. She pulls a gun on Clark and fires, and what happens next is Reeve at his best. The undamaged Clark takes off his glasses and straightens his stance, and lets Lois know she’s right.

“But if you were wrong,” he reminds her, “Clark would be dead.”

“Blanks,” she tells him.

The ending is vastly different, too. After he’s defeated Zod (Terence Stamp) and Company, he flies Lois back to Metropolis, where they have a teary goodbye. There’s no magic kiss memory wipe this time around, either. Instead, Supes spins the world backwards again to a point before Lois has figured out his identity. It’s a bit repetitive since they used this bit in the first movie, but it’s not like they could re-shoot the ending, and what they’ve gone with here is a much more satisfying ending – even if it involves Superman mind-wiping the entire planet instead of one woman.

Yeah, I know. But it works because it plays into the nostalgic comic book fantasy vibe that Donner is so good at delivering.

But the moment here when Lois, teary-eyed and almost cried out, watches Superman leave and comes to grips with the fact that they can’t be together is just masterfully played. “There he goes, kid,” she tells herself. “Up, up, and away.”

Brilliant. Absolutely brilliant.

THE DONNER CUT is an amazingly good movie. If you haven’t seen it and you liked the first SUPERMAN film, then you really must see this version as soon as possible. Even if you like the Lester version, I can’t imagine anyone who liked the original Donner film not liking this one, too. Donner gets great performances from everyone – especially Reeve and Hackman – that this film is a real joy to watch. As I said up top, I don’t want to come down too harshly on Lester because he did the job he was hired to do, but there isn’t anything about THE DONNER CUT that’s noticeably inferior to the original theatrical release. In the “SUPERMAN II: Restoring the Vision” documentary on the Blu-Ray, Donner laments that he and Tom Mankiewicz weren’t able to keep telling Superman stories with Reeve and Kidder because he thinks that would have been something to see.

He’s right.

SUPERMAN II: First You Must Find Him, and Lex Baby is the Only One Who Knows Where He Is

Superman II (1980) – Directed by Richard Lester (and Richard Donner; uncredited) – Starring Christopher Reeve, Gene Hackman, Margot Kidder, Terence Stamp, Jackie Cooper, Sarah Douglass, Jack O’Halloran, Ned Beatty, Mark McClure, Valerie Perrine, Clifton James, E.G. Marshall, and John Ratzenberger.

SUPERMAN II is an insanely frustrating movie that is, in large parts, quite brilliant, and in smaller parts, quite maddeningly daft.

In my review of SUPERMAN: THE MOVIE, I noted how I wasn’t a big fan of that movie as a kid, but now really dig it. It’s not quite the opposite with SUPERMAN II, because the parts I loved about this movie as a kid I still love, but where I was willing to accept the downer parts then, I have very little patience for them now. The good parts of SUPERMAN II (and I’m reviewing the Richard Lester-directed version today; I’ll get to the re-cut Richard Donner version next) are so good that I suffer through the bad parts, but where the first film offered a coherent vision of Golden Age comics brought to life in the modern cinema, SUPERMAN II is a disjointed mess that introduces far too much camp and far too much melodrama into the mix, and the end result is a film that sits right on the edge of working beautifully, but ends up only working adequately.

What frustrates me most about SUPERMAN II is the way the film toys with my emotions. When Zod (Terence Stamp) or Lex Luthor (Gene Hackman) are on the screen, I become convinced that this movie is going to be awesome. But then Clark Kent (Christopher Reeve) and Lois Lane (Margot Kidder) pop up to do their milquetoast/harpy routine and I become convinced the movie is going over Niagra Falls.

I’ll gladly rank Stamp’s performance as General Zod alongside any other performance by an actor playing a super villain, but there’s just not enough here in terms of character to make Zod the equal of Heath Ledger’s Joker or Alfred Molina’s Doctor Octopus. Zod is a bit of a one-trick pony who is unbelievably preoccupied with making people “Kneel before Zod.” That Stamp makes Zod so memorable simply by carrying himself with such a grand sense of bored superiority is quite amazing, given that the movie opens with him and his henchmen trapped in the Phantom Zone, and that they only escape because Superman sends a missile into space to save the Eiffel Tower.

