"Come to me, Superman! I defy you! Come and kneel before Zod! Zod!" - General Zod
"Guy's a clod. Promises were made, gifts exchanged. I gotta hand it to you, you know. You always told the truth, a guy always knew where he stood with you." - Lex Luthor
"When? Where the hell have you been, mac, on a desert island?" - Diner owner to Superman
This was always my favorite superhero movie as a little dude. For some reason, 3 evil super beings with the same powers as Superman was such an awesome concept. They had the smart general (Zod), the hot female (Ursa), and the oversized brute (Non). Now the version I watched of this for this review was the much talked about "Richard Donner" cut. This cut is a good bit longer with more Marlon Brando as Jor-El and extended footage in the beginning telling more about the Phantom Zone, etc. I think its quite a superior film (no pun intended) to the Richard Lester cut from 1980. No reason to go into the details of why the switched and all that, you can look that up for yourself online. What we have here is a classic film where Superman is not only up against his biggest threat yet, but dealing with his desire to BE a human. Its a well written gem of a flick. I present to you Christopher Reeve, Gene Hackman, Marlon Brando, and Margot Kidder in SUPERMAN II !!!
This film is a very different film than the first cut that everyone has come to love. Even so, its still a better film. It makes more sense. See Richard Donner also directed the first SUPERMAN movie. They were actually filming them at the same time, so his sense of storyline was completely thrown out when he was let go from the movie. He had filmed 75% of it as well, so when they reconstructed this, it was as his vision was originally intended. Now the flick starts off with Jor-El banishing Zod, Ursa, and Non to the Phantom Zone. Then when Krypton exploded, the explosion sent their weird flying disc prison on the same trajectory as baby Kal-el's spaceship. Then we get a flashback scene from the first movie, showing the missile that Superman sent into space is what actually broke the super villains prison allowing them to escape.
So the villains head toward the moon and wreak havoc on some astronauts stationed there. Then they make their way toward Earth. Meanwhile Lex Luthor is making his escape from jail by hot air balloon and Lois is trying to trick Clark into revealing that he is really Superman. She tries by jumping out of the Daily Planet window but Clark saves her and makes her feel foolish. Then they are sent on assignment to Niagra Falls and she finally tricks him into revealing himself to her. Then they fall in love and Lois begins to go crazy because she can't tell anybody about who he is. Zod arrives on "planet Houston" and destroys a hick town. They fly to Washington and make the president "kneel before Zod". Everyone keeps telling Zod he'll be sorry when Superman comes to town. So Zod challenges Superman and its broadcast over all televisions the world over and they await his answer.
Superman doesn't hear any of this shit though, because he takes Lois up to his house at the Fortress of Solitude and spends the night with her. Then he asks the ghost of his dad what he should do. He decides to become a regular old pecker head shitty human and takes a bath in red Kryptonite. Bad timing. Then they start to head home and Clark gets the shit kicked out of himself in a redneck bar. Then he sees something on television about Zod taking over the Earth. Now he really feels like a shithead. So he goes back to his dad's ghost and his dad's ghost is like,"yeah yeah, I knew this was gonna happen", and he tells him he has to physically USE all the rest of the power in the Fortress to make it happen. And basically after it was done, he could never talk to him again. So he does that. Meanwhile, Lex had flown there and figured out that the fortress was Superman's house, and he then flies to the White House to exchange that pertinent information to the big 3 baddies for control over Australia.
SO... Zod decides Superman's true weakness is his love for the humans. Ursa suggests to him that they take the one he loves the most. So Luthor takes them to the Daily Planet to kidnap Lois. Then Superman shows up to whoop ass. But after a lengthy battle, decides that 3 of them with powers equally matched to his own was too much. He was outnumbered and couldn't win. So he flies off towards the Fortress. Superman knowing that Luthor was a treacherous jerk, let's him in on the chamber that takes away your power's secrets. Luthor rats him out according to plan, so they put Superman in the chamber, but ho-ho! Supes was too smart for them. He reversed the polarity on the chamber and with all of their powers drained, Supes makes light work of them. Then he pulls that reverse time trick and sends them back to the Phantom Zone, Luthor back to jail, and Lois back to not knowing who the Hell he really is. Which was just fine with him. Should you? DUHHHHH.
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