Franchises: The First Superman Film Series. Superman III (1983)

This was the last of the Superman movies that I saw in any aspect whatsoever. I had seen a little bit of Superman IV when I was a very young kid, the latter half of Superman II at some point during middle school, and I saw bits of the first film before I finally saw all of it when I was much older, but the 2006 DVD releases of all the films was the first time I saw Superman III at all. Thinking back, it was also the one I had the least sense of personally when I went into it. I knew the first two films were very beloved and that Superman IV was widely regarded as a horrible misfire but, while I had heard people describe Superman III as being the point where the series started to fall apart, I generally didn't hear much talk about. They only briefly mentioned it in the documentary Look Up In The Sky! The Amazing Story of Superman and they didn't talk about it at all on the episode of Biography about Christopher Reeve so going into it, the only impression I had was that it was considered to be bad. People just said, "It's bad," and that would be all she wrote. In any case, when I finally saw Superman III, my initial impression was, "Well, it's definitely a step down from the first two." The problems with the film were apparent from the get-go: too much comedy and the presence of Richard Pryor. Neither of those belong in a Superman movie. That said, though, I don't despise it as much as most do. While it certainly does have a lot of flaws and I can't, in good conscience, call it a good movie, I do think it has some redeeming aspects and it certainly doesn't bore me. If you've read my reviews, you'd know that the latter aspect is what can make or break a film for me, that I often don't care how bad or incompetently made a film is so long as I'm entertained. Superman III is undeniably a very flawed film but there are things here that I do genuinely enjoy, which is why this isn't an installment of Movies That Suck.

Gus Gorman is a bumbling ne'er-do-well who can't hold down a job to save his life. He decides to take a job as a computer programmer at Webster Industries and discovers that he has a real knack for it. To that end, he uses his skills to embezzle a large sum of money from the company but when the CEO, Ross Webster, discovers this, he's actually impressed with Gorman's skill and decides to use it as a means to help him take over the world financially. Meanwhile, Clark Kent heads back to Smallville for his high school reunion and meets up with Lana Lang, an old school friend of his. While the two of them catch up, Webster employs Gorman's computer knowledge to help him gain a monopoly on the world's supply of coffee and oil. When Superman thwarts the former part of his plan, Webster orders Gorman to use his computer knowledge to create a chunk of Kryptonite. However, when his computer is unable to scan one element that makes up Kryptonite, Gorman replaces it with cigarette tar instead and as a result, instead of killing him, the makeshift Kryptonite causes Superman's personality to shift dramatically. He becomes selfish, mean, and destructive, causing random acts of extreme vandalism across the globe. With the Man of Steel no longer a threat, Webster embarks on his plan to take control of the world's oil supply and in exchange for his services, agrees to build Gorman a massive supercomputer that can do anything it's told to. With his dark side growing stronger each day, Superman must wage an inner battle in order to rid himself of his demons and save the world's economy from the megalomaniac.

Superman III suffers from the same issue that a lot of sequels tend to fall prey to: an overcomplicated plot. Any of the storylines present here (Clark Kent meeting back up with a friend of his from high school, Superman dealing with a CEO who's obsessed with controlling the world's finances, an advanced supercomputer that becomes self-aware, or his own inner demons) could have worked in their own separate films. Unfortunately, the screenwriters found it necessary to cram them all into one movie and while this film doesn't feel as crowded as others like it do (such as RoboCop 2 or Spider-Man 3), it's still a bit much. That said, it seems as though the movie that we got is nothing compared to what the original plan was: it was supposed to involve the characters of Brainiac (I guess the supercomputer at the end of the film is the stand-in for him), Mxyzplik, and Supergirl (who would be the focus of her own film produced by the Salkinds the following year). Even crazier was the supposed idea that Brainiac was meant to have found Supergirl much like how the Kents discovered baby Kal-El and over time, had actually fallen in love with his adopted daughter. But, when Supergirl didn't return Brainiac's feelings and fell for Superman instead, this would have prompted Brainiac to try to destroy the Man of Steel. I don't know about you but that sounds like one wild film and, while I doubt it would have been any better than this, I would have actually liked to have seen how that would have panned out if Warner Bros. hadn't rejected it.

As I said back in my review of the theatrical cut of Superman II, Richard Lester is a guy whose motivations don't make any sense to me. At the time the first film was being made, he was actually suing the Salkinds for royalties he felt he didn't get from the two Three Musketeers films he directed for them and yet, not only did he agree to step in and complete Superman II when the Salkinds canned Richard Donner but he agreed to direct the entirety of this film as well. Again, why would you work a second time with some people who you think cheated you out of a hefty sum of money the first time? In any case, with no material shot by another director to sift through here, Lester was completely free when shooting Superman III and basically decided to make it less of a superhero movie and more of a goofy slapstick comedy which, as I've said in previous reviews, was apparently what the Salkinds wanted these movies to be anyway. By the way, let me say something about Ilya Salkind and Pierre Spengler: those guys are so full of shit. It's been well documented that the reason why Gene Hackman isn't in this film and Margot Kidder is only at the beginning and end was due to their anger towards the Salkinds for how badly they treated Richard Donner on the first film and yet, in the audio commentary on the DVD for this film, Ilya Salkind says that the part of Lois Lane was whittled down to explore a new love interest for Clark Kent and that Hackman couldn't be in this film due to other film commitments. What a load of baloney. Some may say that everyone has their own side of the story and while that may be so, from everything that I've heard about the Salkinds, I still don't think that they sound like people I would trust. They seem very shady to me. But, that's beside the point. In any case, Richard Lester only directed three more films after Superman III: a comedy called Finders Keepers the following year, another Three Musketeers film, The Return of the Three Musketeers, in 1989, and finally, Get Back, a 1991 concert film that he did for his friend Paul McCartney. After that, he basically retired from filmmaking.

