Avis Metacritic

With his perfect pacing, elegant narrative design, and depth of characterization, Richard Lester has made as good a matinee movie as could be imagined: it's a big, generous, beautifully crafted piece of entertainment, with the distinctive Lester touch in the busy backgrounds and the throwaway dialogue.

It brings the fantastic into our everyday lives; it delights in showing us the reaction of the man on the street to Superman's latest stunt.

It boasts a more consistent tone, better special effects (such as villains throwing buses around like paper planes), and even an affecting love story.

Superman II delivers on the promise hinted at in "Superman." Which is the better film? That's a hard choice to make, since both succeed in different ways.

Poking fun at its American mythos, but never descending into camp comedy, this sequel makes for a wonderful time.

A marvelous toy. It's funny, it's full of tricks and it manages to be royally entertaining, which is really all it aims for.

Superman II emerges as a solid, classy, cannily constructed piece of entertainment which gets down to action almost immediately.

A stylish, well-paced film with a good variety of moods and moves.

Manages to gain classic comic book feature status through a combination of great stunts and a great human angle.

Superman II is a success, a stirring sequel to the smash of '79. Whether you will prefer it to the original is like choosing between root beer and Fresca. They're both bubbly, but the flavor is different. What the follow-up doesn't have is the epic lyricism of Richard Donner's version; it's harder edged, fleeter on its feet, less reverential. [22 June 1981, p.87]