Tag: Terence Stamp

The Limey (1999, Steven Soderbergh)

The Limey is all about the foreshadowing. It’s about flashbacks, flash-forwards, and flash asides, but the foreshadowing figures into all of those devices. It’s got a “twist” ending, which then informs previous scenes but not like figuring out Terence Stamp is a ghost or whatever. Instead, it’s knowing something about why he half-smiles—and only something, another thing about The Limey is it’s Stamp’s story. To the point of excluding the audience. There’s a lot we don’t see in The Limey, but it happens. Arguably the most interesting aspects of Stamp’s character development occur offscreen. We get to see the action, which is the MacGuffin.

Juxtaposed against Stamp is Peter Fonda, and we get to see all his character stuff on screen, even though he’s an utter twerp from his first scene and will continue to be throughout the film.

Stamp is a recently released career criminal from the UK, come to Los Angeles to find out what happened to his daughter, Melissa George. Before the present action, George dies in a car accident. Not suspiciously enough for the cops to care, but enough for Stamp to fly over to find out what happened.

Fonda is George’s boyfriend. He’s a successful music producer, rich enough to be oblivious to reality, dim enough to make bad decisions, a sixties leftover who hasn’t done anything worth talking about since then. He’s already moved on to a new girlfriend—Amelia Heinle, who’s his friends’ daughter; he suggested her name to them when she was born. At first, it seems like he’s a major creep instead of just a weak one.

The juxtaposition is Stamp and Fonda living their respective legacies of the late sixties, Stamp a seemingly unstoppable old man vengeance, Fonda a narcissistic jackass.

The film’s first act is Stamp getting to Los Angeles and meeting George’s friends, Luis Guzmán and Lesley Ann Warren. Guzmán is an ex-con gone straight and sticking to it (very much unlike Stamp, who we learn spent most of his life and George’s in the nick), and Warren is a functioning LA action coach. Her sixties dreams didn’t come true, but she’s at least contributing to the world, not sucking from it (like Fonda).

Guzmán quickly becomes Stamp’s sidekick in the movie sense, but there’s a deeper emotional bond between the men the film doesn’t let us see. The Limey’s got a very detached narrative distance; director Soderbergh and writer Lem Dobbs forcibly push the audience away too. They make an effort to keep the viewer off guard, to keep The Limey in an almost dreamlike state, which then ties into Fonda’s wistful remembrances of the sixties.

Well, 1966 and some of 1967.

When Stamp meets Guzmán and Warren, the film flashes forward to different settings and activities, their conversations bopping forward and back until the conversation flows through the time and place jumps. Because The Limey’s all about memories; well, foreshadowing and memories.

Stamp’s investigation will eventually get him some attention from Barry Newman, who’s Fonda’s fixer. Newman brings in local psychopaths Nicky Katt and Joe Dallesandro to deal with the problem, which has some unexpected results. The acting in The Limey is incredibly measured and restrained. Stamp loses his temper at most twice and possibly then only in a daydream. Fonda has his freak-outs, but he’s usually trying to impress Heinle, so he keeps it in check. Newman’s restrained too, because as long as he can hire Katt, there’s nothing to get worked up about.

So Katt and Dallesandro are then Limey’s wild cards and where Soderbergh lets the performances get the loosest. One of Katt’s scenes is just a series of jaw-dropping but mundane observations from a psychopath. It’s momentarily funny, quickly becoming very concerning, with Katt establishing himself not just a clear and present danger to the good guys but to everyone standing near them. The Limey runs a confined ninety minutes and wraps its main story up with a tidy bow, but Katt and Dallesandro’s presence does a whole lot implying the world that story takes place in.

Ditto uncredited Bill Duke, who shows up at one point for a fantastic scene.

Speaking of uncredited one scene cameos, The Limey goes out of its way to include an “Entertainment Tonight” interview with George Clooney—after he and Soderbergh had made their first movie together—it goes on so long it seems intentional. But then even the shortest sequences in The Limey are fully intentional.

