Product Details

• Rating: PG (Parental Guidance Suggested)
• Aspect ratio: 2.35:1
• Number of discs: 1
• Format: PAL
• Original language: English, French
• Subtitled in: French, English, Spanish, Portuguese, Italian, German, Arabic, Dutch, American Sign Language, Bulgarian, Romanian
• Running time: 127 minutes

Amazon.com essential video
Director Richard Lester (A Hard Day's Night) took over the franchise with this first sequel in the series, though the film doesn't look much like his usual stylish work. (Superman III is far more Lesteresque.) Still, there is a lot to like about this movie, which finds Superman grappling with the conflict between his responsibilities as Earth's savior and his own needs of the heart. Choosing the latter, he gives up his powers to be with Lois Lane (Margot Kidder), but the timing is awful: three renegades from his home planet, Krypton, are smashing up the White House, aided by the mocking Lex Luthor (Gene Hackman). The film isn't nearly as ambitious as its predecessor, but the accent on relationships over special effects (not that there aren't plenty of them) is very satisfying. --Tom Keogh

Customer Reviews

AMAZON PLEASE GIVE THE RICHARD DONNER VERSION A SEPERATE LINK!!!
I'm really begging with Amazon to not confuse The new Superman II: The Richard Donner Cut, with the original Superman II: Richard Lester version because both of these are completely different films & should be treated as such.

1st thing people who truely think that Richard Lester is a great director & did a great job on SII need a reality check. All he did was take an already great script done by SUPERMAN I creative consultant Tom Mankiewicz, and 70-80% shot by Richard Donner shift around some stuff & make the film (all the actors were there for him, a donkey could have done it).

Lester would also add some unneeded slap stick humor (e.g. Metropolis fight scene where the three super villains use their super breath to blow out the Metropolis civilians where after an unneeded and very cheesey moment of slap stick bad homage to Charlie Chaplin stances take place & the earlier scene of when the supervillains are introduced by duking it out in the American wild west???).

Lester would be found out as a director in the poor Superman III where his slap stick humour would basically ruin the film but not to say his version of Superman II is bad but it just doesn't compare to the brilliance of number 1, especially after repeated watchings II just seems like a poor boys substiute!!

Donner on the other hand had completely different thinking for II it was meant to be on the same epic scale & feeling a I & in quality terms match it if not even better it. Also around 30% of the Lester film uses Donner's footage whilst in the SII:DC it uses around 80% footage & will feel like a completely different film.

Having already seen some of the new scenes, e.g. Lois jumping out of the window of The Daily Planet to proove that Clark is Superman, The fight with The Super Villains over Metropolis, some of the new Brando scenes, & Lois's tearful farewell, it's obvious that this film will be entirely different from the original theatrical realise of SII & should be treated as an entirely different film not put as if it's just a normal directors cut of an already realised film!!!

Please Amazon originally the link was seperate so why change it???

1/3 GREAT, 2/3 JUST OK
Much of Superman II was filmed simultaneously with the first movie. The original plan was to have Superman I end with a cliffhanger: The nuclear missile that Lex Luthor set for Hackensack New Jersey, which Superman diverted into outer space, explodes, shattering the Phantom Zone and setting the three Kryptonian criminals free. Then the action would freeze-frame, and the screen would flash with "Next Year, Superman II."

Time constraints and studio politics put an end to that scenario. As the first movie was hastily completed to meet the release date, Superman II was put on hold. Then, director Richard Donner was fired, and replaced with Richard Lester. Even though 70% of the second film was complete, much of Donner's footage was reshot by Lester. In the final film, about one-third of the remaining footage is Donner's. All scenes with Gene Hackman, Valerie Perrine, Ned Beatty, or E. G. Marshall were shot by Donner. In addition, the scene at the diner where Clark gets attacked was shot by Donner. As sequences for Superman II were filmed as much as two years apart from each other, there are glaring continuity problems in the film. Lester set a different tone than Donner, opting for slapstick humor over the verisimilitude of the first movie. Also, because of legal difficulties, all footage with Marlon Brando was removed, including a moving scene where Jor-El sacrifices his remaining spirit to return Superman's powers (rather like God touching the hand of Adam). Anyone who has seen the original script for Superman II knows it would have been a better film if Donner had remained at the helm.

