SUPERMAN II: THE RICHARD DONNER CUT

Ursa and General Zod blow the hell out of Grand Central

SUPERMAN II (1980). The Richard Donner Cut.

Richard Donner, who directed the first Superman, did a lot of work on the sequel -- the two were filmed concurrently, actually -- before being fired. Some of his work was redone by the director of record, Richard Lester. This cut assembles the version as it might have looked in theaters if Donner had not been dismissed.

At the end of Superman, the Man of Steel (Christopher Reeve) stops Lex Luthor's missile from wiping out California, but he doesn't realize that the explosion of this same missile in outer space has freed three notorious and vicious Kryptonian villains from their prison, the Phantom Zone. Hulking Non (Jack O'Halloran), bitchy Ursa (Sarah Douglas), and imperious General Zod (Terence Stamp) make their way to earth where they find they have developed the same powers as Superman. Before long they have invaded the White House where the not-so-good general forces the president (E. G. Marshall) to his knees. "Oh, God," says the president. "Zod," corrects the general. Where is the man of steel? Lois Lane (Margot Kidder) has finally figured out his secret identity and the two make love in his Arctic Fortress of Solitude. Then Superman decides to quit being the Man of Steel, always off saving the world, so that he can spend his life with Lois; he uses Kryptonian technology to do this. (This begs the question: since it was Superman that Lois fell in love with and not Clark Kent, would she really want him just as an ordinary human?) Too late, he discovers what has happened in Washington D.C., and makes his way back to his fortress as an ordinary man ... what a guy -- he doesn't even wear gloves! Conveniently, he is able to get his powers back.

The centerpiece of the film in any version is the battle between the revivified Superman and the three villains in New York City (rechristened "Metropolis," of course). Beautifully shot, edited, and choreographed, this sequence remains one of the best superhuman battle scenes in any comic book movie. (Today's super-hero films often present very sloppy and poorly articulated battle sequences.) A special highlight is when the bad guys use their super breath to literally blow dozens of pedestrians -- who are after their blood after they seem to have killed the Man of Steel -- down the streets near Grand Central Station. Buses are thrown, towers are toppled, Zod and his colleagues bounce Superman around and vice versa, and the special effects throughout are still outstanding.

This version (and probably the theatrical version as well) of Superman II has its problems, mostly having to do with Gene Hackman and his cohorts, played by Ned Beatty and Valerie Perrine. The movie is "adult" enough to show Lois and Superman in bed (although this is by no means a sex scene), so why does it have such stupid humor as Perrine flushing a toilet in the Fortress of Solitude? These campy characters never fit comfortably into this or even the original movie anyway. Hackman gives a perfectly good comic portrayal, but his presence is not required. The sequences with him are tedious, and there is dialogue in the film that betrays a dated seventies sensibility. Continued from the first film, the whole business with Superman's dead father, Jor-El (Marlon Brando) somehow counseling his son, raises more questions than it answers. Anti-climactic and twenty minutes too long (even it it's shorter than the theatrical version), Superman II is nevertheless a very worthwhile comic book flick. Reeve and Kidder are fine but the picture is nearly stolen by Terence Stamp, who makes a rather sexy and very sinister General Zod -- it's a terrific performance. And he is nearly matched by Sarah Douglas as the strutting, sexy, and highly anti-social Ursa. John Williams contributes his usual effective scoring, and Geoffrey Unsworth's cinematography is first-rate. As in the first film, Superman reverses time again, so that Lois no longer knows his secret identity (this was done differently in the theatrical version, I believe), but that insures that events that no longer could have happened are referred to afterward -- confusing, as usual. Followed by Superman III.

Verdict: Worth it for the Times Square battle if nothing else. ***.

BECKET

Richard Burton and Peter O'Toole

BECKET (1964). Director: Peter Glenville.

In the 12th century the Saxon Thomas Becket (Richard Burton) becomes friend, companion -- and some feel, collaborator -- with King Henry II (Peter O'Toole) -- and the two go "drinking and wenching" together. First Henry makes Beckett the Royal Chancellor, and then hits upon the idea of making him Archbishop of Canterbury. This is done because of the friction between the king and the Catholic Church, but Henry gets a surprise when Becket takes his role seriously and becomes seriously pious. When an arrested priest escapes jail and is killed by a Nobleman, Becket wants the man excommunicated, which Henry sees as a blow against England. If Becket goes ahead with his plans, there will be terrible consequences ... Becket is a handsome, well-produced, and well-acted film with a fine score by Laurence Rosenthal, striking production design by John Bryan, and excellent wide-screen photography by Geoffrey Unsworth, but Becket must not be taken as literal history. Edward Anhalt's script was based on a poorly-researched play by Jean Anouilh which ignores the fact that Becket was not a Saxon, but a Norman as Henry was. While this may add more motive and conflict to the story, it simply isn't true. Then there's the blatant homoerotic element. The relationship between the two men first seems like a warm if cautious friendship, but turns strange (by 1964 standards) when Henry's wife and mother both object to the presence of Becket in the king's life. Henry's mother accuses her son of having an "unhealthy" and "unnatural" obsession with him; O'Toole plays certain scenes like a discarded lover; Henry clearly loves Becket much more than his wife and children; and at one point cries out in anguish in front of his men at how much he still loves Thomas Becket. If King Henry II had romantic or sexual longings for Becket, or if the two had a relationship early in life, there has never been any historical proof of it . In a sense the portrayal of Henry is the cliche of the tormented homosexual or bisexual man who acts as much out of "twisted" passion and rejection as anything else, like Rod Steiger's character in The Sergeant.

Richard Burton is excellent as Becket, while O'Toole is superb as the king. There is also fine work from John  Gielgud as the King of France; Donald Wolfit [Room at the Top] as Bishop Folliot, who'd hoped to be made Archbishop himself; David Weston as Brother John, a would-be assassin (of Becket) turned monk; and Sian Phillips as Gwendolyne, who loves Becket and comes to a sad fate. As the movie's representations of Henry's mother and wife, respectively, Martita Hunt [The Brides of Dracula] and Pamela Brown seem merely to be striking poses and busily "acting" compared to the others. Besides the distortion of history, there are other problems with the movie, such as the "cutesy" element of some scenes, with the king acting like a girl-crazy adolescent and the Pope almost turned into a figure out of a sitcom. There is absolutely no sense of the passage of time.

Verdict: Entertaining, dramatic "history" served up on a now dated psycho-sexual platter. ***.