After the first act, after Stamp’s mission and compatriots are set up, the film introduces flashback footage to a young Stamp (as Limey is pre-obsequious CGI- de-aging, it’s footage from Ken Loach’s Poor Cow). Stamp occasionally talks through the clips, though sometimes they’re presented without context; they’re limited because they’re not really for this story. They’re about being young and making bad decisions—Stamp’s didn’t pay off, Fonda’s did. They’re presented without audible dialogue, just like flashbacks to George’s life in Los Angeles before her death, and also with Stamp’s memories of her as a child. Again, it’s all about the memories.

And regrets.

So, foreshadowing, memory, and regrets.

Soderbergh and editor Sarah Flack cut the hell out of the first act, presenting The Limey as a jumble of Stamp’s thoughts, with Fonda’s half of the film eventually leading to it calming down a bit. But while The Limey always looks good (photography by Edward Lachlan) and sounds excellent (Cliff Martinez’s score is terrific, and the sixties pop soundtrack is outstanding), it’s how Soderbergh and Flack use the editing to guide the narrative and establish the distance.

It really makes you wonder how Dobbs’s script worked; was it fragmented, or did Soderbergh break it up later.

Great performances from everyone. Stamp’s mesmerizing. Fonda, Newman, Guzmán, Katt, Heinle, and Warren are all excellent too. Warren gets the least to do, active character-wise, but is phenomenal doing it. Heinle gets the least character (she could be a figment of Fonda’s imagination for her first two scenes) but makes herself an essential insight to Fonda.

The Limey’s spectacular. Soderbergh and Stamp take it seriously but also not too seriously, and then once everything’s revealed, it’s more affecting than seemed possible. So good.

The Sicilian (1987, Michael Cimino), the director’s cut

The Sicilian is based on a Mario Puzo novel about a real person and real events. The director’s cut runs about thirty minutes longer than the original theatrical version, which no doubt desperate distributors and financiers took away from director and co-producer Cimino in hopes of recouping some of their cost. Alas, no luck. It stars Christopher Lambert as The Sicilian. Lambert is not Sicilian; most of the principal actors in the film do not appear to be Sicilian or Italian. There might be a joke about Cimino trying to avoid the wrath of a Sicilian-American Civil Rights League showdown but in reality… they just couldn’t get the people. But Cimino professionally muscles through it and gets what might be the best performance Joss Ackland could give as a Mafia King of Sicily. Cimino doesn’t have as much luck with anyone else, though he comes closest with guys like Andreas Katsulas, Michael Wincott, and Ramon Bieri. Sicilian’s a troubled production with a terrible script (Steve Shagan), what would be bad for a late nineties, made-for-cable disaster movie cast, and an obstinate, ludicrously confident director.

For a terrible film, The Sicilian is very watchable. You don’t have to pay much attention and sometimes it’s better when you don’t. You might not realize how obvious the looping is on some of the main actors—I’m not familiar enough with Barbara Sukowa and Giulia Boschi to recognize their voices on the looping, but it’s obvious Terence Stamp did the looping on his own stuff. And then there are occasionally times it really doesn’t sound like Lambert, usually during scene transitions, in medium or long shot. Troubled production, Christopher Lambert playing a Sicilian Robin Hood, at some point what do you even expect.

The photography’s glorious. Alex Thomson gets to light all sorts of scenes—lots of exteriors in the Sicilian mountains (on location, which is cool) and it’s kind of fun to pretend you’re watching something really weird like Lambert doing a Highlander sequel (the guy he’s playing also dies and comes back to life magically here in Sicilian, though through force of will and good looks; more on those in a bit). But then Thompson gets to do terrible night club scenes, which are really badly directed and silly but at the sets are great and the lights are great. Even in Cimino’s most tedious shots, Sicilian always looks great. Oh, and there are palaces or great houses or whatever because Stamp and Sukowa are royalty. Plus lots of Catholic churches because the Church conspired to kill the guy Lambert’s playing.