Superman III may be a step down from the previous two films but the good thing is that Christopher Reeve is not only still on form in the title role but, surprisingly, also gets to add some new dimensions to the character. (By the way, isn't it sad that this is the entry where he finally gets top-billing in the opening credits?) As Clark Kent, he's much less clumsy and awkward here than he was before and is genuinely excited when Perry White allows him to go to his high school reunion, telling him that it might make a good story. At the same time, though, there's a subtle hint that he's maybe a bit tired of everyone he knows in Metropolis only being interested in Superman and not really giving a crap about him, like in the scene when he tells everybody at the Daily Planet that he's heading off and no one bats an eyelash. That carries over when he meets up with his old school friend Lana Lang and she and her young son, Ricky, eventually meet Superman for the first time. Rick asks Clark if he can get Superman's autograph for him and Clark groans, "Boy, if I had a nickel for every time someone asked me that." At first, it's rather sad to see that Clark is still competing with himself when it comes to how people interact with his two identities but that feeling is quickly done away with when, after Clark tells Lana that she can be assured that Superman will be at Ricky's birthday party, she tells him, "Tell Superman we think he's wonderful. But Clark, you're the best!" Clark is clearly very happy at that statement and he has a right to be. In Lana, he's found someone who, though she does admire Superman and thinks that he's incredible, is more to attached to the more down to Earth, mild-mannered persona of Clark. As a result, you feel that he now might be a little more comfortable with his double-life than he has been in the past.

As Superman, Reeve gets to do more here than just play the typical do-gooder again; he gets to play a corrupted, evil version of the Man of Steel as well. This gives us an opportunity to see even more of what a great actor Reeve was and, in fact, this was one of the few aspects of the film that was actually praised by critics. He starts out exactly how he's always been: pure, moral, and always willing to help whenever trouble arises. But, when he comes into contact with the makeshift Kryptonite that Gus Gorman creates, he pulls a complete 180. He becomes selfish and nasty, actually hitting on Lana when the Kryptonite first takes effect and ignoring the fact that she just told him that there's a situation brewing nearby that needs his help. By the time he finally comes to his senses and arrives there, he discovers that he was too late to help. This seems to accelerate his descent into darkness seeing as how, immediately afterward, Superman begins committing acts of vandalism across the globe. He straightens up the Leaning Tower of Pisa (angering this guy who's selling ceramic replicas of the tower as souvenirs) and, in a very dickish move, blows out the Olympic Torch at the tale end

of the event. He even unknowingly aids Webster in his plan to control the world's oil supply when the CEO's lovely assistant gets him to maroon one stray tanker in the middle of the ocean in exchange for her... services. The scene where Superman arrives at her place after doing what she told him to do and then leans down onto her, going off-camera as he does so, rather shocked me the first time I saw that. Even now, I still can't believe that they showed Superman doing that. I know he wasn't himself at the time but that's a horrific moment nonetheless. During this section, his costume begins to change, with the brightness of the colors fading to the point where the blue becomes quite dark and the red basically turns brown. He also develops the hint of a five o'clock shadow as well. This all comes to a head in a scene where you actually Superman in a bar! You see Supes downing shots like a boss and flicking peanuts across the bar, breaking anything that they hit. After this, Lana's son Ricky calls out to him, telling him that he's just in a slump and that he'll become great again. When he hears this, Superman decides to fight against his newly developed evil nature and after he lands in a junkyard, his two identities literally come apart. This leads to the best scene in the movie where the corrupted Superman battles the good-hearted Clark Kent (who still has his super strength, I might add). During this fight, you get a little more insight into the conflict that's always been present between the two, with Superman telling Clark, "You've been getting on my nerves for a long time!" Christopher Reeve seems to be having a lot of fun being bad in this scene, like when the evil Superman grabs Clark and before throwing him, says, "You always wanted to fly, Kent. Now's your chance!" I also like his line as Clark when he tells his evil half, "I can give as good as I get." It's a really good scene all-around (I'll elaborate on it further later) and is actually quite a brilliant way to make the main character's internal battle literal. Eventually, Clark manages to defeat his evil half and after doing so, opens his shirt to reveal that the suit has returned to its normal bright color and that the real Superman is back. He then proceeds to fix the damage his evil counterpart caused and to stop Webster from accomplishing his evil plan. Reeve played Superman's gradual descent into evil, as well as the literal battle between the two halves, very well and showed what a great actor he truly was. It's just a shame that this couldn't have been in a better movie or have had a movie entirely devoted it instead of being made into a subplot here. But still, what he was able to create in this film is still very impressive.