Zod, Ursa (Sarah Douglas), and Non (Jack O’Halloran) are freed from the Phantom Zone near the moon, and they proceed to kill an international team of astronauts, just because that’s what they do. They decide these humans represent an easy conquest and so decide to go to the planet Houston, because that’s who the astronaut in the command module was talking to. This idea of Zod getting the planet name wrong works very well in the film because it adds a bit of levity without diminishing his character. The three of them end up in East Houston, Idaho, which they proceed to take over due to their new, yellow-sun based powers.

It’s in East Houston where the film starts to let the Phanton Zone escapees down a bit. They take themselves super seriously, but the locals are, well, a bit of the yokel variety. In fact, if they didn’t tell you the action was taking place in Idaho, you might think (as I would) that we were in rural Mississippi or Georgia, given the presence of the town sheriff, played by the consummate “Southern Sheriff” actor, Clifton James. Fighting the locals is one thing, but when the military shows up, things start to fall apart because if Joe Arm Wrestler wants to act like a doofus it’s not a big deal, but when the military acts like a bunch of incompetent extras, it hurts the film’s effectiveness.

Like SUPERMAN, SUPERMAN II has stuff happen just because the story needs it to happen – so when Zod, Ursa, and Non attack the White House, they’re almost instantly given control of the entire world. This kind of storytelling worked better in SUPERMAN because there was a nostalgic quality to Donner’s film, which felt like a large modern fairy tale. SUPERMAN II does not have that same quality to it, even if the script offers up a few of those moments that you’re just supposed to accept and go along with.

One thing that SUPERMAN II does exceptionally well is in its use of multiple villains. Last film offered up Luthor and two henchmen, but Otis (Ned Beatty) and Miss Teschmacher (Valerie Perrine) are barely in II. They’re not missed as Luthor’s relationship with the Kryptonians is magnificent to watch. Luthor reveals himself to be able to think on the fly. He finds a way to insert himself into Zod’s takeover (he wants control of Australia), and he continually makes himself useful after Zod accepts his help and then tries to dismiss him. Hackman imbues Luthor with a bit of hucksterism, but you can also see Lex always working the angles to his own benefit.

The film’s best scene comes at the end, when Zod tries to dismiss Luthor once again while at the Fortress of Solitude. Luthor cozies up to Superman, who tells him to get the Kryptonians in the special pod that robbed him of his powers earlier in the film, but then Luthor betrays Superman and the Kryptonians order him into the container. When Luthor turns the machine on, it’s the Kryptonians outside the container who get their powers stripped.

It’s a fantastic ending. I love that the climax to the film depicts Superman winning by out-thinking rather than out-punching his opponents.

The worst part of the movie, however, is the idiotic Clark/Lois arc. For reasons known only to him, Perry White (Jackie Cooper) sends Lois and Clark – two of his very best reporters – to go undercover at a cheap motel at Niagra Falls to determine if the hotel is running a scam on its guests. We have to watch Clark fumble around and awkwardly hit on Lois, and Lois stomp around and complain about how this story isn’t going to win her the Pulitzer.

It’s brutal to watch. Absolutely brutal.

Lois decides that Clark is Superman and puts that theory to the test by jumping into the fast rapids at the Falls. Clark does not switch outfits and jump in to save her, which is kinda awesome. One imagines he would out himself if Lois’ life was really in danger, but it’s not so he lets the rapids push her forwards until Clark can realistically help her out of the water. His secret identity secure, he then trips into a fire and outs himself. This leads to him flying Lois to the Fortress of Solitude, where he almost instantly decides he’s so in love with Lois that he has to step inside the magic box and have his powers stripped away from him.

I don’t really understand why he has to strip himself of his powers to be Lois’ boyfriend, but the film apparently thought it needed some falsely elevated drama. On the good side, a de-powered Clark gets his ass kicked at a diner, but on the bad side, when he decides he has to get his powers back to help defeat Zod, he walks back to the Fortress. Alone.