Lambert’s playing Salvatore Giuliano. The movie starts with the origin story. Lambert and John Turturro—who is not good—steal some grain to feed the peasants, who the royalty and the mafia are somehow starving. With the church helping. I’m not being vague because it seems like bullshit, I’m being vague because of course they are. No shit they’re screwing over the peasants. To be a peasant means to be one being screwed over. So Lambert’s going to be a Robin Hood… or something. Because during the origin story, he gets shot and then miraculously recovers—to the point one of the very not-Sicilian priests in Sicily post-war (Richard Venture) tells him God was on his side until he turned against mother church, because obviously. He’s been blessed.

I think that scene is where you realize Lambert just can’t move his face muscles. Because everyone else in the car—Turturro, turning it up to eleven like he’s convinced himself he’s the Sonny Corleone in this one, Katsulas (who seems to know what kind of movie he’s in), and a trying super hard Wincott—they all can do immediate reaction. Lambert can’t be phased. But everyone around him acts phased, which just makes it more obvious. The love scenes in the movie are painful. Though given the film introduces Sukowa stripping on her way to the bath while making it shitty for her Sicilian maid? Oh, and then how Sukowa’s attempt to seduce Lambert goes… they could be worse. Cimino’s really tiresome with it.

Actually, with the female characters… I’m not sure Cimino got what Shagan’s script was going for. It would explain why Boschi has a really great character but a really shitty part and a not very good performance. Cimino’s really not interested in her. Sukowa’s an American-born duchess who flashes the local boys for goodness sake; she’s super interesting. Hashtag sarcasm.

But then, if Sicilian actually had any good ideas, it’d be less amusing a disaster. Part of it being digestible is its inability to challenge or surprise. It’s like a two hour and fifteen minute justified eye roll (the end credits are ten glorious minutes). Cimino’s really convinced he can get over the hurdles and somehow it’ll connect. This tale of a vain narcissistic heartthrob—everyone wants to be Lambert’s friend because he’s so cool (it’s occasionally cringe-worthy, especially when Turturro whines about Lambert’s greatness)—who doesn’t end up sticking up for the peasants and getting a lot of innocent people killed because he was full of shit. I’m not sure what the actual guy did, but in the movie, Lambert screws people over and then says he’s sad when they don’t forgive him. Then there’s a bunch of intrigue and sort of Godfather ending montage homage slash Puzo-verse thing.

The first act is the worst, before Lambert shows up and it’s just his godfather, Richard Bauer (who acts out his heart and is never any good), introducing the ground situation—Ackland the Sicilian mafia boss, Stamp the Sicilian prince, Sukowa the American duchess, all very silly, all immediate fails. Ackland works up from a very low place to be as close to adequate as possible. It’s incredible.

Not Stamp or Sukowa sadly.

Hopefully they bought nice things with their paychecks.

There are some familiar faces in the supporting cast. It’d be kind of embarrassing to call them out. Again, if it filmed on location, maybe a paid trip to Sicily isn’t the worst thing.

Besides the stunning Alex Thomson photography, the film’s technically middling. Françoise Bonnot’s editing can’t work actual miracles, but it doesn’t make anyone’s acting worse. Cimino’s direction is tedious, obvious—outside the film neon noir finish, which is actually good—but while a scene’s never efficient, they’re rarely ever too too long. They’re too long, but only by a line or two. Cimino does Sicilian with a really straight face, mirroring perhaps the emotional output of the lead.

David Mansfield’s music always seems like it’s going to finally take off but never does. It’s pretty though. It’s really pretty.

Great production design, set decoration. Costumes aren’t great but they’re occasionally amazing. Turturro goes around in a Christmas sweater for half the movie with no explanation. And what if the explanation for Lambert’s performance is as simple as costume designer Wayne A. Finkelman telling him he couldn’t move in the clothes or something.