Now, we go from the best part of the film's cast to the worst part and, ironically, this guy's presence here was used to sell the movie. Richard Pryor was a great comedian, there's no doubt about that, but he did not belong in a comic book movie at all. It's not bad enough that he's not funny here but, even worse, he's so over-the-top that he's annoying. His constant mugging and the silly sounds and voices that he does get old very quickly. A lot of people point to one scene in particular as the prime example of how unfunny he is here and it's so perfect that I'm going to use it as well. It's the scene where Gus Gorman informs Webster that Superman spoiled his plan to ruin Colombia's coffee crop with the hurricane he created by hacking into a satellite. He yanks the tablecloth off the table, wraps it around his neck like a cape, and proceeds to act out everything that Superman did, all the while shouting in that high-pitched, excited, stuttering voice of his. (The part where he says that Superman landed in the middle of a big plantation, jumps up, and goes, "Dun, dun, dun, da!" when he lands really makes me cringe.) It just goes on and on and on to the point where you're begging for somebody to shut him up. What's more is that this leads to him skiing uncontrollably off the roof of the building, falling hundreds of stories, and eventually landing on the side of the street unharmed. Right then, you know that the movie has officially become a cartoon. The scene where he arrives dressed as a general in order to give Superman the synthetic Kryptonite is also pretty annoying, with the gruff, growling voice that he uses as well as the over-the-top physical schtick that he does there as well. (If George C. Scott ever saw that, he probably went to a bar and started drinking.) I could go on and describe how unfunny Pryor is here in even more detail but all you have to do is watch the movie yourself to get the full gist of it. However, what's not talked about as much is the fact that Gus Gorman, when all is said and done, is not a very likable character. From the beginning, he's a conman who uses his new-found skill with computers to embezzle money and when Ross Webster employs him to help take over the world financially, he doesn't appear to have any qualms about hacking into a weather satellite and causing a major hurricane that messes up Colombia. He also doesn't have a problem with attempting to create a chunk of Kryptonite and giving it to Superman with the intent of killing him. (What exactly was his escape plan for when Superman dropped dead in front of that huge crowd anyway?) And, finally, the only conflict he initially has with Webster is when he feels he's not getting his piece of the pie and asks him to help him build a giant supercomputer in exchange for his services. Why does he want a huge supercomputer that can do anything in the first place? What was he planning to use it for? As if things weren't bad enough, not only is Gorman not a sympathetic character but his motivations are uneven. Over halfway into the film, he suddenly develops morals. He appears to take issue with Webster's oil scheme, is unhappy when Webster uses the newly completed supercomputer to attack Superman (what did he expect?) and, most sporadically of all, he's suddenly concerned for Superman when the computer starts blasting him with a ray of pure Kryptonite, even though he earlier gave him a chunk of the stuff for the exact same purpose. Again, where did this sense of morality suddenly come from? And finally, the cherry on top of this sundae of crap is when Superman drops Gorman off a coal mine where he's offered a job involving computers. It seems as though Gorman has learned is lesson, is ready to ready to get a job that's both steady and decent, and even thanks Superman for the opportunity... and after Superman flies off, Gorman turns down the job and decides to walk a long distance in order to get to a bus. Something tells me that, despite his apparent change of heart, Gorman really hasn't learned a damn thing and is probably going to go somewhere else where he can use his computer  expertise for petty theft again, making this whole scene and everything before it completely pointless. Mr. Pryor, you may have been a great comedian but you weren't funny at all in this film and the character you played was poorly written and, ultimately, not a good person. For the remainder of his life, Pryor did say that this was one of the movies he did that he regretted, so at least he realized that he didn't belong here at all and knew what a bad job he did. He sadly was and still is one of the worst aspects of Superman III and is a big reason why it's looked down upon so much.

Another weak aspect of this film is Robert Vaughn as the villain, Ross Webster. After such memorable villains like Lex Luthor and General Zod, Webster is instantly forgettable simply because he's so one-note. He's a multimillionaire who isn't satisfied with the enormous wealth that he already has and is determined to control the world's most financially significant  resources and employs Gus Gorman's amazing computer skills to help him do so. And when Superman stands in the way of his scheme, he also becomes obsessed with destroying the Man of Steel in any way he can. That's all the motivation that he has and, as a result, he comes off as very shallow and uninteresting. This kind of villain would have worked back in the late 30's, early 40's when Superman first become popular but not in the 1980's. In fact, Webster is basically a poor man's version of Lex Luthor and if Gene Hackman hadn't been angry at the Salkinds, it wouldn't have been at all impossible for him to reprise the role here and keep everything else the same. Vaughn does what he can and does seem to be trying but the script doesn't allow for any of the charisma and entertainment value that Hackman brought to the part of Luthor and he comes across as just flat. It's a shame that they couldn't have gone ahead with their original plan to incorporate either Brainiac or Mxyzptlk into the film because either of them would have been far more memorable than Webster.