Yup. Lois doesn’t go with him. He does’t rent a car. Or plane. Or team of sled dogs. He just walks through the bitter cold, all by himself, because …

Because it looks better on screen, one supposes.

SUPERMAN II is a disjointed mess, but Stamp and Hackman make it worth not only a watch, but repeated viewings. The film demonstrates why it’s important to have a consistent vision. What the film lacks beyond that consistent vision is Superman. After Clark gets his powers back, all of the Superman vs. Bad Guys action is decent.

There’s another questionable ending. In the previous film, Clark spun back time to save Lois, and here, he erases her memory of Clark and Superman being the same person. That’s creepy. And wrong. Maybe even more wrong than allowing the Kryptonians to fall to their death at the end of the movie.

I like SUPERMAN II but there are parts that are incredibly tough to watch.

BRAVE: I’ll Be Shooting for My Own Hand

Brave (2012) – The 13th Pixar Animated Feature – Directed by Mark Andrews and Brenda Chapman – Starring Kelly Macdonald, Julie Walters, Billy Connolly, Emma Thompson, Kevin McKidd, Craig Ferguson, Robbie Coltrane, and John Ratzenberger.

In seemingly every conversation I’ve had about BRAVE over the past few months, or in things I’ve heard people say in person, on Facebook or in the theater, the idea has come up that Meridia (Kelly Macdonald) signals some kind of dramatic shift in the “Disney Princess.” People have said things like, they’ll “finally allow a Disney Princess into their house,” or that Disney has “finally made a positive Princess.” That’s all fine and good – it’s not my intent to tell you how to raise your kids, or point out there there are obviously several Disney Princess movies you’ve either not seen or critically misread.

I am here to say that I’ve just about had it with Meridia being called a Disney Princess. I know this probably matters to almost no one and I realize that given Disney owns Pixar that whatever Pixar does is Disney’s, but I like to think that there’s still a separation between what it means to be a “Disney film” and what it means to be a “Pixar film,” even if John Lasseter is now Chief Creative Officer for Walt Disney Animation and some college kid is probably already or soon to get paid to walk around Disney World in a Meridia costume. Perhaps over time a Disney film and a Pixar film will simply become the same thing, but for now, they’re different.

Disney acknowledges this, too. Despite all the talk about Meridia joining the ranks (as of BRAVE’s release, the Wikipedia page for Disney Princesses even mentions its expected, so you know it’s true), Disney’s official Princess site has yet to list Meridia among the ranks.

All of this Disney Princessification of Meridia rubs me wrong, too, because it completely ignores the very excellent TANGLED from two years ago, a film that wonderfully embraced the Disney Princess past while admitting its flaws and decidedly pushing it forward, too. Rapunzel is a great character and TANGLED is a great movie.

In fact, it’s a better movie than BRAVE.

That is not to say that BRAVE is a bad movie, because it is not a bad movie. It’s a good but not great movie. It’s enjoyable and moving, but it also feels oddly derivative and small. With all of the sweeping vistas and epic set-up, the movie’s ultimate focus on a daughter and her mom learning to put aside their differences and find a middle ground – while the mom has been transformed into a bear (we’ll get to it) – is touching but … lacking.

None of this is Meridia’s fault. The Pixar braintrust (so many people write, produce, direct, and generally have a say in these Pixar films it’s hard to think of them as belonging to a singular individual) has created a really great character. The daughter of a Scottish King, Meridia is a Middle Ages version of a tomboy caught by societal expectations.

Meaning, her mother.

All Meridia wants to do is shoot arrows and ride her horse Angus. All her mother wants her to do is be a proper princess – act like a lady, wear fancy clothes, tame her wild hair, and get married to protect the unity of the four clans. Queen Elinor (Emma Thompson) arranges for a contest to be held to marry Meridia off to one of the first-born sons of the other clans. King Fergus (Billy Connolly) is the kind of king who wants to not be bothered with unpleasant things; he loves his daughter and encourages her wild ways, but also doesn’t want to anger Elinor.

