Saw the Donner Cut of Superman 2 (thanks, Chris!) Apparently Donner was the director of Superman 2 but was fired due to "friction" and some other dude who had never read any comics in his life was brought on. This new dude decided to film it like a comic book, with flat sets and static shots. (I suppose if he were to adapt a radio play he would have had a mostly black screen, maybe with a photo of a radio?) This monumentally stupid decision resulted in a confusing, campy, and milquetoast film. A few decades later, when the Superman franchise was attempting another reboot, the old Donner footage was recovered and re-released and this is what I saw just now.
The result is much more grand. There's a majesty to the film, slightly dated though it may be. The plot is that three evil Kryptonians escape from their space-prison-postcard and wreck some havoc on Earth. They've been spared by soft-hearted Kryptonians who do not believe in capital punishment, but fortunately humans have no such squeamishness. Supes meanwhile is having a more serious relationship with Lois and, in keeping with the religious allegory of the first film, must become human if he's to love her. So a now-powerless Supes must fight three evil Super-people. Which he does.
The film is great fun. It's very comic-book-y in style (but not, thank god, in format) and has the same self-seriousness as the best comic books. There's a bit of camp, but it's true, unintentional camp, not winking, too-cool-for-itself bullshit. The cut is a little jittery at parts, the intro for example, is a whirlwind of back-story and details (Supes' costume is (for no reason) established as having been provided by his mother, for example.) It's a little more impressionistic and montage-y than the rest of the film, but I have no problems with a lack of polish here and there. If anything, it feels like a breath of fresh air coming before an otherwise perfectly straightforward film. A nice little film.
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