Like Luthor before him, Webster has a couple of cohorts and, also like him, neither of them particularly memorable. One is his sister, Vera (Annie Ross), a big, husky woman who is absolutely dead-serious and is constantly annoyed by both Gus Gorman and Webster's other cohort, Lorelei Ambrosia. The only memorable aspects of this character is, one, Gorman mistakes her for Webster's mother when he first meets her (what a weak joke) and, two, when Gorman's supercomputer becomes self-aware and goes berserk, it briefly turns her into some sort of cyborg-like monster. Other than that, though, Vera is as forgettable as her brother. And then there's Lorelei Ambrosia (Pamela Stephenson), Webster's secretary. She has an odd gimmick in that she acts like a stereotypical stupid blonde bimbo most of the time but when no one's around, we see that she's actually very intelligent, reading Immanuel Kant's Critique of Pure Reason and disagreeing with Kant's conclusions. My question is, "Why doesn't she want anyone else to know that she's smart?" I don't get why she feels the need to act like a complete idiot whenever there are other people around her. In addition, she's the one who talks the corrupted Superman into helping with Webster's oil scheme in exchange for having sex with her. I know I said this before but that whole idea still makes me go, "Ugh!" And she seemed to actually connect with him as a result because when Superman shows up at the climax to stop their supercomputer, she not only says, "Hi, Superman!" but also hopes that he'll triumph, prompting Webster and Vera to give her looks that say, "What?!"

While she's not as memorable as Margot Kidder's Lois Lane, Annette O'Toole does manage to bring something to her role of Lana Lang. While Lana is a little scatterbrained, constantly jumping from one subject to another so fast that Clark is often unsure of what she's talking about, she's very kind and compassionate as well as a little sad, having to raise her little boy, Ricky (Paul Kaethler), after she and her husband split up and has to deal with the advances of the constantly drunken Brad. Most importantly, while she does think that Superman is as cool as they come, she's much more interested in Clark. She's always confiding in him, telling him how she feels and whatnot, and it's because of his advice that she decides to move to Metropolis, realizing that she's not going to get anywhere in Smallville. In
fact, in the scene where Clark is helping Lana clean up the gym after the reunion, she drifts off while looking at his high-school photo and thinks to herself, "The one that got away." I really like this whole idea and it's a shame that Lana is only in this one movie, particularly since she becomes Perry White's secretary at the end, because they could have written a whole film around the conflict that Lana likes Clark whereas Lois, while seeing Clark as a friend, is truly in love with Superman. I'll give the producers and screenwriters some credit, though, for remembering Lana from her brief appearance during the Smallville segment of the first film where she was the only who really liked and cared for Clark and brought that idea back two movies later. That type of thing is sometimes hard to find in franchises like this so I have to give them props. Finally, to briefly mention Ricky, while he does like Clark, he's truly an excited fanboy when he first meets Superman, receives an autograph from him courtesy of Clark, and is ecstatic when Superman agrees to visit him for his birthday party. Ultimately, it's his belief in Superman and his telling him that he's just going through a rough patch and that he'll be great again that prompts Supes to fight and ultimately defeat his evil side.

Another callback to the first film here is the presence of Brad Wilson, the jock who had his eye on Lana and bullied Clark by ruining all the cleanup work that he had just completed so he wouldn't be able to join them in the fun they were about to partake in. Here, Brad (Gavan O'Herlihy) is far removed from the talented football player that he seemed to have been. Now he's a drunk security guard who's constantly hitting on Lana despite the amount of times that she's rejected his advances, recounts his glory days to anyone who will listen as evidenced in his first scene at the reunion, and is none too pleased to see that Clark has returned to Smallville and is getting Lana's attention. While it's not extreme, he still puts Clark down every chance he gets and just plain doesn't like him being there. At the end of the movie when Brad arrives at Lana's Metropolis apartment and sees Clark giving her a diamond ring (he's just giving it to her to replace the ring that she had to sell a long time ago but when Brad walks in, Clark happens to be down on his knee like he's proposing to her), that tears it for Brad. He tells Clark that he's always hated him, saying, "You're a nice guy, and nice guys finish last!" and tries to attack him but that's foiled in a way that's quite humiliating for him. While this instance is another addition to the film's problem of being far too slapsticky for its own good, the drunken prick still got what he deserved.