Thanks to history, there’s now an audience for The Sicilian, it hits on just the right amount of film studies (Cimino and his John Ford shots are exhausting), bad movie standards (I mean, Lambert, plus Joss Ackland as a Sicilian mafia boss), and, hopefully, Thomson aficionados. But. Wow. It’s a stinker.

The Mind of Mr. Soames (1970, Alan Cooke)

The Mind of Mr. Soames is preternaturally gentle (which, getting ahead of myself, is kind of the point) but it’s always a surprise how much more gentle it can get. The film doesn’t forebode or foreshadow, even though doing either wouldn’t just be predictable, it might even be appropriate given the subject matter.

The film opens at a private British medical institute, where everyone is very excited because they’re going to operate on star patient Mr. Soames (played by Terence Stamp). Stamp was born comatose due to a super-rare condition in his brain stem and this institute has kept him alive for thirty years. They’ve been waiting for medical science to get to a place where it can help Stamp. And it has. American surgeon Robert Vaughan (sporting a very cool beard) crosses the pond to do it. He’s not interested in Stamp’s recovery process, just the surgery.

At least, not until he realizes Davenport wants to train Stamp like a pet, not raise him like a child. Because even though Stamp’s got an adult brain, he’s pristine tabula rasa.

Also in the mix is scuzzy TV journalist Christian Roberts. He’s got Davenport’s permission to turn Stamp’s “childhood” into a documentary series. Part of the film’s gentle is how much the filmmakers trust the audience. The script trusts them to keep up, director Cooke trusts them to keep up—a big thing in the first act is American doctor Vaughan realizing British doctor Davenport is less concerned with Stamp recovering than with him making the Institute famous. But it never comes up. The whole arc of the film turns out to involve Donal Donnelly as Davenport’s underling, who gradually learns how to be a good doctor. Vaughan’s a big influence on him, but so’s Stamp.

Even though it’s almost a spoiler how much agency Stamp gets in the film given he starts it inanimate, kept alive by a roomful of machines. When Mind starts, it’s a split between Vaughan, Davenport, and Roberts, with Donnelly bouncing between Vaughan and Davenport. But once Stamp wakes up, the film starts its gradual transition into being his story.

It’s a great film, but it’s very hard to imagine it being able to do any more than it already does. Stamp eventually encounters all sorts of other people—most importantly kindly (potentially too kindly) miserable housewife Judy Parfitt—and Mind treats them as caricatures. Only Stamp, with this necessarily reduced agency and potential of it, gets to be a full-fledged character. These people he encounters are caricatures from his perspective, but from the film’s, which I guess is where the only real problems (outside the wrong closing music) occur. Everyone relies on Stamp to handle his perspective, which is understandable, he’s phenomenal. But if the film adjusted the narrative distance to track Stamp more closely, it’d necessarily lose the doctors.

Mind of Mr. Soames can’t be a character study, but it also can’t be a medical thriller because it can’t maintain the medical procedural. It also can’t do straight drama because it’s got a speculative air to it. Director Cooke does that gentle thing instead of trying to hit various intensities. It’s never calm, it’s never placid, it’s just gentle. Mind is based on a novel and there’s definitely the potential for some sort of comparison to Frankenstein, maybe with the book but definitely with the film; whether or not Stamp is going to go Frankenstein is one of the film’s many questions, but never one of Stamp’s and it’s Stamp’s film.

The film doesn’t exactly have charm—it’s too intense, stakes-wise—and it’s never overly stylish, but the deliberate but still surprising way the narrative unfolds is rather agreeable. Mind of Mr. Soames does a lot, provides its cast a lot of great scenes, and it’s not an easy story to do. So when it works out so well… not charming, but nice.

It’s a story very well told.

Outside the occasionally too obviously shot in the studio night time exteriors, Billy Williams’s photography is always good. The actual exterior shooting—when Stamp and the film get outside his “playroom”—is excellent. Really strong direction from Cooke, both with the actors and the composition. The film seems to get a certain patience from Cooke, while it gets a different one from John Hale and Edward Simpson’s script; the story’s about agitated people but the story’s never agitated.

