DC Saturdays #6 - Superman 2 (1980)

This is where the story of everyone's favourite Kryptonian gets a bit confusing. The original plan for the Superman film series was that the first two movies were actually filmed at the same time as each other with the aim being to release them within a year of each other. However, with the first film out and recording on the second one almost completed, things hit a snag - while filming was taking a break so that the actors could promote the first Superman movie, a major disagreement broke out between director Richard Donner and producers Alexander and Ilya Salkind with the result that Donner was dropped from/walked out on the project (depending on who you believe). Supposedly key to this was the wage demands of Marlon Brando who only appeared in a few scenes in the film meaning that the Salkinds were keen to cut his scenes as Jor-El which Donner was opposed to. However, the main crux of the argument was that the Salkinds wanted the films to be a lot more comedic in the vein of the '60s Batman films which Donner was opposed to (according to Christopher Reeve, one scene from the first film which Donner cut from the script was due to have Superman swooping down to apprehend a bald guy believing it to be Lex Luthor only for it to be Telly Savalas who would then say "Who loves ya baby?" and offer Superman a lollipop)

Following Donner's departure, filming didn't restart again until late '79 with several key production staff plus Gene Hackman and Margot Kidder who played Lex Luthor and Lois Lane respectively, refusing to return to the set in protest (Kidder would eventually relent but Hackman's scenes with replacement director Richard Lester would end up being shot with a body double). This means that the original cinema release of Superman 2 when it finally came out in 1980 was something of a "cut and shut" job with about a third of the film being shot by Donner in 1977 and the rest by Lester two years later. However, 20 years on, with the Superman films being restored for DVD, a whole hoard of lost footage was found which allowed a full cut of the movie as Donner had intended it to be put together and released. As such, reviewing Superman 2 is a bit difficult as there's two versions of it bouncing about - however, I've decided for the purposes of this blog to go with the Donner cut as it's generally regarded as being the better of the two with a bit less of the campy comedy that'd ultimately derail the series (as we'll see in Superman 3 and 4 in weeks ahead) and a more cohesive plot which ties in better with the first film. So, following that lengthy intro, here we go...

The film kicks off with a recap from the first film of General Zod and his sidekicks Ursa and Non being trapped in the Phantom Zone and swearing vengeance on Jor-El. We cut forward to see Krypton exploding as the trio's confinement zone (and the baby Superman's spaceship) fly away from it.

Fast forward another 30 years and we see Superman in action in the first film, taking the missile that Lex Luthor had shot at New Jersey and diverting it out into space. However, in doing so he inadvertently sets it on a collision course with the Phantom Zone causing it to explode and free Zod and his team.

Back on earth, we rejoin the Daily Planet offices and discover that Lois Lane has finally twigged that she never sees Clark Kent and Superman in the same place at the same time. After the pair's editor sends Lois and Clark undercover on a mission to uncover a honeymoon suite fraud racket at a Niagara Falls hotel, Lois decides to test the theory by jumping out of the office window, reasoning that if Clark is Superman then he'll appear and catch her. However, Clark quickly runs downstairs and stops Lois' fall by using his gale breath to slow her down before pulling the shop awning out causing her to bounce on to a fruit cart just in time to see Clark back upstairs and shouting down to check if she's alright!

We also see Lex Luthor and Otis now both serving their time in prison following the end of the first film. Lex has developed a new theory about Superman, namely that whenever he disappears off radar, he always heads north and must therefore have some sort of power base at the North Pole (he's right of course as it's where the Fortress of Soltitude is). The pair look set to be rescued when Miss Teschmacher pilots a hot air balloon over the prison wall for them to climb into but Otis is too heavy and the ladder snaps leaving him behind to be recaptured!

Lex and Tess pilot their balloon northwards and eventually come across the Fortress of Solitude. By listening through some of Clark's learning crystals, they learn about Jor-El, Krypton and Zod and his cronies. Speaking of the latter, the trio have now landed on the moon and encountered some astronauts who they rapidly dispatch by puncturing holes in two of thems' spacesuits and crushing the other one within his own lunar module. They also realise that due to the atmosphere around Earth, they now have the same superpowers as Superman does and quickly head earthwards with conquest on their minds.

Lois and Clark, meanwhile, are reconning at Niagara Falls and Lois finds her suspicions raised again when Superman suddenly appears to save a child who falls over the barrier there. She finally gets the truth out of Clark by pulling a gun on him in their hotel room - after he owns up, she reveals the gun was loaded with blanks.