As usual, you have the ever reliable Jackie Cooper and Marc McClure back as Perry White and Jimmy Olsen. Cooper doesn't have much new to do with Perry but he's just as lovably hot-headed as always, annoyed by an assistant who's constantly bugging him to pull out the winning numbers for a contest held at the Daily Planet and irritated with Jimmy for going to a dinner party and bringing back a bunch of unremarkable pictures. He's even more irritated when Jimmy didn't get a single picture when Superman saved a guy whose car was filling up with water at the beginning of the film, and when Jimmy says that he didn't have his camera with him, Perry says, "A photographer eats with his camera. A photographer sleeps with his camera." (I like how Jimmy mouths the words along with Perry, indicating that he's been given this speech many times before.) But, despite how hot-headed he is, Perry, his initial reservations aside, is good enough to let Clark go to his high-school reunion on the promise that it will make a for good story. As for Jimmy Olsen, McClure has a bit more to do here than he did in the previous two films. That's not saying much, though, but still, it's worth mentioning. When Clark embarks on his pilgrimage back to Smallville, Jimmy goes with him as his photographer and actually talks his ear off about his relatives' old recipes. (God, Jimmy, are you like 70 or something?) But, en route to Smallville, they come upon a fire at a chemical plant and while Superman attempts to extinguish the flames, Jimmy gets way too close to the disaster in order to get pictures of it and falls and breaks his leg. He actually would have burned to death had Superman not flown him out. Jimmy is sent back to Metropolis with his broken leg, much to the annoyance of Perry, who forces him to take some pictures in the office of the Daily Planet even though his leg is in a cast. I actually wouldn't have minded if Jimmy had managed to make the trip with Clark because it would have given McClure something else to do and we might have been able to get to know Jimmy just a little bit more.

It's fitting that she's listed last in the opening credits because Margot Kidder might as well have not been in Superman III at all. Due to her very public criticism of the Salkinds (and, again, I don't give a crap about what Ilya Salkind has to say about it nowadays), her role here was limited to what is essentially a cameo, appearing briefly at the beginning before she goes off to her vacation in Bermuda and at the end when she comes back from said vacation, actually with a story about corruption. (Although, Perry proves here that he's not very good with geography since he referred to it as, "Corruption in the Caribbean," even though Lois went to Bermuda.) It's too bad that things worked out this way for Kidder because, as opposed to how frail and sickly she looked during the re-shoots for Superman II, she looks very lovely here. And, as I said before, it's a shame that these films didn't continue on with the relationship between Clark and Lana Lang because there's a hint of it at the end when Lois is already visibly jealous when Clark takes Lana out to lunch instead of her. It could have made for a great love triangle, especially when you take into account both women's aforementioned different relationships with the two identities.

While the quality of the series had certainly taken a dip by this point, you can't deny that this film's $39 million budget is right there on the screen. The movie looks top notch, with some well designed sets by Peter Murton. Besides the always great looking set used for the Daily Planet and the Pinewood backlot used for Metropolis (which really does look like a street in the middle of a big city), you also have some nice practical locations like the wheat-fields and plains of Alberta,  Canada that are used for Smallville and the impressive Glen Canyon in Utah that serves as the setting for the action scene that leads to the climax. The new sets like the interiors of the computer rooms and offices, the gymnasium where the high school reunion takes place, and the bowling alley all look appropriate and serve their purpose well and so does the junkyard where Superman battles his inner demons. There are two sets in particular that really catch my eye. One is Ross Webster's office and penthouse and, like Lex Luthor in this first film, he has a pretty cool pad. It's this huge open room with lots of silver on the decorum as well as a big shag carpet in the center of it, a workout section on one side, a bookcase on another, along with Webster's desk and a rotating bar no less. The outside of the penthouse even has makeshift snow and a slope that Webster uses to ski. (Stuff like this can make you think of becoming evil because it seems like there's a reward to choosing corruption over purity.) The other set is the huge supercomputer that Webster has built for Gus Gorman. I don't think I even have to say anything about it. Just look at it up top. As the Riddler would say, "Now, that's impressive!" Certainly has a very comic book look to it, which is very cool. It's not too far-fetched to assume that there was probably something like this that Superman dealt with in the comics during the science fiction boom of the 1950's. Say what you will about the film itself but you can't tell me that the supercomputer is not a knockout.

Not only is the production design top notch but so are the special effects. By this point, the effects artists had really mastered what was originally very difficult and time consuming work. First off, the flying scenes look better here than they ever have before in my opinion. Every once in a while you still get some noticeable rear-projection and blue screen effects but for the most part, it's quite seamless. However, that said, they weren't as successful with keeping the blue of Superman's costume consistent this time around. There are many shots here where his suit is clearly turquoise instead of actual blue. No big deal, though. Also, the rotoscoping and matting effects, like when Superman uses his laser eyebeams or when he deals with the rays that the supercomputer fires at him, are extremely well done. Yes, they do look cartoonish but I've always felt that these effects have a charm to them that CGI doesn't. The physical and model effects look good as well, like when Superman straightens up the Leaning Tower of Pisa (while it is clear that the sculptor was filmed in front of a blue screen, the effect behind him does look quite convincing) or when he gets trapped inside that plastic bubble that the supercomputer hits him with. The most astonishing effect to me is during the battle in the junkyard. While there are some obvious body doubles apparent, there are also many shots, some of which last quite a while, where you can see Christopher Reeve's face both as the evil Superman and Clark Kent and it does look like Reeve is battling with himself in those instances. Finally, I have to comment on the video game graphics that you see during the sequence when Webster is using the weapons systems placed throughout the canyon against Superman. For 1983, those graphics are very advanced. In fact, they were apparently so life-like at first that they were asked to tone them down and make them look more like actual computer graphics. I'd be interested in seeing what those original graphics looked like actually because the way they look in the finished film already looked quite good and realistic. Whatever else you can say about Superman III, you can't deny that every penny of its substantial budget is right there.

