Superman Redeemed

Review by joebshmoe — November 19, 2009 @ 3:39 am

*This rating was given before reviews were required*

Review by latenights — January 15, 2009 @ 12:29 am

This is the one that has finally convinced me to give fan edits a go. The Batman Forever/The Dark Knight edit tweaked my interest when I first read about it but I just thought the movie was too lame to give the fan-edit a decent chance to improve much on the quality. After seeing the Richard Donner cut of Superman II and loving it (even with the audition footage, which IMHO is a much better scene than the accidental reveal of Lester’s version) I decided to make that the definitive version and wanted more of the same. When I tripped over this fan-edit I was desperate to see what ADM could make of these two movies in the hopes he would give Christopher Reeve one last moment of glory.

Effort and creative flair to pick the scenes out of the whole for this reimagining of the story has go to be 5/5.

*****SPOILERS*****

Using the Lester Paris scene was inspired, even though the scene itself is weak (but there’s nothing can be done to counter the appalling acting and direction!)

Another inspired choice was the NuclearMan scratch to bring about the Bizzarro transformation, but I have to agree with the other posters about the speed with which the transformation happens, and I agree that some of the scenes from IV where Supes/Clark gets sick would ease this.

The footage from Superman II and III blends almost seamlessly (I’m a huge fan and couldn’t help noticing which film which footage came from, but it wasn’t distracting to me, if anything it made the experience more pleasurable because as a fan I could see what ADM had gone through to create this cut), and even some of the footage from IV fitted in perfectly (like parts of the NuclearMan terorising downtown scene where the men in suits wear hats!) though that was more by luck than design I should imagine based on the available footage. The rest fit in well, with the obvious jarring of Lenny Luthor’s outlandish suits.

The short running time means the film rips along but this edit somehow manages to reflect the mood of Donner’s films in certain scenes (how I don’t know – all credit to ADM for achieving this), but some of the more campy or overacted scenes (like Lex “firing” the nuclear arms dealers) and elaborate exposition and set-up from the axed story lines (I’m looking at you, thermally unstable acid!) were still superfluous to requirements IMHO.

Unfortunately this edit can’t escape that it’s been cobbled together from two and a half weak films, and though it’s huge fun and I highly recommend it to any fan (my nephew doesn’t have a choice – this is what he’ll be watching instead of the originals) it still isn’t a movie that actually redeems Superman.

But all in all, given the source material, an outstanding job. Think I’ll go give The Dark Knight a try now…

Review by pjt — December 18, 2008 @ 6:49 am

*This rating was given before reviews were required*

Review by havok1977 — January 2, 2008 @ 6:01 pm

While Superman is nowhere near my favorite comic book characters, i do enjoy to a degree his big screen outings; same as other people around here i hadn’t seen the third movie since it first came out… and i think i never even saw the fourth one, knowing it was no good.

I have to commend ADM on a great work getting those two bad movies into one cohesive and sensefull story, IMHO in the big screen Lana and Clark work so much better than Lois and Clark; and while Nukeboy is not a great villain, he seemed like a proper magnitude threat to Superman. No Gus or any other comic relief character is certainly mostly welcome. Lex’s escape and schemes do make more sense and feel in place.

I have a few feedback comments:

I completely agree with beckmen’s comments regarding the almost instant transformation into “I don’t care” Superman after nukeboy scratches his neck, i think a couple minutes of getting sick would have helped.

There are two repeated scenes of the camera spanning up Metropolis buildings, i guess there wasn’t enough material to do a lot of variations, its a minor thing tough.

Way i see it, leaping from a a Hydrogen bomb threat to dismantle all Nuclear weapons is a bit of a stretch; but it is an effective way to stitch the story together. And the cynic in me found it hard to buy that every country would play with Supes’ plan to get rid of all nuclear weapons, but i guess this is that kind of show…

Review by AvP — November 6, 2008 @ 1:20 pm

*This rating was given before reviews were required*