The Omen (1976)

Director: Richard Donner

Cast: Gregory Peck, Lee Remick, David Warner, Harvey Spencer Stephens

Have I Seen It Before: I wasn’t on Beyond the Cabin in the Woods when they did it, but there definitely was a moment where the remake was coming out in 2006 and I was resolute in my need to turn my nose up and only watch the original.

Did I Like It: I don’t get a sense that my opinion about the film has changed in those nearly twenty years, though. I’m never not delighted to see David Warner in anything, and the Whovian in me that developed since then was delighted to see Patrick Troughton.

Ultimately, though It’s a bit too arch to be too terribly frightening. I would imagine to audiences in the 1970s, digging in a grave and finding a jackal is frightening, but I’m reasonably sure I’ve laughed at that moment at least twice in the 21st century. Special effects are vivid and often in slow-motion to add dread of the carnage to come. But something tells me that wasn’t really David Warner’s head that got sliced off by that errant pane of glass.

Also, one feels that there are too many characters, most of whom don’t stick around long enough to either unnerve or engender sympathy. I’m consistently shocked—and have occasionally had to remind myself—that the film isn’t based on a novel or any other source material. It always feels as if they were protecting themselves from criticisms of abandoning this phantom source material, and had to give each element its due. Even then, Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring (2001) abandoned all signs of Tom Bombadil, and The Godfather (1972) never checks in with Lucy Mancini until Part III runs around, at which point it completely ignores what we learned about her in the novel. Which, again, doesn’t absolve this film. It’s just overcrowded for the sake of being overcrowded.

The Goonies (1985)

DIRECTOR: Richard Donner

CAST: Sean Astin, Josh Brolin, Jeff Cohen, Ke Huy Quan

HAVE I SEEN IT BEFORE: Yes, but…

DID I LIKE IT: I feel like I’m obligated as a byproduct of my age to not only like the movie, but love it to the expense of both movies.

It is certainly not the best Amblin movie of the 80s, not by a mile. You always have to eye a movie with a story by Spielberg, but that he eventually decided against directing*. He had to have thought it was a good idea at some point, and then turned back from it. Very damning, and as I write this I’m trying to avert my eyes from the forthcoming Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny.

I can’t even count in Richard Donner’s best films, when the Lethal Weapon movies can remain so unassailably watchable, despite the insistent existence of Mel Gibson**.

It’s not even the best 80s movie with Ke Huy Quan (yes, in this house we defend Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom (1984)).

But all of that is not to knock the film entirely. For the first half, the score, the breakneck pace, and the likable performances from the main cast are positively electric. But, every time I see the film—and this dates back to the 80s when I was probably first obligated to start loving it—the film meanders after the halfway point, and my level of interest wanes considerably. The kids are still all right, but I’m think of better times with them (Temple of Doom, again). Then the ending comes around, in one of my least favorite trends, not because it is a conclusion or punctuation to the story, but instead because they ran out of runtime.

I like the film, but I don’t love the film. And for that, I can only offer a half-hearted apology.

*Along with Poltergeist (1982) the collective wisdom indicates he might as well have directed the movie, but just opted out of taking that particular credit.

**Is anyone, and I mean anyone at all interested in a Donner-less fifth Lethal movie, much less one (as all signs point to) helmed by Gibson? The mind boggles

Lethal Weapon 2 (1989)

Director: Richard Donner

Cast: Mel Gibson, Danny Glover, Joe Pesci, Joss Ackland

Have I Seen it Before: Again, sure.

Did I Like It: I almost want to take back my retroactive ambivalence about <Lethal Weapon (1987)>. There were instances—indeed, long stretches—where I was less distracted by how awful Mel Gibson has proven himself to be.

My immediate instinct is to to say that there’s so much Three Stooges shtick jammed into the film that I can’t help but be annoyed at the movie for an entirely different set of Gibson’s predilections… But that doesn’t cover it: I actually found myself liking the film.