So far, I think I've been fairly lenient on Superman III but now we get to what many agree is the biggest problem with the flick: the tone. Good God, where do I begin with this? Well first, I'm going to say that I just don't understand why the Salkinds thought that making a Superman film campy and comedic was the way to go. And let's not forget that they had been trying to do this from the beginning. They tried to force Richard Donner to make the first film overtly comedic but he refused, leading to a lot of tension between them that resulted in his being fired from completing Superman II. Then, when they hired Richard Lester, who was mainly known for comedies, to finish the sequel, they got him to put as much comedy as possible into the new material that he shot. In recent years, Ilya Salkind has said that the reason they wanted to go this way was because a Superman movie should be made for children. Um, did they just completely ignore the enormous success of the first two films? Those weren't made strictly for children, despite the Salkinds' attempt to do so with the added footage in Superman II, and yet kids back did really enjoy them. And on that note, I don't see how putting in the suggested sex between the evil Superman and Lorelei and casting a comedian whose shtick was being as vulgar and un-PC as possible in one of the lead roles was supposed to appeal to children. Confused priorities, much? But anyway, with Donner and Tom Mankiewicz completely out of the picture for Superman III, the Salkinds and Lester were now free to bring their infinitely more comedic version of the character to the screen and yes, I'm lumping Lester into this as well. As I said, Lester's preferred genre was comedy and according to something that Christopher Reeve himself once said, he fully embellished this approach and, "Was always looking for a gag." As a result, Reeve, like a good portion of the fans, did not care for this film at all and felt that making it primarily a slapstick comedy starring Richard Pryor had ruined any potential it had. I wouldn't say it completely ruined it since there are a number of aspects to this film that I do like but I do agree that it is far too silly and goofy for its own good and was totally the wrong approach.

Fitting that this is where Lester's credit appears, isn't it?

Right from the very start of the film, you know you're in for it. Instead of the awesome space-oriented opening credits sequences that were used in the two previous films (and, more or less, would be used again in the last two films in this series), we get some really lazy credits that look similar to the Star Wars text crawls superimposed over a montage of mind-numbing slapstick. It's just one gag after another, with a guy who's too busy looking at Lorelei to watch where he's going slamming into a pole, knocking over a bunch of wind-up, plushy penguins that a vendor is selling, a woman on roller-skates (what is with Richard Lester and roller-skates?) crashing into a hot-dog vendor's cart that proceeds to knock over three phone booths like dominoes, one of the toy penguins getting set on fire (I don't even know what that object was that set it on fire) and Clark eventually using his super-breath when no one's looking to blow it out, a seeing eye-dog getting away from his owner and proceeding to knock over a woman carrying a sack of groceries, said blind man mistaking a road-painting device for his dog, and so on. When I first saw this movie, I couldn't believe what I was seeing. This is ridiculous! I've shown this sequence to people who've never seen the movie before, telling them, "Look at this pandemonium and tell me if you would think that this was the opening to a Superman movie." I always get the same answer: no, and for good reason. I'm a fan of slapstick and love the Three Stooges and all but this stuff doesn't belong in this type of movie. Seriously, a bucket full of paint falling on a guy's head? A mime (that's right, a mime) slipping and causing another guy to fall? Clark preventing a pie from falling on Lorelei by grabbing it and unintentionally splatting another guy in the face with it? It just doesn't fit. (And I didn't even describe everything that goes on in this sequence.) And yeah, there are many more comedic instances in this movie but this was just insane and unnecessary to say the least.

I hate to admit it but I can't look at this
without smirking.

As I said earlier, Richard Pryor's antics in this movie are painfully unfunny. Whether it's those aforementioned scenes where he acts out how Superman ruined Webster's initial plan (I love how in that scene, the camera cuts to Robert Vaughn staring incredulously at Pryor, making me wonder if he's actually acting in that shot) or dresses up like a general in order to give Supes the synthetic Kryptonite, nothing about him works at all. One sequence that makes the film even more cartoonish than it already was at that point is when Gorman bribes his way into a business office for Webster Industries in Smallville by getting Brad, who's the security guard there, drunk (as well as himself) so he can take control of a weather satellite and use it to destroy Colombia's coffee crop. Another unfunny bit of shtick follows where Gorman has to use the passed out Brad to turn on the main computer (two keys on opposite sides of the computer have to be turned at the same time) so he can try to hack into the satellite but he makes a bunch of errors before eventually doing so. Said errors cause havoc with computers everywhere, leading to a bit where the traffic signals in the middle of a city (I'm guessing it's Metropolis) go haywire and create a bunch of chaos. There's a shot during all of this where the WALK and DON'T WALK traffic signals actually start fighting each other! What?! I know it's a comic book movie and that you shouldn't take it seriously but this completely destroys any of the believability and verisimilitude that Donner and Mankiewicz strove to instill in the first movie. Speaking of Smallville, during the high school reunion there's a part where the guy who's acting as the DJ is dancing to the music and, out of nowhere, there's a brief shot of his crotch rocking back and forth as he dances. Yeah, we really needed that. As much as like Christopher Reeve's performance as Evil Superman, even most of the vandalism that he commits doesn't amount to much more than mean-spirited, childish pranks. While there are some bits of humor in the film that are more in line with the sly kind that was present in the first one (like Perry White's exasperation with his assistant and Jimmy Olsen), it's so overwhelmed by all of this over the top, cartoony junk that it's unlikely that you would notice it. Watching this film again, it's small wonder why Lester is so despised among Superman fans because, again, he took what started out as a respectable, well-meaning series of comic book films and turned it into a joke.