Zod, Ursa and Non have landed in the midwest and after they blast the hell out of a small town there, the army are sent in. Which goes about as well as you might expect. Soon, the villains are heading straight for the White House (knocking over the Washington Monument en route) where the president surrenders and is told to "Kneel before Zod!"

The government are hoping for Superman to intervene but unbeknownst to them, he's headed to the Fortress of Soltitude with Lois and asked to be changed into a normal human being so that he can live his life with her. Jor-El asks him to reconsider but ultimately reluctantly agrees and Superman becomes plain old Clark Kent.

Driving back south, the pair stop in at a diner where Clark gets into a fight with a trucker who hassles Lois and gets seven bells kicked out of him (a genuinely shocking scene if you're used to seeing Superman dispose of villains without any trouble at all). Recovering afterwards, he sees the footage on the news of Zod calling Superman forth to kneel before him and realises what a mistake he's made. While Clark sets off back northwards to the fortress, Lois returns to Metropolis to wait for him.

Clark eventually gets back to the fortress and by using his last remaining crystal, becomes fused with Jor-El and regains his powers. Meanwhile, in Washington, Lex Luthor has tracked Zod and his team down and offers to help them track down and assassinate Superman in return for being given Australia so he can set up some new beach properties there.

Zod and Lex head for the Daily Planet offices with the aim of abducting Lois but Superman manages to catch up with them and an epic battle ensues with towers being toppled, cars being wrecked and signs being smashed. Realising that he's facing odds of three against one, Superman flies off to the North Pole hoping to lure Zod away from the city. The general and his team take off after him, kidnapping Lois and bringing Luthor along for the ride as well.

At the Palace of Soltitude, the scene is set for a showdown between Superman and Zod who has Lois hostage and offers to release her if Superman enters the red radiation chamber to lose his powers and promptly leaves never to interfere with his plans again. Superman reluctantly agrees but when he emerges to kneel before Zod, he grabs his hand and throws him into a chasm, revealing that he reversed the polarity causing Zod, Ursa and Non to lose their powers instead. Non promptly falls to his death trying to leap over a chasm at Superman and Ursa is knocked into a canyon by Lois. Lex, meanwhile, is presumably captured and returned to prison.

After a long heart-to-heart with Lois during which the pair realise they can never be together, Superman does a repeat of his heroics from the end of the first film by rewinding time by four days back to the start of the film. As such, Zod and co never escape the Phantom Zone in the first place (presumably as Superman deflects the missile) and Lois is back to having no idea that Clark and Superman are the same person.

Which just leaves one last thing for Clark to do, namely to time his return to the diner to have a rematch with Rocky the truck driver and teach him a lesson about manners this time!

It's a tough call between this and its predecessor as to which is the better film but even with the improved directors' cut which takes a lot of the slightly silly parts out of the cinematic release, I still marginally prefer the first Superman film. Even so though, Superman 2 is still a good effort which is well worth watching as a follow-up to the first film. Hackman, Reeve and Kidder again put in good turns here and Terence Stamp is his usual sinister self as Zod making for a compulsive villain. And even though the action sequences like the battle over Metropolis are very much of their time they still work well. It's also little touches like seeing a suddenly-human Superman get beaten up by a truck driver that work well here, giving this film an emotional depth that really works well. Although it's a little bit tricky to track down nowadays, I'd definitely recommend giving this version of the film a spin if you can find it...and even if not, the cinema release is perfectly serviceable as well.

Alas, by the time of the third Superman film in 1983, things were really starting to head south with Lester instilled as director right from the word go and the original campy comedy feel that the Salkinds had arguably been aiming for right from the start as opposed to the more serious tone the films had had under Donner's direction given full rein with disastrous results plus Kidder and Hackman both absent following their disagreements with the Salkinds over Donner's firing. But we'll save that angst for when we review it in a couple of weeks...

FINAL RATING: 🚀🚀🚀🚀🚀🚀🚀🚀 (8/10)

CURRENT DC FILM TABLE

1. Superman (1978) (8/10)
2. Superman 2 (1980) (8/10)
3. Batman (1966) (8/10)
4. The New Wonder Woman (1975) (5/10)
5. Superman and the Mole Men (1951) (5/10)
6. Wonder Woman (1974) (3/10)

NEXT WEEK: A quick break from the adventures of Clark Kent as we look at Wes Craven's attempt to bring Swamp Thing to the big screen

Marvel Mondays #26: Daredevil (2003)

As with a few of the noughties Marvel films, "Daredevil" was a film I saw when it came out. Well, it seemed like a surefire bet at the time - with Ben Affleck, Jon Favreau, Colin Farrell and Jennifer Garner all starring and Kevin Smith and Stan Lee involved in the making of the film, it surely had to be good, right?