Pretty good music from Michael Dress (except the closing track, which is fine but not good enough for what the film has just accomplished).

Great performance from Stamp (you can’t imagine anyone else in the role after he does it). Excellent support from Vaughan, Davenport, and Donnelly. They’re ahead the other caricatures because, well, they get enough time not to be caricatures.

Stamp, Cooke, and everyone else make something special with The Mind of Mr. Soames.

This post is part of the 2nd Great Hammer-Amicus Blogathon hosted by Barry of Cinematic Catharsis Gill of Realweegiemidget Reviews.

Alien Nation (1988, Graham Baker)

A film like Alien Nation encourages a lot of thought. For example, I think I’ve decided I want to say the film is badly directed (by Baker) while being poorly lighted (by Adam Greenberg). I already know I wanted to say it was atrociously edited. Kent Beyda’s cuts don’t just jump (there’s a car chase where it appears the cars have turned around and gone back the way they came), they also pop. The sound levels pops, which isn’t exactly Beyda’s fault, it’s more Baker’s fault or the producers’ fault, but there’s got to have something Beyda could do to trying to keep the background noise between shots consistent. Or maybe not. Maybe that base level of post-production care is beyond Alien Nation.

I mean, fixing the editing wouldn’t fix the music and fixing the music wouldn’t fix the script and fixing the script wouldn’t fix the acting. I suppose it’s possible a better script would’ve helped the performances but Baker’s still such a crap director, it’s hard to imagine it.

About the only thing good about Alien Nation is the make-up. Only not so much on the featured cast. Like Terence Stamp’s Mr. Big. His alien make-up is bad. And alien cop Mandy Patinkin’s make-up is occasionally inconsistent between scenes. At least it’s not between shots in scenes, which–really–is kind of a surprise given the way the rest of the film plays out, production-wise.

So Patinkin is the idealistic alien cop while James Caan is the grumpy, bigoted (and questionably skilled) human cop. Writer Rockne S. O’Bannon writes terrible police procedural, but he also writes terrible cop banter. The bonding scenes between Caan and Patinkin are painful. Partially because they’re so poorly written, partially because you just feel so bad for the actors. Caan’s got a lousy part from the opening. Patinkin has potential for a good part but the script is so bad. And the direction, can’t forget Baker’s bad direction. Oh, and if Patinkin does manage a decent delivery–you know, if his makeup isn’t off-center–it’s more likely than not Beyda will screw something up in the cutting.

There are no winners in Alien Nation. There are no gem performances. The production design isn’t special. Maybe the best performance in it is Roger Aaron Brown and only because all he has to do is act like James Caan is a tiresome prick. Caan is a tiresome prick. Alien Nation takes place over like three or four days. It’s about one case. Caan gets Patinkin as a partner for the single purpose of exploiting him being an alien to solve an alien-related murder case.

Odd thing? They never catch the guy Caan is after. They never even try to find out his identity. It’s not only a mess, it’s a forgetful mess.

Not even the short runtime–maybe ninety minutes even–helps things. Because it’s not like the scenes are short. The scenes are painfully long. Watching Baker and O’Bannon try to change tempo during a scene? It’s excruciating.

The whole thing is excruciating. The anguish starts with the opening titles and goes all the way to the finale voiceover.

0/4ⓏⒺⓇⓄ

CREDITS

Directed by Graham Baker; written by Rockne S. O’Bannon; director of photography, Adam Greenberg; edited by Kent Beyda; music by Curt Sobel; production designer, Jack T. Collis; produced by Gale Anne Hurd and Richard Kobritz; released by 20th Century Fox.

Starring James Caan (Matthew Sykes), Mandy Patinkin (Sam Francisco), Terence Stamp (William Harcourt), Roger Aaron Brown (Tuggle), Peter Jason (Fedorchuk), Tony Perez (Alterez), and Leslie Bevis (Cassandra).