Its egregious amount of humor aside, Superman III does have a lot of action, which is something that I will give Lester. Even though he was mainly interested in comedy scenes, he does know how to do good action as well, as evident in the big battle in Metropolis from Superman II. Here, we get to see a lot of Superman doing what he does best. While there are small cliffhanger moments as well, like when Supes saves a guy from drowning inside his car when it drives over and gets stuck on a fire hydrant during the opening credits or when he saves Lana's son Ricky when the kid fell and knocked himself unconscious in the middle of a wheat-field that's being plowed, there are major action scenes too, the first one being when Superman helps with a chemical plant that's caught on fire. It's a pretty exciting scene, as we see Supes create a makeshift slide that the people stuck on
top of the plant's roof use to get down, Jimmy Olsen severely injure himself while trying to get pictures of the disaster and Superman walks right through a patch of flames in order to get to him, and ultimately, Superman having to act fast to put out the fire before a large batch of volatile acid inside the plant overheats and creates a highly corrosive mist in the process. It's a wonderfully triumphant moment when Superman freezes the surface of a nearby lake, flies it back to the plant, and drops it down towards the plant, it melts and becomes a brief shower that extinguishes the fire on the way down, all while the awesome Superman theme plays. Really good sequence.

The next big action scene, not counting the stuff we see during the scene where Gorman describes how Superman foiled Webster's plan to destroy Colombia's coffee crop (the effect that we see of him getting rid of the tornado is another great one, I might add) or the brief bits of the evil Superman committing mild acts of vandalism like straightening the Leaning Tower of Pisa and whatnot, comes when he's coerced by Lorelei to shanghai the one oil tanker that's refusing to follow the computer-programmed orders that Gorman is giving it to go to the middle of the ocean and stay there. It's so out of character to see Superman intentionally causing damage like when he tears open the hull of the tanker, causing the oil to spill out all over the ocean, and then just leave the tanker there. Granted, it's not much of an action scene but I felt I had to mention it because, again, it just seems so wrong from what we know about Superman. This leads into what I consider to be the best scene in the entire film, which is when Superman attempts to overcome his demons and the two identities come apart to battle it out in the junkyard. While I'm not exactly sure how that worked or, for that matter, whether what we're seeing is actually happening or if it's all in his head, this is still a well done and surreal scene as super-powered Clark Kent attempts to take control of his corrupted alter ego. It's akin to the first battle in Godzilla vs. Mechagodzilla, where Mechagodzilla is still disguised as the real one. It's just so unusual and amazing to see two Godzillas fighting each other and the same principle applies here as well. And this isn't a little scuffle either; it's a very long battle. They punch and throw each around, Clark sends Superman flying into a vat of acid but then Superman blows the acidic fumes back at Clark, Superman tries to use the machinery around them such as a scrap crusher to kill Clark but his alter ego continues to fight back, throwing a bunch of tires onto him, etc. It's a really exciting scene and Christopher Reeve masterfully plays both dueling characters. It finally ends when, after escaping from a car crusher, Clark strangles the evil Superman and succeeds in destroying him. After he does so, there's a glorious moment afterward where Clark looks up at the sky and opens his shirt to reveal the real bright blue and red super-suit while the theme plays triumphantly, indicating that the real Superman is back. He then proceeds to undo all the damage that his evil side caused (again, with the theme playing full tilt) before flying off to deal with Webster and his gang.

After that, we get a sequence where Superman flies through the canyon in order to reach the secret location of the supercomputer but, as it turns out, Webster is prepared for this and uses a number of rocket launchers and an MX-missile to attack him. This sequence, while nothing special overall, is ultimately fine. The effects are done rather well, like the rear-projection, the blue screen work, and the miniature missiles (not to mention the computer graphics that Webster is seeing, which I went into detail on earlier) and it's exciting to see Superman having to deal with all of these obstacles at once. Superman does indeed receive punishment from the missiles, like at one point where he's blown backwards into the side of the canyon wall, and has to really think fast in order to deal with all of this stuff.