Sigh...wrong. Even back then I thought this movie was awful - the plot had countless holes in it and it just felt rushed and half-finished. But, having seen the excellent "Daredevil" Netflix series that Marvel did recently (after "The Defenders", my favourite of the five Marvel "Hell's Kitchen" efforts), I did wonder - had I been too harsh on it? Had time maybe allowed it to shine through a bit more.

In a word - no. If anything, this film is actually even worse than I remember it being back in 2003. Watching the Netflix series recently probably didn't help matters as seeing how well that was done really magnifies what an ugly, badly written and flawed film this is even further.

We're introduced to Matt Murdock and and his co-lawyer in the firm Foggy Nelson (Affleck and Favreau) early on as they're shown in court having failed to convict a man who's been attacking women on the underground. Later, as the villain celebrates in a den of iniquity, Murdock's crimefighting alter ego Daredevil crashes the party, beats seven bells out of everyone then chases the ne'er-do-well down a tube station and knocks him under a train.

Okay, even just a few minutes into this film I'm angry - one of the main parts of Daredevil's character is that he never kills anyone (indeed, in the TV series, it's one of the main contentions between him, Stick and Elektra) so seeing him do this so early in the film just kills a lot of the sympathy I would normally have for the character. Afterwards, we see reporter Ben Urich talking with the police and it's revealed that Daredevil has left his signature in petrol on the platform which ignites when Urich drops his lighter on it. Again, another stupid idea - the whole thing with Daredevil is he's a secretive guy who tries to keep his two identities separate by not bringing attention to himself, having him do something as dumbass as this (is he meant to be f**king Zorro or something? Gnnnnn..) just makes him feel like a cookie-cutter action dude by numbers rather than the man of mystery that he's supposed to be.

Oh yeah, we also find out that Daredevil sleeps in a metal coffin in a church crypt. Why this is, I do not know. We also get a bit of his backstory which is pretty much the same as both the TV series and the 1989 film we reviewed a while back on here - he lost his sight after being sprayed by a toxic barrel that fell off a lorry and his dad was a boxer who was offed by the Kingpin's minions after refusing to throw a fight for them.

Murdock and Nelson are eating breakfast in a cafe when Matt gets talking to a girl at the counter - she tells him to get lost and leaves so he follows her using her scent. Way way creepier than it needs to be, especially in this post-Weinstein era. The two of them have a confrontation and exchange some martial arts playfight moves in a park after which the girl, Elektra Natchios (Garner), decides she actually loves him after he's been stalking her and hassling her for the previous ten minutes. Yeesh...like I said, just creepy and wrong.

Matt returns to his office after lunch to have Karen Page tell him that he and Nelson have been invited to a black tie ball at the Natchios family residence. That's Karen's one line in the film pretty much by the way. Prior to the ball, Elektra's father Nikolas is shown meeting with his business partner Wilson Fisk, the Kingpin, and says he wants out of Fisk's criminal activities. Fisk grants him his release but then tells Wesley, his right hand man, to send for his prize assassin to carry out a hit on Nikolas.

That assassin turns out to be Bullseye (Farrell), an Irish hitman with a target-shaped scar in the middle of his forehead. Farrell is over-acting to a ridiculous degree here, so much so that it's near impossible to take his character seriously. On the plane to New York, we see him trapped next to a woman who won't shut up so he uses his knife-throwing skills to flick a sleeping pill into her mouth. Um, yeah...

Matt and Elektra meet up at the party but as Nikolas leaves, Bullseye is shown going after him. Daredevil gives chase and manages to corner him but Nikolas is killed in the skirmish with Bullseye using a dart identical to the ones Daredevil uses. Thinking that Daredevil was responsible, Elektra swears revenge.

After working out he's been framed by getting help from an insider in the forensics lab (Kevin Smith!), Matt tracks Bullseye down to a rooftop but he is ambushed by Elektra who it turns out is a martial arts expert herself. The two fight with Ellie stabbing Matt with her katana and wounding him. She unmasks him and realises what's happened. Matt tells her the truth and she goes after Bullseye alone but he makes quick work of her, stabbing her with her own katana on the rooftop. Daredevil gets there but he's too late.