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Young Guns (1988, Christopher Cain)

Young Guns is an Emilio Estevez vanity project, which was once a thing. Estevez lacks the screen charisma and acting ability, but it’s a confusing part. He’s Billy the Kid and he’s playing him like a manipulative but somehow still likable psychopath. For about half the film, John Fusco’s script can keep up with Estevez–director Cain is utterly incapable with his cast and does nothing to assist Estevez or reign him in when need be–but it all falls apart in the end. It doesn’t fall apart from very high, but it does fall apart. The script gets worse, Cain responds to the different pace of the film by abandoning all his nods to pretense, which the first half is littered with. They’re not good, but they’re diverting.

Fusco’s script is interesting in how it characterizes the Young Guns of the title. Estevez, Kiefer Sutherland (he’s the sensitive one), Lou Diamond Phillips (he’s the soulful Native one), Charlie Sheen (he’s the godly one), Dermont Mulroney (he’s playing Pigpen from Peanuts only with some bigotry), Casey Siemaszko (he’s the loudmouthed but soulful little guy). Fusco writers the characters for Mulroney, Siemaszko and Phillips as caricatures; he’s nicer to Phillips than the other two, but there’s still no character development. Sheen, Sutherland and Estevez should get it too, but they just get plot points and costume changes.

Terence Stamp is good. Terry O’Quinn is sort of good; his part is just terribly written. Cain doesn’t seem to understand doing his washed-out Western–Dean Semler’s photography is desaturated, which has good and bad results–but Cain doesn’t realize the parts aren’t fitting. Not just the acting–and Cain’s direction of it–but the script and the stupid music. Young Guns has a sax-heavy smooth jazz thing going on. It’s very eighties. In all the bad ways. What’s sad is it’s tolerable in all those defects until the last act; the result of previous hundred minutes don’t add up to what the film closes with. Very obliviously, because Cain tries to ape Sam Peckinpah to risible result.

Young Guns is a bad movie with some earnest and bad performances. But it should’ve been better; throughout its runtime, it shows it should’ve been better. I mean, Christopher Cain wastes a Patrick Wayne cameo. How can you screw up a Patrick Wayne cameo?

0/4ⓏⒺⓇⓄ

CREDITS

Directed by Christopher Cain; written by John Fusco; director of photography, Dean Semler; edited by Jack Hofstra; music by Brian Banks and Anthony Marinelli; production designer, Jane Musky; produced by Cain and Joe Roth; released by 20th Century Fox.

Starring Emilio Estevez (Billy), Kiefer Sutherland (Doc), Lou Diamond Phillips (Chavez), Charlie Sheen (Dick), Dermot Mulroney (Dirty Steve), Casey Siemaszko (Charley), Terence Stamp (John Tunstall), Jack Palance (Lawrence G. Murphy), Terry O’Quinn (Alex McSween), Sharon Thomas Cain (Susan McSween), Alice Carter (Yen Sun) and Patrick Wayne (Pat Garrett).

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Red Planet (2000, Antony Hoffman)

Red Planet is an awful film. It’s got decent performances from Val Kilmer and Tom Sizemore, awful ones from Carrie-Anne Moss, Terence Stamp and Benjamin Bratt and a mediocre one from Simon Baker. The script fails Baker, who actually has what should be the film’s most interesting character arc, so it’s not entirely his fault.

Moss, Stamp and Bratt have terrible writing too–Moss gets stuck with the atrocious expository narration–but not so bad it excuses their performances. Of the three, Bratt’s probably the best as the jerk astronaut.

So besides bad writing, lots of bad acting and terrible direction from Hoffman (almost thirteen years after Planet’s release, he still hasn’t gotten another film job–thank goodness), what’s wrong with Red Planet? Well, it’s fundamentally unsound. It’s a big budget action sci-fi movie about a fictional science problem. It pretends to be a real story (Apollo 13 is a major influence) and never acknowledges the artifice. That disconnect–and the awful acting–makes it hard to care about the characters.