Eventually, Superman overcomes the rockets and missiles and arrives at the villain's secret hideout. Just as he's about to take them into custody, they use Gorman's supercomputer to defend themselves, first enveloping Superman inside a plastic bubble in an attempt to suffocate him (do they not know that he can fly around in space just fine?) and when that fails, the computer fires a ray of pure Kryptonite at him and brings him to his knees. This is when Gorman has that inexplicable change of heart and decides to do the right thing by shutting the computer down. But, just when it seems like all is said and done, the computer reactivates itself. Gorman realizes that the computer has become self-aware and is feeding itself. While Gorman manages to disable the Kryptonite-firing ray gun with an axe, allowing Superman to get back on his
feet and apparently flee, the computer begins sucking electricity from nearby towers and causes a blackout all across North America. In one random and particularly freaky moment, Webster, Lorelei, and Vera are escaping when Vera is pulled back inside the computer, which proceeds to turn her into a cyborg! Her face is covered with metal, her skin becomes very pale, her hair becomes wild and frizzy-looking, and her eyes become completely white. It's quite a bizarre moment, mainly because it's so
unexpected, and after she's turned into the cyborg, she proceeds to stomp towards Webster and Lorelei like the Frankenstein monster and uses the power that the computer has given her to prevent the two of them from escaping. That's when Superman returns to the battle with a can of the acid from the chemical plant that he saved at the beginning of the film. The computer does analyze the canister but deduces that it's harmless and then attacks Superman with electric bolts and energy rays. While Superman is at first able to fend it off, the computer quickly overpowers him and attempts to assimilate him the same way that it did Vera. However, the extreme heat that the computer has to put forth in order to do this causes the acid to become volatile and when it bubbles over, it disintegrates the computer's circuitry and destroys its power source, rendering it harmless. I must say that I thought this was an entertaining final battle for the movie. I like seeing Superman take on something completely different from the mad schemes of Lex Luthor or a being with the same powers as him like General Zod. While this starts out as part of a villain's scheme, it evolves into, if you think about it, Superman basically battling SkyNet: a self-aware computer that threatens not only the safety of the U.S. but the entire world and is able to create cyborgs to do its dirty work. The whole spectacle of the battle is fun and the way that Superman ultimately defeats the computer is rather clever and a nice callback to something that was established at the beginning of the film. While I do still have mixed feelings about the film as a whole, I'd be lying if I said that I didn't come out of this finale with a smile on my face.

Is this album cover awesome or what?

As with Superman II, the music here was provided by Ken Thorne and while he once again reused the main theme and other pieces of music that John Williams composed for the first film, here he was able to compose a lot more new material,  some of which works and some of which doesn't. Not only do I not like the overdone slapstick sequence that begins the film but I don't like the music that Thorne composed for it either. It fits with the silly nature of the sequence but my point, again, is that this stuff shouldn't be in a Superman movie at all. (Sorry if I sound like a broken record on that score.) The same goes for the almost  balletic music that you hear during the sequence where Gorman is trying to take control of the weather satellite but is causing havoc while doing so: it shouldn't be in this type of film. I don't even remember the theme that Thorne created for Gus Gorman at all but I here that he did create on. All this bashing aside, I do like the music that he composed for the junkyard battle between Clark and the evil Superman. That really works, particularly in the moment near the end when Clark bursts out of the car crusher and struggles with Evil Superman before finally vanquishing him. Thorne also reuses some of the material that he composed for the previous film here and that works well in the areas where he placed it. Besides Thorne's work, there are also some tunes that were created by Giorgio Moroder in an attempt by the producers to capitalize on how popular synth pop music was at the time. While Moroder composed some actual songs for the soundtrack, most of them were used very briefly and in instrumental form. The one that I remember the most because of how long it's playing in the background during this scene is, "They Won't Get Me," which you hear when Gorman is trying to get Brad drunk so he can hijack the weather satellite but is getting quite drunk himself in the process. As ridiculous as it all is, I remember actually liking the way that music sounded, even if I didn't care for the scene save for the image of Richard Pryor in that ten gallon hat. They also say that Moroder composed a new love theme for Clark and Lana but, like Thorne's theme for Gorman, I don't remember it at all. While the score for Superman III certainly isn't bad, I don't think the new material is as strong or as memorable as the score for the original or even the music that Thorne composed for Superman II.

While it's not one I revisit very often, I don't think Superman III is as horrible as many say it is. I do think it has some entertainment value: the action scenes are fun and well executed, the special effects are much improved for the most part, and Christopher Reeve is still in top form, particularly when he gets to play Evil Superman and when he portrays both him and Clark Kent during the fight in the junkyard. However, the film does have a lot of problems, chief among them being the overabundance of slapstick and juvenile humor, and Richard Pryor being so unfunny and annoying that it can make you wonder if this is the same guy who's often regarded as a comic legend (I guess he didn't work in PG-rated films). It also doesn't help that, at the end of the day, the character that Pryor plays isn't a very good person, the actual villains are pretty damn weak, and the film's story is overcrowded. Superman III is the definition of a mixed bag and while it does have some great stuff, you have to make it through some really bad stuff to get to it and some may find that that's something they can't do. For me, though, I don't regret having ever watched it but, at the same time, if I had a choice, I would much rather watch the first film or either version of Superman II over it.