Part of that is that this feels like a more personal story for Riggs, if not necessarily Murtaugh (Glover). The previously unseen unravelling of his life now fuels part of the plot. While the whole “I’m the villain and the cause of all your problems” has been done to death here (and, indeed, is a reprise in the great summer of 1989 after Batman (1989) pulled the same trick), it does give some narrative fuel to Riggs’ Riggsiness, whereas in the last film it just felt like a randomly selected character trait to serve his mismatched pairing with Murtaugh.

Also, the conceit behind the film is somewhat ingenious in its simplicity. What is an Action Movie Cop (tm) to do when the evil crime lords also have diplomatic immunity. Granted, it could have easily been a plot in a Robocop film, would have been right at home creating issues for John McClane in a Die Hard sequel, or even any number of Schwarzenegger or Stallone characters. But Riggs and Murtaugh got there first, so they get the points… If points were something we were keeping track of in 1980s action films.

Lethal Weapon (1987)

Director: Richard Donner

Cast: Mel Gibson, Danny Glover, Mitchell Ryan, Gary Busey

Have I Seen it Before: Oh, sure.

Did I Like It: Let’s reckon with a strange question before I get into any qualities of the movie. Why is there so much sturm und drang as to whether or not Die Hard (1988) is a Christmas movie (it, is by the way, but that’s a discussion for another review), when this movie gets hardly a peep?

I wonder if it is mostly that by the time that these silly movie debates held on the internet became a thing, Mel Gibson as one of the all-time leading men had firmly become a thing of the past.

And that’s the thing I’m most struck by here. We’re supposed to like Mel Gibson. Feel sorry for him. Even with this being the ur of the modern buddy action movie, it’s hard to separate Mel Gibson the man from Martin Riggs the character. All of that manic energy will soon be harnessed into something pretty ugly. Makes it difficult to have a good time, and isn’t that the point of a movie like Lethal Weapon?

I was struck recently by reading that Richard Donner’s first choice for Riggs was his Superman (1978) discovery, Christopher Reeve. I have a hard time imagining that, as even when Reeve played slightly unhinged and despicable, he had a gentleness that couldn’t fully be erased. That he went ahead and made Superman IV - The Quest for Peace (1987) was probably the wrong move for him, but I probably would have been able to more fully dwell on the action, the chemistry between Riggs and Murtaugh, and Donner’s direction.

Now, it all feels a bit too weird for words. No one knows the fate of the long-threatened Lethal Finale now that Donner has passed on, but I can’t help but imagine that one being really weird.

Superman II: The Richard Donner Cut (2006)

Director: Richard Donner

Cast: Christopher Reeve, Margot Kidder, Gene Hackman, Terrence Stamp

Have I Seen it Before: Oh, sure. 

Did I Like It: I’ve taken my fair share of potshots at Zack Snyder’s Justice League (2021) but I legitimately think the framework for this long-lost director’s cut of a DC superhero movie would have been a better outcome for that more recent situation. Out of necessity (decades passing, and a number of the key players passing away), the cut is cobbled together from the material already available. Some sequences key sequences are built from rough footage and screen tests. Had they just released the disparate footage that Zack Snyder had shot—and not shot a lot of extraneous nonsense with Martian Manhunter.

Does that cobbled together quality detract from the experience? Does it somehow make the more polished theatrical cut of the film a better film?

The answer is a resounding no on both fronts. The rough edges only make the film more fascinating. That they were able to make a watchable film out of forgotten film canisters which were—at that point—thirty years old is something of a small miracle. The wobbliest example is the scene where Lois Lane (Kidder) finally proves that Clark Kent (Reeve) is the Man of Steel is actually taken from their final audition for the roles, and to hear Donner tell the tale, you can actually see the moment where Reeve earned himself the job and the definitive on-screen portrayal of the character was born. The fact that that moment is given some context, and isn’t just b-roll on a behind-the-scenes featurette is nearly reason enough for this new version of the film to exist.  