So, how is Lester's Superman II? Pretty impressive overall. There is ample character development, particularly in the Lois/Clark/Superman love triangle, and plenty of action to keep the viewer satisfied. The visuals are mostly on the same level as the first movie, although the destruction of the Phantom Zone and the defacing of Mount Rushmore look pretty cheap. John Williams' excellent score is cannibalized by Ken Thorne, conducting what sounds like a high school orchestra. So, overall, while entertaining, the movie lacks the epic scope of the first film, and is far less memorable.

The letterboxed DVD looks fine is unspectacular. The sound is flat and unimpressive. Warner has packaged the DVD in their usual cheap snapper case.

Special edition coming of classic live-action comic strip entertainment
It's very rare for a sequel to eclipse its predecessor (The GODFATHER and X-MEN series feature examples along with THE EMPIRE STRIKES BACK and SPIDERMAN 2) but this movie comes close to being a better picture than the classic superhero movie that preceded it two years earlier, almost - but not quite.
Perhaps it is the fact that the two were originally shot back-to-back (before the Salkind brothers fired Director Richard Donner and brought in Richard Lester) but this movie shares a tone and panache of the first movie in the series that the subsequent films lacked. I suppose it is no surprise then that the upcoming (at the time of writing) big screen SUPERMAN RETURNS takes place after this entry thereby totally negating the slapstick SUPERMAN III and horrendous SUPERMAN IV.
At the beginning of the first movie we saw Superman's father Jor-El prosecute three criminals and send them out hurtling into space. These events are recounted at the beginning of this movie, and I still remember watching the opening in a darkened theater one night in the early 1980s, wondering if the first movie had accidentally been placed in to the projector.
These three criminals are led by the excellent Terence Stamp (who would later provide the voice of Jor-El in the SMALLVILLE television series) as Zod and included the very sexy Sarah Douglas as Ursa. They subsequently make their way the Moon and after decimating an Apollo crew head for Earth marveling at their superhuman abilities.
Meanwhile on Earth, after rescuing Lois Lane (played by the very appealing Margot Kidder who was the focus of a schoolboy crush on my part) from a hostage situation in Paris, Clark Kent is having an increasingly difficult time trying to keep his identity a secret. Then when Lois learns the truth the two get together, which forces Clark to turn in his powers - just at the very moment that Zod and his companions are arriving to wreak havoc.
Add to the mix Gene Hackman reprising his role as Lex Luthor (who has some of the best lines in the movie) and what follows is a highly entertaining action movie. Will Clark be able to get his powers back? Will he be able to defeat three with the same powers he has and will he be able to exact some payback on that guy at the diner who beat him up when he was powerless Clark Kent? My favorite scenes in the movie are those that center on the battle between Superman and the three supervillains as they duke it out on the streets of Metropolis (actually filmed in England on the studio backlot). The special effects look a little hokey today and the modelwork is very noticeable in some scenes, but this is good old fashioned fun and probably one of the best comic book movies ever committed to celluloid.

SPECIAL EDITION DUE IN 2006
Unfortunately the same attention was not given to this movie as its predecessor when the series was released on DVD. Whereas the first movie featured googles of documentaries and even an audio commentary (both worth checking out), this movie's DVD release was limited to the theatrical trailer. With this in mind it might be worth waiting for the special edition planned for June 2006.
The special edition will feature the theatrical version of Superman II on one disc, along with option to play deleted footage and two different commentary tracks, one with Lester and the second with actors Margot Kidder, Sarah Douglas, and Gene Hackman. The second disc will feature the restored Richard Donner version, along with a commentary track by Donner (who was so good, entertaining and informative on the SUPERMAN DVD.) I notice that another reviewer has already provided a comprehensive list of the cuts made so I will not repeat them, but I am particularly looking forward to seeing more of Ursa and Luthor.