Wounded, Daredevil heads to the church to be tended to by Father Everett (the priest who he confesses his sins to) but Bullseye is hot on his trail and sets off the pipes in the church organ by hitting them with a hammer, disorientating Murdock. However, he hears a police sniper over the confusion and pulls Bullseye in the way so the bullet goes through his hand. He then pushes him off the church spire with the assassin landing on a car and being arrested.

We then see Daredevil arriving at Fisk's HQ and the two of them having a showdown. No mention of how he got there so quickly or why there weren't any guards watching the place, it just cuts straight to that bit. Talk about bad editing. The two have a fight with Daredevil initially being overpowered but eventually hitting the sprinkler system. As he can place people's positions by hearing where the water falls, it allows him to get the upper hand and break Fisk's legs before leaving him for the police to collect. Fisk threatens to blow his cover but Daredevil asks him if he can really live with the other prisoners know he was beaten in a fight by a blind man. At the end of the film, Murdock meets Ben Urich, who has guessed his identity but agrees to keep it secret as he believes Daredevil is a good protector of New York.

Oh lordy, that film was painful to watch. A combination of a terrible script, bad acting (Affleck is wooden beyond belief, Farrell is over-acting to a ridiculous level and Garner just looks lost for the majority of it), inexplicable editing meaning we spend about twice as long going through Daredevil's origins as we do on the big final fight scene with Kingpin (there's supposed to be a directors' cut out there in which the plot actually has some sort of cohesion but I have no desire to put myself through this again) and some pretty glaring differences between the comics really make this a stinker. It's a close-run thing but I'm afraid that this has officially gone to the bottom of the pile - just an absolute disaster on every level.

Despite negative reviews, Daredevil actually did reasonably well at the cinema and a follow-up was actually mooted for a while (we did get a spin-off in 2006's Elektra which was actually a bit better and which we'll review on here in a few weeks) but it never got off the ground and by 2014, the series had been brought back in house by Marvel and moved on to Netflix for the far superior TV series. So there was a happy ending to this...eventually. Suffice to say though - avoid this like the plague.

FINAL RATING: 👿👿 (2/10)

CURRENT MARVEL FILM TABLE

1. Spiderman (2002) (9/10)
2. Men In Black (1997) (8/10)
3. X-Men (2000) (8/10)
4. Blade 2 (2001) (7/10)
5. Blade (1998) (7/10)
6. The Incredible Hulk Returns (1988) (6/10)
7. Conan The Barbarian (1982) (6/10)
8. Conan The Destroyer (1984) (6/10)
9. The Trial Of The Incredible Hulk (1989) (6/10)
10. Men In Black 2 (2000) (6/10)
11. Doctor Mordrid (1992) (5/10)
12. The Punisher (1989) (5/10)
13. Doctor Strange (1978) (5/10)
14. Nick Fury: Agent Of SHIELD (1998) (4/10)
15. The Fantastic Four (1994) (4/10)
16. Red Sonja (1985) (4/10)
17. Captain America 2: Death Too Soon (1979) (4/10)
18. Spiderman (1977) (4/10)
19. The Death Of The Incredible Hulk (1990) (3/10)
20. Spiderman: The Dragon's Challenge (1979) (3/10)
21. Howard The Duck (1986) (2/10)
22. Captain America (1990) (2/10)
23. Captain America (1979) (2/10)
24. Generation X (1996) (2/10)
25. Spiderman Strikes Back (1978) (2/10)
26. Daredevil (2003) (2/10)

NEXT WEEK: Something hopefully a lot better than this as the X-Men return for a second instalment

DC Saturdays #5 - Superman (1978)

Another trip down Memory Lane for me. I've actually seen all four of the late '70s/'80s Superman films (five if you count Supergirl) but the last time was probably about 30 years ago as a kid. While some of the films from this series are still much-loved to this day, it's safe to say that time hasn't been so kind to others and it'll be interesting to revisit this series over the next few weeks. This week though, we're going back to where it all began and the first Superman film (well okay, if you discount the Mole Men one from 27 years before) released way back in 1978.

The story begins on Krypton with a trio of criminals led by General Zod (Terence Stamp who we'll encounter again in the sequel) being sentenced to an eternity imprisoned in...well, a prism, called the Phantom Zone for attempting to overthrow the planet's ruling council. The Kryptonian elder who carries out their sentence is Jor-El (Marlon Brando), the planet's head scientist and Zod swears vengeance upon him and his family before being imprisoned.