Except Kilmer, who’s very appealing in a comedic performance.

The terrible music from Graeme Revell and shockingly bad editing from Robert K. Lambert and Dallas Puett don’t help things either.

Worse, there are a couple really good scenes in the film–Kilmer’s instrumental to both; Sizemore and Baker help out for one of them–and Hoffman doesn’t know how to make them. They succeed because of the acting.

The 2001 references are sad.

Planet’s real bad.

0/4ⓏⒺⓇⓄ

CREDITS

Directed by Antony Hoffman; screenplay by Chuck Pfarrer and Jonathan Lemkin, based on a story by Pfarrer; director of photography, Peter Suschitzky; edited by Robert K. Lambert and Dallas Puett; music by Graeme Revell; production designer, Owen Paterson; produced by Mark Canton, Bruce Berman and Jorge Saralegui; released by Warner Bros.

Starring Val Kilmer (Gallagher), Carrie-Anne Moss (Bowman), Tom Sizemore (Burchenal), Benjamin Bratt (Santen), Simon Baker (Pettengill) and Terence Stamp (Chantilas).

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Superman II (1980, Richard Lester)

There are, now, three versions of Superman II. The theatrical, an extended television version (not officially released) and original director Richard Donner’s take on it. Unfortunately, Superman II is–as a narrative and a sequel–rife with problems. Drawing attention to these problems is a bad idea. And the version with the least emphasis on them? Richard Lester’s original.

Whatever Lester’s problem with the Superman character, it’s not really apparent here. Superman II feels like a good Superman movie should feel–some of the campy humor works, some of it doesn’t. I’d say about fifty percent of Terence Stamp’s lines fail. The successful ones, however, are great. And Sarah Douglas is fantastic.

Most importantly, Lester gets some wonderful acting out of Margot Kidder and Christopher Reeve. The somewhat nonsensical romance doesn’t fit in the picture–and never will, no matter how many revisions people make–but it makes the film singular. Superman wasn’t a particularly long film series and the familiarity Lester gets out of Kidder and Reeve in this one, the first sequel, is something television shows usually have to go three or four seasons to achieve.

The special effects–particularly the flying sequences–are occasionally weak. There are a lot more complicated rear projection sequences than in the first film and they don’t work out very often.

Like I said before, Superman II‘s basically a bad idea for a movie. But it works out in the end, thanks to the actors and, yes, Lester.

That Paris opening’s great.

Superman II (1980, Richard Donner), the Richard Donner cut

Superman II might just be broken. Watching “The Richard Donner Cut,” it’s an easy conclusion to come to–the greatly anticipated Marlon Brando scenes feature a callow, selfish Superman–not one who’s bursting with love for Lois Lane, like in the theatrical version. Also problematic is the utter lack of super–it’s a Superman movie, but this version of Superman II doesn’t actually have any real Superman scenes besides the rescue of the kid at Niagara Falls and then the last act city fight (which isn’t any better). He’s not doing anything super… it’s tedious, because so much of the Lois and Clark romance is shredded. I remember a review for the Daredevil director’s cut pointing out, although Jennifer Garner has the same amount of screen time, the film’s so much less painful because of the additional scenes without her. Well, this cut of Superman II has less Superman–and even has less Kryptonian supervillains–but it seems like they’re in it a lot more… and it’s not a good thing. They were shallow characters to begin with and they aren’t any better here.

While it was nice to see the Daily Planet newsroom under Donner’s vision again–and the maligned ending actually works out fine (if you forgive the uselessness of taking away Lois’s memory of Superman, which makes no sense in any version and does a disservice to the romance), well even–the only really nice stuff in the Donner Cut is extra Gene Hackman scenes. There are only a couple, both with Valerie Perrine, and they’re both great. I was hoping Perrine would show up again, but alas, she did not and the film was coasting along–most of the scenes not working because there was nothing connecting them anymore, with all the cuts of Lester-filmed material–until Hackman shows up again.