The relationship between Elinor and Fergus is a bit of a letdown because it feels like they’ve come out of Sitcom Casting 101 – he’s the loud, boorish, infantile, man and she’s the woman who’s way too good for him. I expect a bit more out of Pixar than to have their characters feel like discarded ideas for Tim Allen, James Belushi, and Kevin James sitcoms. (There’s a hint that the film is going to get into why these women marry these losers when Elinor indicates her own betrothal was not the most ideal of happenings, but then it just lets it fade away.) It’s nice that the focus here is on the child-parent relationship instead of on the husband-wife relationship, but that brings up another reverberation I felt while watching BRAVE.

How To Train Your Dragon takes this same premise of parents trying to pigeonhole their kids into a societal norm, and delivers a much better film.

In the best sequence of the film, Meridia is beside herself at the idea that she’s going to be forced into a marriage with a kid who wins her at a contest, so using the rules to her advantage, she declares herself an entrant in the contest (after she declared the contest would be archery), and “wins” herself. This sends everyone into a tizzy, of course, which leads to Meridia jumping on Angus and taking off for the forest. She comes across a will-o’-the-wisp, which blaze a trail to a witch’s hut, where Meridia gets a potion that will change her mother, and therefore change her own fate.

This is how her mother gets changed into a bear. What occurs from here out is that Meridia has to care for her mother as she tries to undo the damage she’s done. There’s some really nice, really touching scenes between the two as the proper mother is forced to learn how to catch fish. They’ve only got two days to undo the spell by mending the bond that was severed, which Meridia takes to mean fixing the tapestry that she sliced into during a fight with her mom, but really means (or also means, if you prefer) that they need to mend the damage between them and realize they love each other and accept each other, and it’s actually all very touching.

But it’s just not particularly memorable. The mother-daughter bonding is quite nice, but it serves to make the King-clan stuff come off as nonsense. The clans are all mad because no one is telling them what’s going on and Fergus is rather clueless, and all of them feel completely antithetical to Meridia and Elinor in nearly every way, including the most important: the ladies feel like real people and the men feel like what would happen if Vince Vaughn, Ben Stiller, Will Ferrell, and Danny McBride decided to remake Rob Roy. The film would have been better without them.

There’s a back story here of a big, angry bear that was tricked by the witch a long, long time ago but it only really seems to exist so that we can have a big final action sequence.

All of this sounds rather negative, but this doesn’t mean that BRAVE is a bad movie. It has a good message about parents needing to let their kids find their own way, and kids needing to understand that parents are often right, and it’s a solid end that Meridia ends up re-establishing her familial bonds instead of simply gaining a boyfriend. It’s an enjoyable enough movie, with Meridia’s triplet brothers providing some comedy as they’re always playing pranks and getting turned into bears and generally being a nuisance. It’s a stunningly beautiful movie, too, as Pixar’s animation techniques remain at the top of the class. Yet, there’s something off here, too, and the result is a movie I enjoyed watching but neither thrilled me nor challenged me.

BRAVE simply feels too simple, too safe, too unoriginal.

Maybe Meridia is a better character than some of the Disney Princesses, but she’s not in an entirely different class, either. For all of her talk of being independent and not wanting to conform to society’s expectations, after her mother is turned into a bear Meridia becomes the embodiment of those stereotypical gender roles: she becomes a caregiver, she sews, she cooks, and at the end they even damsel-in-distress her, as it’s her mother (in bear form) who defeats the mean, angry bear. The movie’s message that you can be yourself and conform to expected gender roles isn’t a bad one, but it’s not exactly a rousing one, either. I enjoyed that BRAVE didn’t simply give us a “kid is right, parent is wrong” story, and that as much as she conforms to gender roles to help her mom, her mother also sees that there’s real value in Meridia’s atypical abilities to hunt and shoot and be independent.

It speaks to the high quality of Pixar’s films that BRAVE is closer to the studios worst film than its best because any company would be proud to produce BRAVE. For Pixar, though, BRAVE is a bit of a disappointment. This is a good movie, but not a great one, and Pixar’s unbelievable success has led me to expect great ones.