As it turns out though, Jor-El has bigger things to worry about than Zod as he's deduced that the sun in Krypton's solar system is about to go supernova and wipe out the planet. However, his fellow Kryptonians believe that it's just a case of the planet spinning off it's axis a bit and everything will be fine. Realising that doom is imminent, Jor-El manages to construct a spacecraft to send his infant son Kal-El to the nearest planet where life is sustainable which just happens to be Earth.

Kal-El escapes just as the planet blows and his voyage through space takes three years with him crashlanding in Kansas. He's discovered by an elderly couple called Jonathan and Martha Kent - Martha wants to adopt him while Jonathan is initially reticient but quickly changes his mind when the kid stops a truck falling on him!

We see a bit about Clark (as he's now known)'s formative years in Smallville including him having a crush on a girl in his class called Lana who has a boyfriend called Brad, something that'll be revisited in Superman 3. Upon Jonathan's advice, Clark always keeps his powers secret so as not to stand out in a crowd but when Jonathan dies from a heart attack just after Clark turns 18, he hears a psychic call and leaves Smallville behind.

Clark travels to the North Pole where he builds an ice palace (the Palace of Soltitude). Upon entering, he is reunited with Jor-El who lives there as a sort of spectre. Jor-El trains him in the ways of Krypton warriors and how to use his powers responsibly. This process takes another 12 years and we finally see Clark, now 30, leaving as the Christopher Reeve version of Superman that we're all familiar with.

Clark moves to Metropolis and takes up a job as a reporter with the Daily Planet where he strikes up a slow-burner of a romance with his colleague Lois Lane. Initially, he keeps his powers secret but when Lois is involved in a helicopter accident and ends up dangling from the edge of a skyscraper, he's left with no alternative but to transform into Superman to save her.

With his powers out in the open, Superman quickly kicks off a life of fighting crime while trying to keep his double identity as Clark Kent secret including saving Air Force One during a thunderstorm, apprehending robbers and, erm, saving cats. This puts him on a collision course with Metropolis' chief criminal mastermind Lex Luthor (Gene Hackman). We see a policeman trailing Luthor's henchman Otis (Ned Beatty) to his underground lair but Luthor uses the technology to use the door to spring the guy into the path of an oncoming subway train! Luthor's team is completed by his other sidekick/PA Eve Teschmacher who, as well as being the film's resident eye candy, serves as the occasional voice of moderation with regards to his evil doings.

Luthor lures Superman to his underground lair under the false pretences of being about to set off a nerve gas explosion if he doesn't and promptly puts a piece of Kryptonite on a chain around his neck before pushing him in a swimming pool. It turns out Luthor has managed to scramble the codes on two missiles that the US military are due to launch that day to send one at New Jersey and one at the San Andreas fault which would sink half of California and turn the new coastline into prime real estate for him to redevelop. Can Superman stop him? Well, I think you can probably guess the answer given that there's three sequels to this thing but this is a good film so I'm leaving it light on the spoilers here...

Although it's very different in tone, "Superman" works for the exact same reason that a lot of the early noughties "game-changer" films for Marvel did, namely that it does exactly what it says on the tin and is a big epic feelgood old-school summer action movie. Yes, it does look a bit dated in places but I said at the beginning that when we rated these films we were gonna take the constraints of the time frame into account and on those grounds, it passes with flying colours with a big epic storyline, some great performances (although it has to be said that although Reeve is a good Superman, it's Hackman's half-diabolically evil and half pratfallingly-daft Luthor who steals the show) and just a good enjoyable film all round. It should also be noted that this is the last '70s DC film we'll be covering in this blog - take a look at the table below and compare it to the one from when we reviewed "Captain America 2", the last '70s Marvel film and I think we can safely conclude that DC were very much kicking their chief rivals' arses at this stage...

FINAL RATING: 🚀🚀🚀🚀🚀🚀🚀🚀 (8/10)

CURRENT DC FILM TABLE

1. Superman (1978) (8/10)
2. Batman (1966) (8/10)
3. The New Wonder Woman (1975) (5/10)
4. Superman and the Mole Men (1951) (5/10)
5. Wonder Woman (1974) (3/10)

NEXT WEEK: Superman 2 - the sequel so good they did it twice...