There’s one scene created from a combination of screen tests and, while the differences are noticeable, it’s a well-acted scene–even if it isn’t better than what was in the theatrical version. There are new special effects, some of which are fine, some of which needed something as simple as a black level fix and didn’t get it. John Williams has sole composer credit now and it’s all music from the first film recycled and you can tell. This version of Superman II sounds all wrong.

It’s unfortunate, after all the hubbub, it didn’t turn out to be a major achievement or something. Like I said, maybe it just doesn’t work in any form.

Superman II (1980, Richard Lester), the restored international cut

I read about the Superman II restored international cut (RIC)–a fan effort to compile all the extra Superman II footage from various television prints, mostly from foreign markets–in Entertainment Weekly. It said to head over to Superman Cinema to get a free copy, just so long as you provide free copies. By that time, however, Warner Bros. had shut distribution down. I got my copy through a nice guy in alt.tv.tape-trading. It cost eight dollars, which is well worth it, considering the disc has a bunch of special features. It’s an impressive package.

The “restoration” was done in PAL pan and scan, then transferred to NTSC for the DVD. As far as the prints, they look great. As good as a regular VHS. But I’ve been seeing Superman II letterboxed since 1997 or 1998, whenever Warner got around to releasing the remastered laserdisc. But I grew up with a pan and scan Superman II, so I didn’t think it’d hurt me too much. Thought it might even be nostalgic.

Superman II, the RIC, does have some nice “new” moments. Mostly with the cast from the original film. A little more of Ned Beatty, some amusing Lex Luthor/Jimmy Olsen interaction, an attempt at a better close for the Lois and Clark romance. But it doesn’t fix the problems with the film. And watching it in converted from PAL pan and scan–which makes the film look, to me at least, like an episode of “Three’s Company,” or some other TV shot on video–made me hypersensitive. I couldn’t get lost in the magic. And then I realized why.

Superman II doesn’t have any magic. It doesn’t have the wonder of the first film. In fact, the attempt at furthering Superman as a character never appeared before this cut. In the North Pole, in the Lois and Clark scene I just mentioned, Lois tells Superman to “never forget” their romance, echoing Ma Kent telling him never to forget his youth. This scene doesn’t appear in the theatrical version and the end of the film–the idiotic super-brainwashing kiss–invalidates it. Fans constantly attack Richard Lester for the films’ faults, but he’s only partly to blame. The story doesn’t respect Superman enough. There’s no real romance between him and Lois Lane. Once he gives up his powers, it’s obvious she wants the super-dude. He gives them up, gets laid for the first (and, presumably, only) time, gets beat up, then gets them back–all in ten or twelve minutes. There’s no drama to it.

The initial online outrage about Superman II, once enough folks got together and shared what they knew of Donner’s original intent, was directed at Tom Mankiewicz. Mankiewicz responded, defending himself, and placed the blame–I think–on the Salkinds and Lester. Richard Lester is not actually dead. I always thought he was, but he’s not. He’s never responded and, unless Warner taps him for a special edition, seems to have no interest in his Superman efforts.

Watching the film, obviously there are production faults, but it is mostly Lester’s. The moments of comedy when Metropolis is being “blown apart” are inappropriate. It’s laughing at victims. The bad guys are silly, which may be partly Donner’s fault, though I think he mostly shot the good scenes, the Lois and Clark scenes towards the beginning. Since much was shot at the same time, on the same sets, but to far lesser success, Superman II–in any version–seems a disrespect to the first film. Maybe even to the characters themselves. The first film–through the wonderful combination of production, writing, and acting–created people we cared about. Hell, it did such a good job, we even cared about them in Superman IV. Superman II plays off that sentiment.

Sitting here, twenty-five years later, I can see, dramatically, what went wrong. This restored international cut shows, at the time, someone else cared about these characters, cared about developing them further, cared about doing good work. Unfortunately, whoever this person was, it wasn’t the people in charge of producing Superman II.