And ultimately, I think this is the better version of the film pound for pound. The weird moment in the theatrical film where Superman throws what appears to be a cellophane version of his emblem at one of the villains (a moment so silly, I doubted it actually existed for a moment, and had to google to confirm) is gone. Gone too is the super-kiss which wiped Lois’ memory and set everything back to zero. Those are already some fundamental improvements to an experience which was, admittedly, pretty good to begin with.

In it’s place is a re-setting of the “spinning time into reverse” trick, which works even less than it does in Superman (1978). Jackie Cooper’s toothpaste returning into its tube is a neat gag, but the only time when “everything that happened in the movie you just watched didn’t really happen” worked, it was The Wizard of Oz (1939). Maybe Inception (2010). It’s clear that Donner and company never really had their ending worked out, and all the sudden influx of cash from Warner Bros. after the fact wasn’t going to fix that.

Also, the story of Superman’s sacrifice of his powers in favor of his love for Lois doesn’t quite make sense. It’s improved with the restoration of recordings of Brando as Jor-El into the cut, as the weird bald Kryptonian bald guy in the theatrical cut and Superman’s mom never quite fit. The film is still never quite able to earn both the power of the sacrifice itself, and the speed with which it is reversed so Superman can propel himself into the third act, where he has to do final battle with General Zod (Stamp) and his cronies.

But both of those complaints are going to be present in some form of the theatrical cut, so I can’t really fault this film when it improves somethings, if it never quite fixes some other insurmountable things.

Superman (1978)

Director: Richard Donner

Cast: Marlon Brando, Gene Hackman, Christopher Reeve, Margot Kidder

Have I Seen It Before?: Any number of times. It is, incidentally, the only film that I’ve owned two copies of at the same time. I have it on blu-ray, along with the Donner cut of Superman II (1980, although that cut was released in 2006). I also have a DVD set that includes the theatrical cuts of all four films in the Reeve series. I keep that set only for completions sake to have the theatrical cut of II, and Superman III (1983) and Superman IV: The Quest for Peace (1987). Thus, I have the first movie in the same version twice, simply because I can’t bring myself to buy another copy of The Quest For Peace in another format.

Is anyone still reading after all of that?

Did I like it?: On paper, this movie is the perfect alchemy of everything that made big studio films great in the 1970s. Marlon Brando “stars,” but really makes enough money for the rest of his life for a couple days’ worth of work. John Williams’ score finishes the one-two punch he started with Star Wars – Episode IV: A New Hope (1977). And much of the same production team and facility that made the Roger Moore era of Bond movies the pure cinematic confections that they were is on full display here. It is big budget entertainment done perfect. It certainly goes on the list of movies I regret watching for the first time via a VHS copy.

And much of the intangibles justifiably recommend the film, and unfortunately inspire a spiral of increasingly icky sequels to come. Christopher Reeve so thoroughly inhabits the role (and yet somehow, third-billing) of the Last Son of Krypton that everyone else who has attempted has been varying degrees of pale imitations, from the likable if slight Brandon Routh in Superman Returns (2006) to, well Dean Cain. The less said about Dean Cain, the better off we all are. Including Dean Cain. Gene Hackman cuts a deliciously roguish figure as Lex Luthor, especially when stacked up against the woefully mis-cast Jesse Eisenberg, and the completely unwatchable Kevin Spacey. Margot Kidder is the right type of performer for Lois Lane, but ever since the DVD/Blu Ray documentaries put into my head that Stockard Channing was in contention for the role, I can’t help but think they may have missed the mark ever so slightly.

But there are some things that work on the nerves, despite the film’s legendary status. Some of the miniature work is obviously miniature work, which serves to undercut the epic scope of the movie, but that the film delivers on its promise to make one believe a man can fly tends to forgive any technical details which may have aged more aggressively.

And still, that sequence where Lois performs “Can You Read My Mind?” as a poem recitation while she and Superman are in mid-flight sets my teeth on edge every time I watch it. It might be hyperbole to say it is my least favorite thing that has ever been in a movie I otherwise like, but it wouldn’t be much of an exaggeration.